Great Fire of London

31 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, London Reading Time:  29 minutes

Monument to the Great Fire of London and Pudding Lane © flickr.com - It's No Game/cc-by-2.0

Monument to the Great Fire of London and Pudding Lane © flickr.com – It’s No Game/cc-by-2.0

The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the wall to the west. The death toll is generally thought to have been relatively small, although some historians have challenged this belief.   read more…

Sendlinger Straße in Munich

30 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Shopping Reading Time:  6 minutes

Sendlinger Tor © GraphyArchy/cc-by-sa-4.0

Sendlinger Tor © GraphyArchy/cc-by-sa-4.0

Sendlinger Straße is an important shopping street in Munich‘s city center. It extends into the Munich old town in the south-east-northeast direction from the Sendlinger Tor in the west to the point where Fürstenfelder Straße and the Rindermarkt meet in the east. In July 2016, the conversion from a one-way street into a pedestrian zone was attempted.   read more…

Gaza Strip “Gaza Metro” smuggling tunnels

29 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  16 minutes

Smuggling tunnel in Rafah © flickr.com - Marius Arnesen/cc-by-sa-2.0

Smuggling tunnel in Rafah © flickr.com – Marius Arnesen/cc-by-sa-2.0

The Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels are smuggling tunnels that had been dug under the Philadelphi Route along the Egypt–Gaza border. They were dug to subvert the blockade of the Gaza Strip to smuggle in fuel, food, weapons and other goods into the Gaza Strip. After the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979, the town of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, was split by this buffer zone. One part is located in the southern part of Gaza, and the smaller part of the town is in Egypt. After Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the Philadelphi Corridor was placed under the control of the Palestine Authority until 2007, when the terror organization Hamas seized power in 2007, and Egypt and Israel closed borders with the Gaza Strip. In 2009, Egypt began the construction of an underground barrier to block existing tunnels and make new ones harder to dig. In 2011, Egypt relaxed restrictions at its border with the Gaza Strip, allowing Palestinians to cross freely. In 2013–2014, Egypt’s military destroyed most of the 1,200 smuggling tunnels. Experts estimate the total length of the tunnel system to be 480 to 500 km, which is where the nickname “Gaza Metro” (subway) comes from.   read more…

Theme Week Puerto Rico – San Juan

28 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  12 minutes

Calle de la Virtud © G. Edward Johnson/cc-by-4.0

Calle de la Virtud © G. Edward Johnson/cc-by-4.0

San Juan (Spanish for “Saint John“) is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the jurisdiction of the United States, with a population of 342,259. San Juan was founded by Spanish colonists in 1521, who called it Ciudad de Puerto Rico (“City of Puerto Rico”, Spanish for rich port city).   read more…

National Library of Israel in West Jerusalem

28 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Opera Houses, Theaters, Libraries, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  15 minutes

National Library of Israel still under construction © איתי כהן / אלבטרוס צילום אוויר/cc-by-3.0

National Library of Israel still under construction © איתי כהן / אלבטרוס צילום אוויר/cc-by-3.0

The National Library of Israel (NLI; Hebrew: HaSifria HaLeumit), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; Hebrew: Beit Ha-Sfarim Ha-Le’umi ve-Ha-Universita’i), is the library dedicated to collecting the cultural treasures of Israel and of Jewish heritage. The library holds more than 5 million books, and is located in the Government complex (Kiryat HaMemshala) near the Knesset. The National Library owns the world’s largest collections of Hebraica and Judaica, and is the repository of many rare and unique manuscripts, books and artifacts.   read more…

Theme Week Puerto Rico – Desecheo Island

27 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Environment Reading Time:  8 minutes

© US Fish & Wildlife Service

© US Fish & Wildlife Service

Desecheo (Spanish: Isla Desecheo) is a small uninhabited island of the archipelago of Puerto Rico located in the northeast of the Mona Passage; 13 mi (21 km) from Rincón on the west coast (Punta Higüero) of the main island of Puerto Rico and 31 mi (50 km) northeast of Mona Island. It has a land area of 0.589 sq mi (377 acres; 153 ha; 1.53 km²). Politically, the island is administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the Desecheo National Wildlife Refuge, but part of Barrio Sabanetas of Mayaguez.   read more…

Rockefeller Archeological Museum in East Jerusalem

27 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  6 minutes

© McKaby/cc-by-sa-4.0

© McKaby/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Rockefeller Archeological Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum (“PAM”; 1938–1967), is an archaeology museum located in East Jerusalem, next to Herod’s Gate, that houses a large collection of artifacts unearthed in the excavations conducted in the region of Palestine, mainly in the 1920s and 1930s, under the British authorities.   read more…

Theme Week Puerto Rico – Mona Island

26 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Environment Reading Time:  6 minutes

Pajaros Beach © Serge Aucoin/cc-by-sa-4.0

Pajaros Beach © Serge Aucoin/cc-by-sa-4.0

Mona (Spanish: Isla de Mona) is the third-largest island of the Puerto Rican archipelago, after the main island of Puerto Rico and Vieques. It is the largest of three islands in the Mona Passage, a strait between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, the others being Monito Island and Desecheo Island. It measures about 7 miles by 4 miles (11 km by 7 km), and lies 41 mi (66 km) west of Puerto Rico, of which it is administratively a part. It is one of two islands that make up the Isla de Mona e Islote Monito barrio in the municipality of Mayagüez.   read more…

National Gandhi Museum and Library in New Delhi

26 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Opera Houses, Theaters, Libraries Reading Time:  6 minutes

Mural © SMITA DUTTA/cc-by-sa-3.0

Mural © SMITA DUTTA/cc-by-sa-3.0

The National Gandhi Museum or Gandhi Memorial Museum is a museum located in New Delhi, India showcasing the life and principles of Mahatma Gandhi. The museum first opened in Mumbai, shortly after Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. The museum relocated several times before moving to Raj Ghat, New Delhi in 1961.   read more…

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