Fondaco dei Turchi in Venice

17 November 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  6 minutes

Fondaco dei Turchi © Didier Descouens/cc-by-sa-4.0

Fondaco dei Turchi © Didier Descouens/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Fondaco dei Turchi is a Veneto-Gothic style palazzo, later on named as the Turks’ Inn, on the Grand Canal of Venice, northeast Italy. It was described by Augustus Hare in the 19th century as “a Byzantine palace of the 9th century, and one of the earliest buildings, not ecclesiastical, in Venice. …. A few years ago it was one of the most unique and curious buildings in Europe, and the most important specimen of Italo-Byzantine architecture, but it was modernised and almost rebuilt by the … government in 1869″.   read more…

Theme Week County Galway – Ballinasloe

24 March 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Society Street © LauraSheehan/cc-by-sa-4.0

Society Street © LauraSheehan/cc-by-sa-4.0

Ballinasloe (Irish: Béal Átha na Sluaighe, meaning ‘mouth of the ford of the crowds’) is a town in the easternmost part of County Galway in Connacht. It is one of the largest towns in County Galway with a population of 6,700. From 1828 to the 1960s, Ballinasloe was the terminus of the Grand Canal. Guinness Company used the town’s canal stores to store and distribute the Guinness to the midlands. The Grand Canal provided a route for Guinness barges to travel from Dublin to Shannon Harbour. The town features a public marina which was developed on the River Suck to allow traffic from the Shannon Navigation to access the town. Among the places of interest are:   read more…

Grand Canal in Ireland

20 August 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Grand Canal Dock in Dublin © Giuseppe Milo/cc-by-3.0

Grand Canal Dock in Dublin © Giuseppe Milo/cc-by-3.0

The Grand Canal (Irish: An Chanáil Mhór) is the southernmost of a pair of canals that connect Dublin, in the east of Ireland, with the River Shannon in the west, via Tullamore and a number of other villages and towns, the two canals nearly encircling Dublin’s inner city. Its sister canal on the Northside of Dublin is the Royal Canal. The last working cargo barge passed through the Grand Canal in 1960.   read more…

Beijing in China

11 September 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  28 minutes

Central Business District © 郭友柏/cc-by-sa-4.0

Central Business District © 郭友柏/cc-by-sa-4.0

Beijing (“Northern Capital”) is the capital of the People’s Republic of China, the world’s third most populous city proper, and most populous capital city. The city, located in northern China, is governed as a municipality under the direct administration of central government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing Municipality is surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin Municipality to the southeast; together the three divisions form the Jingjinji metropolitan region and the national capital region of China.   read more…

Theme Week China – Tianjin

27 July 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  10 minutes

Ancient Culture Street entrance © William M Benson

Ancient Culture Street entrance © William M Benson

Tianjin, alternately romanized as Tientsin, is a coastal metropolis in northern China and one of the nine national central cities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with a total population of 15,621,200 as of 2016 estimation. Its built-up (or metro) area, made up of 12 central districts (all but Baodi, Jizhou, Jinghai and Ninghe), was home to 12,491,300 inhabitants in 2016 and is also the world’s 29th-largest agglomeration (between Chengdu and Rio de Janeiro) and 11th-most populous city proper.   read more…

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