Theme Week Channel Islands – Alderney

7 June 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Fort Clonque © Andree Stephan

Fort Clonque © Andree Stephan

Alderney is the most northerly of the Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency. It is 3 miles (4.8 km) long and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide. The area is 3 square miles (7.8 km2), making it the third largest island of the Channel Islands, and the second largest in the Bailiwick. It is around 10 miles (16 km) to the west of La Hague in the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy, in France, 20 miles (32 km) to the north-east of Guernsey and 60 miles (97 km) from the south coast of England. It is the closest of the Channel Islands to France as well as being the closest to England. It is separated from Cap de la Hague by the dangerous Race of Alderney (Le Raz).   read more…

Weimar – Goethe, Schiller and Bauhaus

19 May 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, European Union, European Capital of Culture, Museums, Exhibitions, Sustainability, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  7 minutes

Weimar City Palace © Maros M r a z

Weimar City Palace © Maros M r a z

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the Bundesland of Thuringia, north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899. Weimar was the capital of the Duchy (after 1815 the Grand Duchy) of Saxe-Weimar (German: Sachsen-Weimar). Weimar’s cultural heritage is vast. It is most often recognised as the place where Germany’s first democratic constitution was signed after the First World War, giving its name to the Weimar Republic period in German politics, of 1918–1933. However, the city was also the focal point of the German Enlightenment and home of the leading characters of the literary genre of Weimar Classicism, the writers Goethe and Schiller. The city was also the birthplace of the Bauhaus movement, founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius, with artists Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer, and Lyonel Feininger teaching in Weimar’s Bauhaus School. Many places in the city centre have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites.   read more…

Riga, capital of Latvia

21 March 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, European Union, European Capital of Culture, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  6 minutes

Town Hall © Philaweb

Town Hall © Philaweb

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia, a major industrial, commercial, cultural and financial centre of the Baltics, and an important seaport, situated on the mouth of the Daugava. With 706,413 inhabitants (2010) it is the largest city of the Baltic states. Riga’s territory covers 307.17 km2 (118.60 sq mi) and lies between 1 and 10 metres (3.3 and 33 ft) above sea level, on a flat and sandy plain. Riga’s historical centre has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the city is particularly notable for its extensive Jugendstil (German Art Nouveau) architecture, which UNESCO considers to be unparalleled anywhere in the world. In 1282 Riga became a member of the Hanseatic League. The Hansa was instrumental in giving Riga economic and political stability, thus providing the city with a strong foundation which endured the political conflagrations that were to come, down to modern times.   read more…

Krakow is home to the second oldest university in Central Europe

18 February 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, European Union, European Capital of Culture, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  8 minutes

Fortress Wawel © Hstoffels

Fortress Wawel © Hstoffels

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow, is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River (Polish: Wisła) in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural and artistic life and is one of Poland’s most important economic centres. It was the capital of Poland from 1038 to 1596; the capital of the Grand Duchy of Kraków from 1846 to 1918; and the capital of Kraków Voivodeship from the 14th century to 1999. It is now the capital of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship.   read more…

Theme Week Warsaw

15 February 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  9 minutes

© DocentX

© DocentX

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly 260 kilometers (162 mi) from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometers (186 mi) from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of June 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855, and the Warsaw metropolitan area at approximately 2,785,000. The city area is 516.9 square kilometers (199.6 sq mi), with an agglomeration of 6,100.43 square kilometers (2,355.4 sq mi) (Warsaw Metro Area – Obszar Metropolitalny Warszawy). Warsaw is the 9th largest city in the European Union by population.   read more…

Gdańsk, an open city

20 January 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Sustainability Reading Time:  7 minutes

Gdansk Collage © Michal Slupczewski

Gdansk Collage © Michal Slupczewski

Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic coast in northern Poland, at the centre of the country’s fourth-largest metropolitan area. The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay (of the Baltic Sea), in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the Tricity (Trójmiasto), with a population of over 800,000. Gdańsk itself has a population of 435,830 (June 2010), making it the largest city in the Pomerania region of Northern Poland. Gdańsk is Poland’s principal seaport as well as the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. It is also historically the largest city of the Kashubian region. The city is close to the former late medieval/modern boundary between West Slavic and Germanic lands and it has a complex political history with periods of Polish rule, periods of German rule, and extensive self-rule, with two spells as a free city. It has been part of modern Poland since 1945.   read more…

Return to TopReturn to Top