Copacabana Beach

Copacabana is a borough located in the southern zone of the city Rio de Janeiro, known for its 4 km beach which is one of the most famous travel attraction and tourist destination in the world. The details of Copacabana are given in world tour guides below. The district was originally called Sacopenapa until the mid-18th century. It was renamed after the construction of a chapel holding a replica of the Virgen de Copacabana, the patron saint of Bolivia. It was incorporated into the city on July 6, 1892.

Copacabana begins at Princesa Isabel Avenue and ends at Posto Seis or lifeguard watchtower Six. Beyond Copacabana, there are two small beaches, one inside Fort Copacabana and other, right after it: Diabo Beach. Arpoador beach, where surfers use to go after its perfect waves, comes in the sequence, followed by the famous borough of Ipanema. According to Riotur, the Tourism Secretariat of Rio de Janeiro, there are 63 hotels and 10 hostels in Copacabana.

Copacabana beach stretches from Posto Dois or lifeguard watchtower Two to Posto Seis or lifeguard watchtower Six. Leme is at Posto Um or lifeguard watchtower One. There are historic forts at both ends of Copacabana beach, Fort Copacabana built in 1914, is at the south end by Posto Seis and Fort Duque de Caxias, built in 1779, at the north end. One curiosity is that the lifeguard watchtower of Posto Seis never existed. Hotels, restaurants, bars, night clubs and residential buildings dot the promenade.

Copacabana Beach plays host to millions of revelers during the annual New Year's Eve celebrations and, in most years, has been the official venue of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. The Copacabana promenade is a pavement landscape in large scale. It was completed in 1970 and has used a black and white Portuguese pavement design since its origin in the 1930s a geometric wave. The Copacabana promenade was designed by Roberto Burle Marx. Copacabana has the 11th highest Human Development Index in Rio.

Copacabana covers an area of 7.84 km² which gives the borough a population density of 20,400 people per km². Residential buildings eleven to thirteen stories high built right next to each other dominate the borough. Homes and two-story buildings are rare. More than 40 different bus routes serve Copacabana, as do three subway Metro stations: Cantagalo, Siqueira Campos and Cardeal Arcoverde, with a fourth one in nearby Ipanema.

Three major arteries parallel to each other cut across the entire borough: Atlantic Avenue, which is a 6 lane 4 km avenue by the beachside, Nossa Senhora de Copacabana Avenue and Barata Ribeiro or Raul Pompeia Street both of which are 4 lanes and 3.5 km in length. Barata Ribeiro Street changes its name to Raul Pompeia Street after the Sa Freire Alvim Tunnel. Twenty-four streets intersect all three major arteries, and seven other streets intersect some of the three, but not all.

The beach has been a site for huge free concerts unrelated to the year-end festivities. On March 21, 2005, Lenny Kravitz performed there in front of 300,000 people, on a Monday night. On February 18, 2006, a Saturday, the Rolling Stones surpassed that mark by far, attracting over 1.3 million people to the beach. On July 7, 2007, the beach hosted the Brazilian leg of the Live Earth concerts, which attracted 400,000 people. As the headliner, Lenny Kravitz got to play the venue a second time, with Jorge Benjor, Macy Gray, O Rappa and Pharrell as the main opening acts, on October 2, 2009, 100,000 people filled the beach for a huge beach party as the IOC announced Rio would be hosting the 2016 Olympics.

Jeronimos Monastery

The Jeronimos Monastery or Hieronymites Monastery is located in the Belem district of Lisbon, Portugal. This magnificent monastery can be considered one of the most prominent monuments in Lisbon and is certainly one of the most successful achievements of the Manueline style. It is one of the famous tourist attractions and travel destination in Lisbon. In 1983, it was classified by the UNESCO, with nearby Belem Tower, as a World Heritage Site. More details about Hieronymites Monastery are explained below in World tour guides.

The house for the Hieronymite monks was built on the same site of the Ermida do Restelo a hermitage that was founded by Henry the Navigator at about 1450. The existing structure was started on orders of Manuel I to commemorate Vasco da Gama successful return from India. The Construction of monastery began in 1502 and took 50 years to complete. He used pedra lioz, a local gold coloured limestone for construction. The monastery was designed in the Manueline style by Diogo de Boitaca. He built the church, the monastery, the sacristy, and the refectory. He was succeeded by the Spaniard Joao de Castilho, who took charge of construction in around 1517. Castilho gradually moved from the Manueline style to the Plateresco style, a style with lavish decorations that remind of silver ware. There were several sculptors who made their mark on this building. Nicolau Chanterene added depth with his Renaissance themes. The construction came to a halt when the king Manuel I died in 1521.

The ornate main entrance to the monastery was designed by Joao de Castilho and is considered as one of the most magnificent of his time. This shrine-like portal is large, 32 m high and 12 m wide, extending up for two stories. It features, surrounded by an abundance of gables, pinnacles, many carved figures standing under a baldachin in exquisitely carved niches, around a statue of Henry the Navigator, standing on a pedestal between the two doors.

The western portal is a good example of the transition from the Gothic style to Renaissance. It was built by Nicolau Chanterene in 1517. This was probably his first commission in Portugal. It is now spanned by a vestibule, added in the 19th century that forms a transition between the church and the ambulatory. Diogo Boitac laid the foundations for this three-aisled church with five bays under a single vault, a clearly marked but only slightly projecting transept and a raised choir. The aisles and the nave are of about equal height in the manner of a hall church. Boitac built the walls of the church as far as the cornices and then started with the construction of the adjoining monastery.

Joao de Castilho, a Spanish architect and sculptor, continued the construction in 1517. He completed the retaining walls and the unique single-span ribbed vault, a combination of stellar vaulting and tracery vaults spanning the 19 m-wide church. Each set of ribs in the vaulting is secured by bosses. The bold design the transversal vault of the transept lacks any piers or columns, while Boitac had originally planned three bays in the transept. The unsupported vault of the transept gives the viewer the impression as if it floats in the air.

Work on the vast square cloister of the monastery was begun by Boitac. He built the groin vaults with wide arches and windows with tracery resting on delicate mullions. Joao de Castilho finished the construction by giving the lower storey a classical overlay and building a more recessed upper storey. The construction of such a two-storey cloister was a novelty at the time. Castilho changed the original round columns of Boitac into rectangular ones. He put Plateresque style ornaments on it.

Each wing consists of six bays with tracery vaults. The four inner bays rest on massive buttresses, forming broad arcades. The corner bays are linked by a diagonal arched construction and show the richly decorated corner pillars. The inside walls of the cloister have a wealth of Manueline motives with nautical ornaments, and European, Moorish ans eastern elements. The decorations on the outer walls of the inner courtyard were made in Plateresco style by Castilho. This ornamentation on the walls and the traceried arches of the arcades give the construction a filigree aspect.

The round arches and the horizontal structure are clearly in line with the Renaissance style, while at the same time there is also a relationship with Spanish architecture. The cloister had a religious function as well as a representative function by its decorative ornamentation and the dynastic symbolic motives, such as the armillarium, coat-of-arms, and the cross from the Order of Christ, showing the growing world power of Portugal.

In an extension, added to the monastery during the restoration 1850, is located the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia or National Archaeological Museum. The Museu da Marinha or Maritime Museum is located in the west wing. The church and the monastery, like the nearby Torre de Belem and Padrao dos Descobrimentos symbolises the Portuguese Age of Discovery and is among the main tourist attractions of Lisbon.

Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, it connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County. The Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed during the year 1937, and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. Since its completion, the span length has been surpassed by eight other bridges. It still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. In 1999, it was ranked fifth on the List of Americas Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.

Strauss was chief engineer in charge of overall design and construction of the bridge project. However, because he had slight experience with cable suspension designs, responsibility for much of the engineering and architecture fell on other experts. Irving Morrow, a relatively unknown residential architect, designed the overall shape of the bridge towers, the lighting scheme, and Art Deco elements such as the streetlights, railing, and walkways. Senior engineer Charles Alton Ellis, collaborating remotely with famed bridge designer Leon Moisseiff, was the principal engineer of the project. Moisseiff produced the basic structural design, introducing his deflection theory by which a thin, flexible roadway would flex in the wind, greatly reducing stress by transmitting forces via suspension cables to the bridge towers.

The bridge-opening celebration began on May 27, 1937 and lasted for one week. The day before vehicle traffic was allowed, 200,000 people crossed by foot and roller skate. On opening day, Mayor Angelo Rossi and other officials rode the ferry to Marin, then crossed the bridge in a motorcade past three ceremonial "barriers," the last a blockade of beauty queens who required Joseph Strauss to present the bridge to the Highway District before allowing him to pass.

The center span was the longest among suspension bridges until 1964.The Golden Gate Bridge also had the world's tallest suspension towers at the time of construction and retained that record until more recently. The weight of the roadway is hung from two cables that pass through the two main towers and are fixed in concrete at each end. Each cable is made of 27,572 strands of wire. There are 80,000 miles or 129,000 km of wire in the main cables. The bridge has approximately 1,200,000 total rivets.

The color of the bridge is officially an orange vermillion called international orange. The color was selected by consulting architect Irving Morrow because it compliments the natural surroundings and enhances the bridge's visibility in fog. The bridge is said to be one of the most beautiful examples of bridge engineering, both as a structural design challenge and for its aesthetic appeal. It was declared one of the modern Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It is the most beautiful and most photographed bridge in the world.

Aesthetics was the foremost reason why the first design of Joseph Strauss was rejected. Upon resubmission of his bridge construction plan, he added details, such as lighting, to outline the bridges cables and towers. The bridge was originally painted with red lead primer and a lead based topcoat which was touched up as required. In the mid 1960s, a program was started to improve corrosion protection by stripping the original paint and repainting the bridge with zinc silicate primer and vinyl topcoats. Since 1990 Acrylic topcoats have been used instead for air-quality reasons. The program was completed in 1995 and it is now maintained by 38 painters who touch up the paintwork where it becomes seriously eroded.

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Buda Castle

Buda Castle is the historical castle complex of the Hungarian kings in Budapest, Hungary first completed in 1265. In the past, it was also called Royal Palace and Royal Castle. Buda Castle was built on the southern tip of Castle Hill, next to the old Castle District, which is famous for its medieval, Baroque and 19th century houses and public buildings. It is a famous tourist destination linked to Adam Clark Square and the Szechenyi Chain Bridge by the Castle Hill Funicular. Buda Castle is part of the Budapest World Heritage Site, declared in 1987.

The lavishly decorated interiors of the palace were all destroyed during WW2 and the post-war reconstruction. There is very little data about the interiors of the medieval and Baroque era. The Hauszmann palace was meticulously recorded with detailed descriptions, photographic documentation and ground plans. The royal apartments created a 200 m long series of rooms, longer than any similar royal apartments in continental Europe except Versailles.

The most important rooms in Buda castle are given here. The Ballroom on the first floor of the Baroque wing had several layers of Baroque decoration from the second half of the 18th and the 19th century. St. Sigismund Chapel or Castle Church is the palace chapel in the western end of this wing had no facades, only a door opening onto Lions Court. The church was consecrated in 1769. The Palatinal Crypt under the former palace chapel is now the only surviving room of the whole Royal Castle. The Great Ballroom in the middle part of the Northern Wing took over the function of the smaller old Ballroom. The monumental main staircase of the Krisztinavaros Wing with three flights was leading up from to the first floor in an airy, glass-roofed hall. The Habsburg Room was situated right in the middle of the long palace complex, under Hauszmanns dome.

A series of rooms from the medieval palace of the Hungarian kings were unearthed and reconstructed during the postwar rebuilding of Buda Castle in 1958-62. They are now part of the permanent exhibition of the Budapest History Museum in "Building E" of Buda Castle. Only a fragment of the medieval palace survived the destruction of 1686-1715 and the surviving rooms were not the most important ones of the original building. They were only saved by the chances of destruction and their geographical position, situated on a lower level then the newly created Baroque terrace.

The rib vaulted Gothic Hall is one of the most important surviving example of secular Gothic architecture in Central Europe. It was built by King Sigismund Luxemburg of Hungary in the early 15th century. The three interconnected, barrel-vaulted rooms belong to the oldest part of the palace, the Stephen Castle. A great underground cistern under the - now disappeared - northern zwinger, the Cisterna Regia, survived the centuries of destruction as a cellar. The the 7 m high basement section of the eastern facade with the lower part of a fine Gothic balcony survived inside the later King's Cellar.

The Royal Palace and its gardens were decorated with statues. The spectacular fountain is decorating the western forecourt of the palace. The equestrian statue of Prince Eugene of Savoy is standing on the Danube terrace, in a prominent position, high above Budapest. The statue of the Hortobagy horse wrangler taming a wild horse originally stood in front of the Riding School in the former Ujvilag terrace. The mythological Turul, high above the Danube, was made by Gyula Donath in 1905. The plinth and the ornate Neo Baroque rail were damaged during the siege of Buda but they were restored in 1981.

Mount Kinabalu

Mount Kinabalu is a prominent mountain in Southeast Asia which is a famous World Heritage Site. The details about Mount Kinabalu is given in World tour guides here. It is located in Kinabalu National Park in the east Malaysian state of Sabah, which is on the island of Borneo in the tropics a tourist attraction site. It is the 4th tallest mountain in the Malay Archipelago after Indonesian Papua's Puncak Jaya, Puncak Trikora and Puncak Mandala. In 1997, a re-survey using satellite technology established its summit known as Low’s Peak height at 4,095 metres or 13,435 ft above sea level, which is some 6 metres or 20 ft less than the previously thought and hitherto published figure of 4,101 metres 13,455 ft.

The mountain and its surroundings are among the most important biological sites in the world, with over 600 species of ferns, 326 species of birds, and 100 mammalian species identified. Among them are the gigantic Rafflesia plants and the orangutan. Mount Kinabalu has been accorded UNESCO World Heritage status. The main peak of the mountain can be climbed quite easily by a person in peak physical condition. If not fit enough, though, the climb can be very hard despite there being no need for mountaineering equipment at any point on the main route. Other peaks along the massif, however, require rock climbing skills.

Mount Kinabalu is well-known worldwide for its tremendous botanical and biological species biodiversity, with high levels of endemism. It has one of the world’s richest orchid flora with over 800 species, over 600 species of ferns of which 50 are found no where else, and is the richest place in the world for the Nepenthes insectivorous pitcher plants which reach spectacular proportions. The parasitic Rafflesia plant, which has the largest single flower in the world, is also found in Kinabalu. Endemic annelids number less than a dozen known species but include the Kinabalu giant red leech that preys on various earthworms, including the Kinabalu giant earthworm. There are some 326 species of birds in Kinabalu Park and some 100 mammalian species, including one of the four great apes the orangutan.

Mount Kinabalu is essentially a massive granodiorite which is intrusive into sedimentary and ultrabasic rocks, and forms the central part, or core, of the Kinabalu massif. The granodiorite is intrusive into strongly folded strata, probably of Eocene to Miocene age, and associated ultrabasic and basic igneous rocks. It was pushed up from the earth’s crust as molten rock millions of years ago. In geological terms, it is a very young mountain as the granodiorite cooled and hardened only about 10 million years ago. It is still pushing up at the rate of 5 mm per annum. During the Pleistocene Period of about 100,000 years ago, the massive mountain was covered by huge sheets of ice and glaciers which flowed down its slopes, scouring its surface in the process and creating the 1800 m deep Low's Gully on its North side. Its granite composition and the glacial formative processes are readily apparent when viewing its craggy rocky peaks.

Climbers must be accompanied by accredited guides at all times due to national park regulations. There are two main starting points for the climb: the Timpohon Gate located 5.5 km from Kinabalu Park Headquarters, at an altitude of 1866 m, and the Mesilau Nature Resort. The latter starting point is slightly higher in elevation, but crosses a ridge, adding about two kilometres to the ascent and making the total elevation gain slightly higher. The two trails meet about two kilometres before Laban Rata.

Accommodation is available inside the park or outside near the headquarters. From there, climbers proceed to the Timpohon gate at 1866 m or 6,122 ft, either by minibus or by walking, and then walk to the Laban Rata Resthouse at 3,270 m or 10,728 ft. Most people accomplish this part of the climb in 3 to 6 hours. Since there are no roads, the supplies for the Laban Rata Resthouse are carried by porters, who bring up to 30 kilograms of supplies on their backs. Hot food and beverages, hot showers and heated rooms are available at Laban Rata. The last 2 km or 2600 ft, from the Laban Rata Resthouse at 3,270 m to Low's Peak at 4,095.2 m, takes between 2 and 4 hours. The last part of the climb is on naked granite rock.

Given the high altitude, some people may suffer from altitude sickness and should return immediately to the bottom of the mountain, as breathing and any further movement becomes increasingly difficult. There are two stories that led to the main beliefs in the origin of the mountains name. The first derivation of the word Kinabalu is extracted from the short form for the Kadazan Dusun word Aki Nabalu, meaning the revered place of the dead. The second source states that the name Kinabalu actually means Cina Balu. Due to the lingual influence among the Kadazan Dusun of Sabah, the pronunciation for the word cina was changed to Kina.