Christopher Columbus by Sebastiano del Piombo

First Container House in Mojave Desert

[caption id="attachment_153977" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Jack Parsons Photography[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]This is the first permitted shipping container house in the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree, California, according to a statement by the architect, Walter Scott Perry, principal of ecotechdesign. The home, also known as The Tim Palen Studio at Shadow Mountain, was built with re-purposed shipping containers and some impressive green elements such as a steel shade system, a living roof, and a 10,000 gallon water st...

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Market Hall Rotterdam

[caption id="attachment_162865" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Steven Lek/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Market Hall (Dutch: Markthal or Koopboog) is a residential and office building with a market hall underneath, located in Rotterdam. The building was opened on October 1, 2014, by Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. Besides the large market hall, the complex houses 228 apartments, 4600 m2 retail space, 1600 m2 horeca and an underground 4-storey parking garage with a capacity of 1200+ cars. The Market Hall was de...

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The Cologne Cathedral

[caption id="attachment_25067" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © ger1axg/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) is a Roman Catholic church in Cologne. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and the administration of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is a renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture and is a World Heritage Site. It is Germany's most visited landmark, attracting an average of 20,000 people a day. Construction of Cologne Cathedral commenced in 1248 and ...

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Genuine winter adventures in the Lillehammer region

[caption id="attachment_152766" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Lillehammer © Hasse A[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Lillehammer (literally "Little Hammer") is a town and municipality in Oppland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. As of May 2011, the population of the town of Lillehammer was 26,639 . The city centre is a late 19th century concentration of wooden houses, which enjoys a picturesque location overlooking the nort...

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Theme Week Frankfurt - The German National Library

[caption id="attachment_24128" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB) – German National Library[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The German National Library (German: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek or DNB) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre. Its task is to collect, permanently archive, comprehensively document and record bibliographically all German and German-language publications since 1913, foreign publications about Germany, translations of German works, and the works of Germ...

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Theme Week Oman - Masirah Island

[caption id="attachment_161755" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Kite surfing © flickr.com - StellarD/cc-by-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Masirah or Mazeira Island is an island off the East coast of Oman, 95 km long north-south, between 12 and 14 km wide, with an area of about 649 km², and a population estimated at 12,000 in 12 villages mainly in the north of the island. Administratively, it forms one of the eleven provinces of the Ash Sharqiyah Region. The principal village is Ras-Hilf in the northern part of the island. It c...

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Research vessel and icebreaker USCGC Healy

[caption id="attachment_164177" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Healy at the North Pole © USCG Academy - Petty Officer 2nd Class Cory Mendenhall[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) is the United States' largest and most technologically advanced icebreaker. She is classified as a medium icebreaker by the U.S. Coast Guard. She is homeported in Seattle and was commissioned in 1999. Her motto is "Promise and Deliver". On September 5, 2015, USCGC (United States Coast Guard Cutter) Healy became the first unaccompanied Un...

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Ann Arbor in Michigan

[caption id="attachment_192959" align="aligncenter" width="590"] University of Michigan (1855) by Jasper Francis Cropsey[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Ann Arbor is a city in Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, with a population of 114,000, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan. The university significantly shapes Ann Arbor's economy as it employs about 30,000 workers, including about 12,000 in the medical center. The city's economy is also centered on high technol...

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Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens

[caption id="attachment_6878" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © grandebretagne.gr[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Hotel Grande Bretagne is a luxury city hotel in Greece, one of the most luxurious in southeastern Europe. It is located in central Athens immediately adjacent to Syntagma Square, on the corner of Vasileos Georgiou A' and Panepistimiou Streets, and is now part of the Marriott company. The structure was built in 1842 as a house for Antonis Dimitriou, a wealthy Greek from the island of Limnos, only 12 years afte...

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Theme Week Cuba

[caption id="attachment_161556" align="aligncenter" width="590"] The Cuba State Capitol (El Capitolio) in Havana © Nigel Pacquette/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Cuba is comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean at the confluence of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. It is south of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti and north of Jamaica. Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities in...

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