The Derinkuyu underground city (Cappadocian Greek: Μαλακοπή / Malakopi; Turkish: Derinkuyu Yeraltı Şehri) is an ancient multi-level underground city of the Median Empire in the Derinkuyu district in Nevşehir Province, Turkey, extending to a depth of approximately 85 metres (280 ft). It is large enough to have sheltered as many as 20,000 people together with their livestock and food stores. It is the largest excavated underground city in Turkey and is one of several underground complexes found throughout Cappadocia. read more…
The south-eastern Transylvania region in Romania currently has one of the highest numbers of existing fortified churches from the 13th to 16th centuries. It has more than 150 well preserved fortified churches of a great variety of architectural styles (out of an original 300 fortified churches). read more…
Mardin is a city and seat of the Artuklu District of Mardin Province in Turkey. It is known for the Artuqid architecture of its old city, and for its strategic location on a rocky hill near the Tigris River. The old town of the city is under the protection of UNESCO, which forbids new constructions to preserve its façade. The city had a population of 129,864 in 2021. read more…
The Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine (English: Street of the Suburb of Saint Anthony) is a street in Paris. It should not be confused with Rue Saint-Antoine, which leads from the center to the Bastille. The Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine owes its name to the fact that it combines the suburb of that name outside the city walls of Charles V (French: Enceinte de Charles V) with the Abbey of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs (destroyed in the 18th century). read more…
The Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel (chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, “Our Lady of Good Help”) is a church in the district of Old Montreal in Montreal, Quebec. One of the oldest churches in Montreal, it was built in 1771 over the ruins of an earlier chapel. The church is located at 400 Saint Paul Street East at Bonsecours Street, just north of the Bonsecours Market in the borough of Ville-Marie (Champ-de-Mars metro station). read more…
Rue du Bac is a street on the Rive Gauche, the left bank of the Seine in Paris (7th arrondissement). It is known for the apparitions of the Virgin Mary, which are said to have appeared here several times to the nun Catherine Labouré in 1830. Rue du Bac, like many other streets around Paris at the time, developed as a result of the settlement of religious communities. read more…
Latrun is a strategic hilltop in the Latrun salient in the Ayalon Valley, and a depopulated Palestinian village. It overlooks the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 25 kilometers west of Jerusalem and 14 kilometers southeast of Ramla. It was the site of fierce fighting during the 1948 war. During the 1948–1967 period, it was occupied by Jordan at the edge of a no man’s land between the armistice lines. In the 1967 war, it was occupied by Israel. Latrun is located outside the 1967 Green Line and therefore part of the West Bank in Palestine. read more…
The Peter and Paul Fortress is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzini‘s designs from 1706 to 1740 as a star fortress. Between the first half of the 1700s and early 1920s it served as a prison for political criminals. It has been a museum since 1924. Today it has been adapted as the central and most important part of the State Museum of Saint Petersburg History. The museum has gradually become virtually the sole owner of the fortress building, except the structure occupied by the Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetniy Dvor). The fortress contains several notable buildings clustered around the Peter and Paul Cathedral (1712–1733), which has a 122.5 m (402 ft) bell-tower (the tallest in the city centre) and a gilded angel-topped cupola. Other structures inside the fortress include the still functioning Saint Petersburg Mint building (constructed to Antonio Porta’s designs under Emperor Paul), the Trubetskoy Bastion with its grim prison cells, and the city museum. read more…
