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Category: Europe

Visiting interesting places in Europe

Bauhaus Architectural movement is 100 years 2019.

Bauhaus Architectural movement is 100 years 2019.

“We want an architecture adapted to our world of machines, radios and fast cars”. That was Walter Gropius’ statement regarding the reason behind forming the Bauhaus University. After the ending of the first world war during the “German revolution” when the Weimar Republic was founded and Weimar was the center of the German Enlightenment, the Bauhaus University was founded by Walter Gropius on April 12 1919. The University was founded by merging two art schools established by the Grand Duke…

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Canal to Russia

Canal to Russia

Lappeenranta in the Southeast of Finlandis beautifully situated on lake Saimaa and is connected to the Bay of Finland and Russia via the Saimaa Canal, built between 1845 – 1856. It was formally opened on September 7 1856. It was later overhauled and widened 1963-1968. The canal is 42.9 km long (26.7 miles). the difference in elevation between lake Saimaa and the lower laying Gulf of Finland is 75.7 m (248 ft). The Finnish part has three locks, the first…

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Cutty Sark

Cutty Sark

The Clipper Cutty Sark was built on the River Clyde in Scotland in 1869 for Jock Willis Shipping Line. It was originally designed to carry Tea from China to England and to do this as fast as possible. A Clipper is a three masted, square rigged ship with a narrow hull and a shallow keel, this was important when sailing up the rivers in China to load Tea. It was one of the last Tea Clippers ever built and also one the…

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London Royal Parks and Hyde park fishing

London Royal Parks and Hyde park fishing

St James’s Park in London is the oldest and most visited of 8 royal parks in the city. The lake has a “duck Island” and is home to many different bird species.       Hyde Park is London’s great oasis. People come to walk their dogs, ride their horses, sit on the benches, watch the birds, walk around, run around, ski around, ride their bike around, smell the flowers, listen to the birds  – and to Fish! Hyde Park…

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Ich bin ein Berliner

Ich bin ein Berliner

The name of the post is from JFK’s (President of the United States John Fitzgerald Kennedy) speech in West Berlin. The speech was made on June 26 1963 some 22 months after the Berlin wall was erected on August 13 1961. The wall was erected as a means of keeping people in East Germany from fleeing to West Germany.Today Berlin is once again a united city and construction is still ongoing to bring the former East up to the standards…

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Linnaeus Hammarby – home of the latin name designator of all plants, animals and minerals

Linnaeus Hammarby – home of the latin name designator of all plants, animals and minerals

Carl von Linné (May 23 1707 – January 10 1778) was Carl Linnaeus name after his ennoblement. He was a Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist who formalized the naming system of organisms – called the binomial nomenclature. The binomial nomenclature is a latin or latinized name of the organism. It consist of two parts, the first part indicates the genus and the second part is the specific name. Carl von Linné did his work at Uppsala University.  He was in fact a…

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Cemetière Père Lachaise is much more than Jim Morrison & Edith Piaf

Cemetière Père Lachaise is much more than Jim Morrison & Edith Piaf

If you go to visit the cemetery in Paris where Jim Morrison and many other celebrities are buried, I suggest that you also take a look around in other places and you might discover some very powerful and emotional markers for people and time in history that we all need to keep in mind.  

Queen Elisabeth Olympic Park London

Queen Elisabeth Olympic Park London

The Queen Elisabeth Olympic Park and the arenas were built in East London for the 2012 Summer Olympics that were held in the city. The London arena is now home to the football (US-‘soccer’) team West Ham United.  The towering sculpture ArchelorMittal Orbit is a lookout tower with a slide, a free fall abseil, it is also labelled the tallest sculpture in the UK. The Aquatic centre was originally designed by Zaha Hadid in 2004. This was before the Olympic bid was…

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Centre Pompidou – Notre Dame de la Tuyauterie

Centre Pompidou – Notre Dame de la Tuyauterie

Built 1977 on the initiative of then president of France, George Pompidou. Centre George Pompidou – Musée national d’art moderne as the proper name is, celebrates 40 years this year 2017.  It was not without controversy when it was built since it was a very modern and industrial looking building.  As the blog title indicate it was among many different things called Notre Dame de la Tuyauterie (Our lady of the pipes). This was mainly due to the exposed mechanical systems and…

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Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

Weimar in the state of Thüringia in Germany was the place, where after the First World War, the first German Democratic constitution was signed. This was also where the Weimar Republic period in German history (1918-1933) was formed. It was the home of the period in art called the German Enlightenment and also the home of two of the main characters in the Weimar Classicism literary genre – Goethe and Schiller. Weimar was at one point home to such artists as Franz List…

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