Theme Week Outer Hebrides

21 August 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  7 minutes

Kisimul Castle, Castlebay, Isle of Barra © flickr.com - Conor Lawless/cc-by-2.0

Kisimul Castle, Castlebay, Isle of Barra © flickr.com – Conor Lawless/cc-by-2.0

The Outer Hebrides or Western Isles (Scottish Gaelic: Na h-Eileanan Siar or Na h-Eileanan an Iar or Na h-Innse Gall (“islands of the strangers”); Scots: Waster Isles), sometimes known as the Long Isle/Long Island (Scottish Gaelic: An t-Eilean Fada), is an island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. The islands are geographically coextensive with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland. They form part of the archipelago of the Hebrides, separated from the Scottish mainland and from the Inner Hebrides by the waters of the Minch, the Little Minch, and the Sea of the Hebrides. Scottish Gaelic is the predominant spoken language, although in a few areas English speakers form a majority.   read more…

Gulf Stream

20 May 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Environment Reading Time:  8 minutes

Evolution of the Gulf Stream © ngdc.noaa.gov - RedAndr/cc-by-sa-4.0

Evolution of the Gulf Stream © ngdc.noaa.gov – RedAndr/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida and up the eastern coastline of the United States then veers east near 36 latitude (North Carolina) and moves toward Northwest Europe as the North Atlantic Current. The process of western intensification causes the Gulf Stream to be a northwards accelerating current off the east coast of North America. At about 40°0′N 30°0′W, it splits in two, with the northern stream, the North Atlantic Drift, crossing to Northern Europe and the southern stream, the Canary Current, recirculating off West Africa.   read more…

Cocoa Beach in Florida

17 March 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  4 minutes

© flickr.com - Rusty Clark/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Rusty Clark/cc-by-2.0

Cocoa Beach is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. The population was 11,539 at the 2018 United States Census. It is part of the Palm Bay–Melbourne–Titusville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.   read more…

Looe in Cornwall

11 March 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

© Chensiyuan/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Chensiyuan/cc-by-sa-4.0

Looe (Cornish: Logh, lit. ‘deep water inlet’) is a coastal town and civil parish in south-east Cornwall, England, with a population of 5,280 at the 2011 census. Looe is 20 miles (32 km) west of Plymouth and seven miles (11 km) south of Liskeard, divided in two by the River Looe, East Looe (Cornish: Logh) and West Looe (Cornish: Porthbyhan, lit. “little cove”) being connected by a bridge. Looe developed as two separate towns each with MPs and its own mayor.   read more…

Theme Week Caribbean

23 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  9 minutes

Parliament building in Nassau, Bahamas © Crm18

Parliament building in Nassau, Bahamas © Crm18

The Caribbean is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean) and the surrounding coasts. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, and north of South America.   read more…

São Tomé and Príncipe

19 December 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Praia Inhame © flickr.com - Chuck Moravec/cc-by-2.0

Praia Inhame © flickr.com – Chuck Moravec/cc-by-2.0

São Tomé and Príncipe, officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, is a Portuguese-speaking island country in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two archipelagos around the two main islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, about 150 km (93.21 mi) apart and about 250 and 225 km (155 and 140 mi) off the north-western coast of Gabon. With a population of 201,800 (2018 official estimate), São Tomé and Príncipe is the second-smallest and second-least populous African sovereign state after Seychelles.   read more…

Ascension Island

25 November 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Royal Marine barracks in former Royal Dockland in Georgetown © JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ MD/cc-by-sa-3.0

Royal Marine barracks in former Royal Dockland in Georgetown © JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ MD/cc-by-sa-3.0

Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island, 7°56′ south of the Equator in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from the coast of Africa and 1,400 miles (2,300 km) from the coast of South America. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, of which the main island, Saint Helena, is around 800 miles (1,300 km) to the southeast. The territory also includes the sparsely populated Tristan da Cunha archipelago, 2,300 miles (3,700 km) to the south, about halfway to the Antarctic Circle.   read more…

Essaouira on the Atlantic Ocean

8 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  14 minutes

© flickr.com - Visions of Domino/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Visions of Domino/cc-by-2.0

Essaouira, known until the 1960s as Mogador, today the name of the island off the coast of the city, is a port city in the western Moroccan region of Marakesh-Safi, on the Atlantic coast. It has 77,966 inhabitants as of 2014. The foundation of the city of Essaouira was the work of the Moroccan ‘Alawid sultan Mohammed bin Abdallah, who made an original experiment by entrusting it to several renowned architects in 1760, in particular Théodore Cornut and Ahmed al-Inglizi, who designed the city using French captives from the failed French expedition to Larache in 1765, and with the mission of building a city adapted to the needs of foreign merchants. Once built, it continued to grow and experienced a golden age and exceptional development, becoming the country’s most important commercial port but also its diplomatic capital between the end of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. The entire old town (Medina) of Essaouira was recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2001.   read more…

Lummus Park in Miami Beach

1 July 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Miami / South Florida, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  4 minutes

Lummus Park © Pietro/cc-by-sa-3.0

Lummus Park © Pietro/cc-by-sa-3.0

Lummus Park is a 74-acre (30 ha) public, urban park in Miami Beach (Miami-Dade, Florida), on the Atlantic Ocean. The park is on the eastern side of Ocean Drive, from 5th to 15th Streets. When redesigned and improved in the mid-1980s, it became part of the project for the redevelopment of what is now the Miami Beach Architectural District of South Beach.   read more…

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