Theme Week Sardinia – Olbia

24 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Isola di Tavolara © Lupanino

Isola di Tavolara © Lupanino

Olbia is a city and comune of 58,000 inhabitants in northeastern Sardinia, in the Gallura sub-region. Called Olbia in the Roman age, Civita in the Middle Ages (Giudicati period) and Terranova Pausania before the 1940s, Olbia was again the official name of the city during the period of Fascism.   read more…

The Sea Islands along the coast of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida

24 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

Terns on Cape Island. 1827 lighthouse (left) and an 1857 lighthouse (right) in the background © Billy Shaw/USFWS

Terns on Cape Island. 1827 lighthouse (left) and an 1857 lighthouse (right) in the background © Billy Shaw/USFWS

The Sea Islands are a chain of tidal and barrier islands on the Southeastern Atlantic Ocean coast of the United States. Numbering over 100, they are located between the mouths of the Santee and St. Johns Rivers along the coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Settled by indigenous cultures over thousands of years, the islands were selected by Spanish colonists as sites for founding of colonial missions.   read more…

Vilnius, Rome of the East

24 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, European Union, European Capital of Culture, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  6 minutes

Skyscrapers in Vilnius © Arroww

Skyscrapers in Vilnius © Arroww

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,000 (850,000 together with Vilnius County). It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County. Vilnius has been rapidly transformed, and the town has emerged as a modern European city. Many of its older buildings have been renovated, and a business and commercial area is being developed into the New City Centre, expected to become the city’s main administrative and business district on the north side of the Neris river. This area includes modern residential and retail space, with the municipality building and the 129-metre (423′) Europa Tower as its most prominent buildings. Vilnius was selected as a 2009 European Capital of Culture, along with Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. Its 2009 New Year’s Eve celebration, marking the event, featured a light show said to be “visible from outer space”. In preparation, the historical centre of the city was restored, and its main monuments were renewed. Besides the many official programs for the Cultural Capital year, there have been efforts to promote subcultural venues, such as the Kultflux and Vilnus Triennale program, showing young arts from all over Lithuania and Europe to a general public, both in public spaces, such as on the river shore of Neris river, and in several vacant buildings within the city centre.   read more…

The Royal Yacht Dannebrog

22 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Superyachts Reading Time:  6 minutes

Royal Yacht Dannebrog in Sønderborg © Erik Christensen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Royal Yacht Dannebrog in Sønderborg © Erik Christensen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Her Danish Majesty’s Yacht Dannebrog (A540) was launched by Queen Alexandrine at Copenhagen in 1931, and commissioned on 26 May 1932. The yacht now serves as the official and private residence for Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, the Prince Consort, and members of the Royal Family when they are on official visits overseas and on summer cruises in Danish waters. When at sea, the Royal Yacht also participates in surveillance and sea-rescue services.   read more…

Theme Week Sardinia – Carbonia

22 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Carbonia from Monte Leone © Alex10/cc-by-sa-3.0

Carbonia from Monte Leone © Alex10/cc-by-sa-3.0

Carbonia is a town and comune, which along with Iglesias is a co-capital of the province of Carbonia-Iglesias. It is located in the south-west of the island, at about an hour by car or train from the regional capital, Cagliari.   read more…

The Russian Colony Alexandrowka in Potsdam

22 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Berlin, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  5 minutes

Alexandrowka Museum © A.Savin/cc-by-sa-3.0

Alexandrowka Museum © A.Savin/cc-by-sa-3.0

Alexandrowka is the Russian Colony in the north of Potsdam. It consists of thirteen wooden houses in Russian style, which were built between 1826 and 1827 on special wish of the former Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm III. Originally the colony was the home of the Russian singers of the First Prussian Regiment of the Guards. The blockhouses are surrounded by generous gardens. In the north of the colony the Kapellenberg borders, a hill on which the Alexander-Newski-Church was especially constructed for the Russian colonists.   read more…

Parma, the city of the senses

22 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture Reading Time:  7 minutes

Piazza Garibaldi © Carlo Ferrari

Piazza Garibaldi © Carlo Ferrari

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world. Parma is divided into two parts by the little stream with the same name. Parma’s Etruscan name was adapted by Romans to describe the round shield called Parma.   read more…

Theme Week Sardinia – Quartu Sant’Elena

21 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Golfo di Geremeas © Marco Walker/cc-by-sa-3.0

Golfo di Geremeas © Marco Walker/cc-by-sa-3.0

Quartu Sant’Elena, located four miles East from Cagliari on the ancient Roman road, is a city and comune in the Province of Cagliari. It is the third biggest city of Sardinia with a population of 69,000. The city’s name comes from its distance to Cagliari (Quartum miles, Latin for “four miles”), and from the passage there of St. Helena, mother of emperor Constantine.   read more…

Theme Week Sardinia

20 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  9 minutes

High-speed ferry in the Gulf of Olbia © BetacommandBot/cc-by-sa-2.5

High-speed ferry in the Gulf of Olbia © BetacommandBot/cc-by-sa-2.5

Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily and before Cyprus) and an autonomous region of Italy, which goes by the official name of Regione Autonoma della Sardegna / Regione Autònoma de Sardigna (Autonomous Region of Sardinia). Taken as a whole, Sardinia’s economic conditions are such that the island is in the best position among Italian regions located south of Rome. The greatest economic development had taken place inland, in the provinces of Cagliari and Sassari, characterized by a certain amount of enterprise. The Sardinian economy is, however, constrained due to the high costs of the transportation of goods and electricity, which is twice that of the continental Italian regions, and triple that of the EU average. Sardinia is the only Italian region that produces a surplus of electricity, and exports electricity to Corsica and the Italian mainland. Today Sardinia is phasing in as an EU region, with a diversified economy focused on tourism and the tertiary sector. The economic efforts of the last twenty years have reduced the handicap of insularity, especially in the fields of low-cost air travel and advanced information technology.   read more…

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