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The Pyramids and the Sphinx, Egypt
You have to visit this amazing place, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Great Pyramid of Giza.
- The Great Pyramid of Khufu (or Cheops)
- The Pyramid of Kafhre
- The smaller Pyramid of Menkaura.
Each Pyramid is a tomb to a different King of Egypt. In front of the pyramids lies the Sphinx (or Abu al-Hol in Arabic, “Father of Terror”). Carved out of a single block of stone, this enormous cat-like sculpture has mesmerized millions of visitors.
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Santorini, Greece
Santorini is one of the Cycladic islands, created by the eruption of the volcano. (Thought by some to be the famous island of Atlantis). Due The Island has a versatile landscape with steep rock formations, lush beaches and small white villages. It also boasts remnants from the old Roman including baths, theatres and markets. Santorini is a group of islands in a circle about 10 KM across – the rim of a large volcano that is still producing small islands in the centre. Settlements are scattered around the islands as a series of small villages. The famous white buildings are huddled close to one another on and over the cliff of the central caldera. Hiking paths and trails lead all over the island, but an interesting time can be had walking the paths that connect the settlements, talking to the friendly locals and exploring the shops.
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Stonehenge, England
Stonehenge is a well-known stone monument located on a world heritage site in Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England. The site as is quite large and contains many other structures from the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age. Stonehenge is considered one of the most archaeologically rich sites in Europe, with many Neolithic and Bronze Age finds. It is also the site of one of the biggest Chalk grassland reversion projects in the world. Stonehenge has been occupied since around 8000BC with early work at Stonehenge beginning in 3000BC when an outer ditch and embankment was constructed, and standing timbers erected. From about 2500BC, Neolithic and Bronze age man started to bring Bluestones and Sarsen stones from Wales and the Marlborough Downs, it was completed in 1600BC. A nearby hill fort was built during the Iron Age, and there is evidence to suggest that the area was extensively settled by the Romans. The reason behind the structure still remains a mystery with many theories developed to explain the phenomenon.
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Italy
Italy has a lot to offer its visitors. Italy is a modern country with deep Roman Catholic roots, full of interesting stuff for the casual tourist and even more for the educated visitor. In the north, next to the Alps and the flatlands of the Po river, both cultural jewels and highly developed industrial cities attract. In Lombardia’s capital Milan, city of haute couture and business, you can easily spend weeks without being bored. Bergamo is only an hour away and has an upper Old Town.
The most famous tourist attractions in the north-east are Venice and Verona, that both let you think of romantic love affairs. To discover the beautiful landscapes around, for example, the Verona province may be even more fascinating. For wine lovers, Piemonte is directly connected with Barolo and Barbaresco, the most famous wines made out of the Nebbiolo grape. Piemonte’s capital, Turin offers more than just a starting point to visit these wine regions. Lots of museums, modern art, book and music fairs make Turin one of the leading Italian cities concerning cultural life. The coastal region of Liguria is another highlight.
The Riviera delle Palme has no reason to envy its French counterpart. Beaches, countryside, the right climate and old towns like Genoa make this region a must to visit. The Lunigiana region, Albenga and Ceriale are worth a visit and an even longer stay. Gourmets should not miss the Emilia Romagna, Italy’s culinary centre. Bologna, “La Grassa” like the Italians say, is a must see as well as Ravenna with its impressive mosaic works and the Byzantine architecture and last but not least Rimini, on the Adriatic Sea. For Tuscany words fail to describe its beauty: You have to go there to see, smell and experience the beauty of the old towns and lovely valleys yourself. Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Prato and Siena, offer more cultural highlights than some countries as a whole. The way of living does the rest to attract every year millions of visitors. Elba, the island of Napoleans first exile, is only one of seven Tuscan Archipelago islands.
Rome, The Eternal City, with its monumental palaces, churches, squares, and fountains still fed by aqueducts with ancient water sources, has to be visited by every Italy traveler. To discover Rome, “A lifetime is not enough”. Campania has attracted visitors over the centuries: Capri, Ischia, Sorrento and Amalfi became the chosen destinations of visitors from many countries. Sicily the largest island in the Mediterranean has been influenced by the culture of the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs the Normans and many others. For those who enjoy walking and climbing, go to the Dolomites, this is the Mountain range in Northern Italy that sperates it from Austria and extends westwards to join the Alps. Major centres include Cortina, further South and West is Arco and a few kilometers from the Northern tip of Lake Garda.
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Loch Ness, Scotland
Loch Ness is the largest of three lochs located in the Great Glen which divides the North of Scotland along a line from Fort William to Inverness. The loch is large by British standards, being 23 miles long and a mile in width, and averaging 600ft in depth. Its catchment is hilly and wet, and is drained by 6 major rivers which flow into the loch. It contains over 2 cubic miles of fresh water, and the River Ness outlet, although only 5 miles long, is one of the greatest in Britain for average flow and of course is the home of the famous monster
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Pyramid of the Sun and Moon, Teotihuacán
Towering and mysterious, the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon rise above silent Teotihuacán, an empty city that once bustled with as many as 200,000 people and stood at the center of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic empire. Erected by a virtually unknown culture in the first century B.C., the city sprawled over an area larger than imperial Rome. But by A.D. 750 it had been abruptly abandoned, perhaps because of disaster or drought. Five hundred years later the Aztecs came upon Teotihuacán — with its pyramids, temples, apartments, and ball courts — and adopted it as a center of pilgrimage. At roughly 210 feet high, the Pyramid of the Sun ranks as one of the largest pyramids in the world. (It is about half as tall as the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.)
The builders raised the Pyramid of the Sun around A.D. 100, somehow transporting and erecting three million tons of stone, brick, and rubble without benefit of the wheel, beasts of burden, or metal tools. In 1971, archaeologists found a previously unknown entryway some 320 feet long that leads to a cave directly beneath the apex of the pyramid. At one time the cave held a natural spring, and there are still piles of charcoal in the chamber — perhaps indicating ceremonies involving water and fire. No one knows, although scientists enjoy speculating.
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Incan Ruin – Machu Picchu, Peru
Machu Picchu, The lost city floating in a kingdom of clouds, high in the Andes Mountains of Peru, a mysterious settlement that the Incas built, occupied, and deserted, all in less than a century. For hundreds of years the city was hidden in the jungle. Then, in 1911, Hiram Bingham led a university expedition to the Peruvian Andes. On a valley floor along the Urubamba River, he met a farmer who guided him up to the ruins of the hidden city, the only Incan site that hadn’t been looted or destroyed during the previous four centuries.
Machu Picchu spans a mountain saddle between green jungle peaks. The settlement has only 200 residences, suggesting a population of about 1,000 people. The city contains a large number of religious buildings that were constructed with great care. One of them, the Temple of the Sun functioned as an observatory focused on the heavens. A mark cut on a rock at the center of the tower lines up, through a window, with the exact spot where the sun rises on the June solstice. In the temple’s recesses the Incas placed religious statues or offerings.
Another small cave at Machu Picchu served as an observatory for tracing the December solstice. Ritual religious bathing may have been done at the Fountains, a series of 16 small waterfall baths where the sacred focus may have been water. But the principal shrine at Machu Picchu was probably the intihuatana, the “hitching post of the sun”, a stone that the Incas may have used to observe the heavens and mark the seasons. No one knows for certain how the stone was used. Near the settlement lie other intriguing sites. The Intipunku, or Sun Gate, is a notch cut in a mountain ridge that frames the rising sun during fixed periods on the calendar. The famous Inca Bridge is located along an ever-narrowing mountain trail that, at some places, is cut into a sheer cliff. The builders cleverly left a gap in a buttressed section of the trail that they could bridge with two logs. As needed, the logs could be removed to make the road impassable to outsiders. Perhaps it is no wonder that this nearly inaccessible mountain city remained hidden and unknown to outsiders for centuries after the Incas abandoned Machu Picchu.
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The Golden Pavilion, Japan
The pavilion is probably the most recognizable temple in Japan as it is entirely covered in gold. Shining in the light, the Golden Pavilion, or Kinkakuji, looks like beautiful jewel box. In 1950, a disturbed Buddhist temple novice burned the 14th-century pavilion to its foundations. Within five years, however, the Golden Pavilion rose again. On the new roof, appropriately, perches a phoenix. The pavilion was originally built as a retirement villa for the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, who, after withdrawing from public life, exercised power in the background by installing his ten-year-old son as shogun.
When he died, his retirement villa was converted into a temple, in accordance with his wishes. The much-admired pavilion rises in three stories, each having a different architectural style and reflecting a different aspect of the shogun who built it. The first floor is a residential palace, complete with a covered dock for the shogun’s pleasure boat; the second is a Buddhist prayer hall or samurai house; and the third is a small Zen temple with sliding doors and bell-shaped windows. Set on pillars, the Golden Pavilion extends over the pond, a popular design of the Shinden style during the Heian period of Japanese history. A person approaching sees two pavilions, as the water reflects the image. On the exterior of the graceful building, a layer of shimmering gold leaf creates an unforgettable picture.
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Bimini: The Road to Atlantis
Famed American psychic Edgar Cayce predicted that evidence of the lost continent of Atlantis would appear in the Bahamas in 1968 or 1969. In 1968 pilots photographed structures that looked like buildings, walls and roads under the waters off of Bimini Island. Others have claimed to have seen pyramids and stone circles on the sea bed, but the only thing that has been confirmed for sure is what has become to be known as the Bimini Road. Skeptics claim that the Bimini road is merely a unique natural formation. There is no denying, the “roads” are straight and look man made.
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Iceland
Iceland was settled in the 9th century by Norse Vikings. The first settlement and major city is Reykjavik. Reykjavik has a bustling nightlife, an exciting arts scene, and offers visitors the opportunity to explore the countryside in short trips to areas such as Thingvellir, Gullfoss and Geysir. If you are interested in nature, Iceland is a great place to visit. The terrain in Iceland is so rugged due to centuries of volcanic activity; this is where the US tested their lunar landing module that eventually drove on the moon. Because of Norse woodcutting and volcanic activity, there are virtually no trees on the island. There is one small “forest” that is a national landmark.
Iceland, Greenland’s neighbor, benefits from the gulf and jet streams with huge 100mph winds constantly blowing, being sustained for more than a day. Most travelers go to Iceland in the summer, however, Iceland in the winter is equally as beautiful, and there is the added bonus of less tourists and tones of snow. The interior of Iceland is not assessable in the winter months but the ring road is always passable, but careful driving and a 4WD is needed in the ice and snow. Over the Christmas period there is hardly any traffic on the roads in the South and the drive from Reykjavik to Vik is stunning. Glaciers, mountains, volcanoes and countless waterfalls keep the six hour drive interesting. Hofn is a good place to stop to explore Iceland’s biggest glacier. Better still, Hoffell is a remote town close by, which, is very close to the foot of the glacier. In Hoffell you can also find naturally heated hot tubs, perfect for sitting in to watch the northern lights away from any artificial light, if the conditions are right.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Top 10 Places to See Before You Die
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