Archive for September, 2009
Friday, September 18th, 2009
If it were for sale, La Digue would attract keen competition from the world's billionaires. This is an enchanting tropical paradise. The fourth-largest island in the Seychelles, La Digue extends to an area of 10 sq km and lies to the east of Praslin Island.
It supports a population that ...
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Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
Reykjavik is one of Europe's "hot" cities, thanks to its music scene and famed nightlife, with bubbling geysers and thermal springs nearby. Reykjavik's special energy draws on its unique physical and cultural landscape.
The northernmost national capital on Earth is a city of breathtaking contrasts. Small wooden houses with corrugated-iron roofs ...
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Sunday, September 6th, 2009
Despite numerous invasions and devastating destruction, the Ukrainian capital of Kiev is still one of the most beautiful cities of Eastern Europe. The Communist period, which lasted barely seventy years, did it little harm. On the contrary, the new potentates of the post-WW-II era built parks and created green spaces, ...
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Sunday, September 6th, 2009
Part of the Mascarene Islands, the Republic of Mauritius is off the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, 900 km (560 mi) east of Madagascar. The republic consists of five islands: St Brandon, Rodrigues, two Agalegas Islands and Mauritius itself.
The latter was originally uninhabited, but the Dutch named the ...
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Sunday, September 6th, 2009
Known to the Ancient Egyptians as Abu or Yabu, meaning elephant, Elephantine Island is a truly ancient site resting as it does at the First Cataract of the Nile, and creating a natural boundary between Egypt and Nubia.
Being the largest island at Aswan, it was easily defensible and at ...
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Sunday, September 6th, 2009
In the north-west of Senegal, near the mouth of the Senegal River, lies the town of Saint-Louis, capital of French Senegal from 1673 until independence in 1960.
The centre of the old colonial city lies on a narrow island in the river, measuring just 2 km (1.2 mi) long by about ...
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Sunday, September 6th, 2009
Situated on the north-western coast of the Malay Peninsula at the entrance to the Straits of Malacca, Penang Island covers an area of 292 sq km (112 sq mi). The island is separated from mainland Malaysia by a channel of sea varying between 3 km (1.9 mi) and 13 km ...
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Saturday, September 5th, 2009
A camera captures reflected light. If the light source is directly behind the camera, reflections bounce back directly off the subject and give an idea of its shape but not so much of its forms, scale and dimensions. But if lit from behind or from the side, the camera captures ...
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Saturday, September 5th, 2009
Japan is the most current in a long line of administrations who have deduced that a meager positive oscillation in GDP as their economic benefactor, but is this just an aspiration or a honesttrue shift in the direction of recovery?
With administrations vying for position in the race to pronounce that ...
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Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
Kihnu lies 12 km (7 mi) off the coast of Estonia and is the largest of more than a dozen islands in the reefs and shallows of the Gulf of Riga. It is 16 sq km (6 sq mi) in area with a low ridge running down the middle and ...
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