Masada is the name for a site of ancient palaces and fortifications in the South District of Israel on top of an isolated rock plateau, or large mesa, on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea. After the First Jewish-Roman War (also known as the Great Jewish Revolt) a siege of the fortress by troops of the Roman Empire led to the mass suicide of Jewish rebels, who preferred death to surrender.
Read more...Angkor Wat, is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation—first Hindu, dedicated to Vishnu, then Buddhist. The temple is the epitome of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors.
Read more...The Bayon is a well-known and richly decorated Khmer temple at Angkor in Cambodia. Built in the late 12th century or early 13th century as the official state temple of the Mahayana Buddhist King Jayavarman VII, the Bayon stands at the centre of Jayavarman's capital, Angkor Thom. Following Jayavarman's death, it was modified and augmented by later Hindu and Theravada Buddhist kings in accordance with their own religious preferences.
Read more...Mount Kinabalu is a prominent mountain in Southeast Asia. It is located in Kinabalu National Park (a World Heritage Site) in the east Malaysian state of Sabah, which is on the island of Borneo in the tropics.
Read more...Kinabalu National Park or Taman Negara Kinabalu in Malay, established as one of the first national parks of Malaysia in 1964, is Malaysia's first World Heritage Site designated by UNESCO in December 2000 for its "outstanding universal values" and the role as one of the most important biological sites in the world.
Gunung Mulu National Park near Miri, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that encompasses incredible caves and karst formations in a mountainous equatorial rainforest setting. The park is famous for its caves and the expeditions that have been mounted to explore them and their surrounding rainforest, most notably the Royal Geographical Society Expedition of 1977 - 1978, which saw over 100 scientists in the field for 15 months.
Hallstatt, Upper Austria is a village in the Salzkammergut, a region in Austria. It is located near the Hallstätter See.
The name Hall is most probably from the old Celtic name for salt, the salt mines near the village being an important factor. Salt was a valuable resource, so the region was historically very wealthy. It is possible to tour the world's first known salt mine, located above downtown Hallstatt.
The village also gave its name to the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture and is a World Heritage Site for Cultural Heritage. Hallstatt is a popular tourist attraction owing to its small-town appeal and can be toured on foot in ten minutes.
The Semmering railway, Austria, which starts at Gloggnitz and leads over the Semmering to Mürzzuschlag was the first mountain railway in Europe built with a standard gauge track. It is commonly referred to as the world's first true mountain railway, given the very difficult terrain and the considerable altitude difference that was mastered during its construction. It is still fully functional as a part of the Austrian Southern Railway.
The postcard shows the Viaduct over the "Adlitzgraben".
158 m long, 21 feet high, 8 sheets.
Verla at Jaala, Finland, is a well preserved 19th century mill village and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. The first groundwood mill at Verla was founded in 1872 by Hugo Nauman but was destroyed by fire in 1876. A larger groundwood and board mill, founded in 1882 by Gottlieb Kreidl and Louis Haenel, continued to operate until 1964.
Read more...Transylvanian villages were often organised around a fortified church. Currently, a group of six former Saxon and one Székely villages is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Read more...Lake Neusiedl is the second largest steppe lake in Central Europe, straddling the Austrian–Hungarian border. The lake covers 315 km², of which 240 km² is on the Austrian side and 75 km² on the Hungarian side. The lake's drainage basin has an area of about 1,120 km². From north to south, the lake is about 36 km long, and it is between 6 km and 12 km wide from east to west. On average, the lake's surface is 115.45 m above the Adriatic Sea and the lake is no more than 1.8 m deep.
Read more...Suzhou is a city on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Lake Taihu in the province of Jiangsu, China. The city is renowned for its beautiful stone bridges, pagodas, and meticulously designed gardens which have contributed to its status as a great tourist attraction. Since the Song Dynasty (960-1279), Suzhou has also been an important centre for China's silk industry and continues to hold that prominent position today. The city is part of the Yangtze River Delta region.
Read more...The Piazza del Duomo ("Cathedral Square") is a wide, walled area at the heart of the city of Pisa, Tuscany, Italy, recognized as one of the main centers for medieval art in the world. Partly paved and partly grassed, it is dominated by four great religious edifices: the Duomo, the Leaning Tower (the cathedral's campanile), the Baptistry and the Camposanto.
It is otherwise known as Piazza dei Miracoli ("Square of Miracles"). This name was created by the Italian writer and poet Gabriele d'Annunzio who, in his novel Forse che si forse che no (1910) described the square in this way:
L’Ardea roteò nel cielo di Cristo, sul prato dei Miracoli.
which means: "The Ardea rotated over the sky of Christ, over the meadow of Miracles."
The Piazza dell is a square of the city of Lucca, built on the ruins of a Roman amphitheater (the second century AD), which determined the elliptical closed.
The Piazza originated in the Middle Ages and in this era was called "Parlascio", a storpiatura of Latin paralisium ( "amphitheater"), that influence of the word "talk", it was said that indicates the place where the meetings were held in public. It was gradually filled with buildings, variously used as storage rooms, powder magazine, prison.
Lucca is a city in Tuscany, northern central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plain near (but not on) the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca. Among other reasons, it is famous for its intact Renaissance-era city walls.
Campagna is a small town and comune of the province of Salerno, in the Campania region of Southern Italy.
The town, located in a mountainous district, gradually lost importance in the 20th century. All its district offices have been moved to other cities since the 1930s, and the Diocese of Campagna merged with the Archdiocese of Salerno in 1973. During World War II, Campagna was the site of an internment camp. The Bishop Giuseppe Maria Palatucci turned the camp into a shelter for Italian and foreign Jews, many of them sent there for protection by his nephew Giovanni Palatucci; Giovanni was later honored as a Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.
Volterra is a town in the Tuscany region of Italy.
The town was a Neolithic settlement and an important Etruscan center with an original civilization; it became a municipium in the Roman Age. The city was a bishop's residence in the 5th century and its episcopal power was affirmed during the 12th century. With the decline of the episcopate, Volterra was the subject of the interest of Florence, which defeated Volterra many times though rebellions sometimes took place.
Main sites in Volterra are (Not in order):
1. Roman Theatre (1st century BC), excavated in the 1950s.
2. Piazza dei Priori, one of Italy's most beautiful squares.
3. Palazzo dei Priori, built in 1246.
4. Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta.
5. Medicean Fortress (Maschio), now a penitentiary.
6. Guarnacci Etruscan Museum, with thousands of funeral urns dating back to the Hellenistic and Archaic periods.
7. The Etruscan walls, including the well-preserved Porta dell'Arco (3rd-2dn centuries BC) and Porta Diana gates.
Tuscany or Toscana is a region in Italy. The regional capital is Florence. Tuscany is known for its landscapes and its artistic legacy. Six Tuscan localities have been UNESCO protected sites: the historical center of Florence (1982), the historical center of Siena (1995), the square of the Cathedral of Pisa (1987), the historical center of San Gimignano (1990), the historical center of Pienza (1996) and the Val d'Orcia (2004).
Read more...Livorno is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno and the third-largest port on the western coast of Italy.
Read more...The Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari is situated 2,5 km southwest of the village of Sveshtari, Razgrad Province, which is located 42 km northeast of Razgrad, in the northeast of Bulgaria.
Discovered in 1982 in a mound, this 3rd century BC Thracian tomb reflects the fundamental structural principles of Thracian cult buildings. The tomb's architectural decor is considered to be unique, with polychrome half-human, half-plant caryatids and painted murals. The ten female figures carved in high relief on the walls of the central chamber and the decorations of the lunette in its vault are the only examples of this type found so far in the Thracian lands. It is a remarkable reminder of the culture of the Getae, a Thracian people who were in contact with the Hellenistic and Hyperborean worlds, according to ancient geographers.
The postcard shows the following in clockwise direction:
1. Turkish Family Tomb (1920)
2. Tumulus in the vicinity of village of Krun (IV-III c..C)
3. Ostrousha Tumulus (IV c.B.V)
4. Shoushmanetz Tumulus (V-IV c.B.C.)
5. Tomb in the vicinity of village of Maglizh (IV-III c.B.C.). Fragment from the murul decoration.
6. Helvetia Tumulus (V-IV c.B.C.)
Kazanlak is a Bulgarian town located in the middle of the plain of the same name, at the foot of the Balkan mountain range, at the eastern end of the Rose Valley.
The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo or "Ivanovo Rock Monasteries" are a group of monolithic churches, chapels and monasteries hewn out of solid rock and completely different from other monastery complexes in Bulgaria, located near the village of Ivanovo, 20 km south of Rousse, on the high rocky banks of the Rusenski Lom, 32 m above the river. The complex is noted for its beautiful and well-preserved medieval frescoes.
Read more...The postcard shows the view of Castle from the Nogat river.
The Castle in Malbork was built in Prussia by the Teutonic Order as an Ordensburg. It was named Marienburg, literally "Mary's Castle". The town which grew around it was also named Marienburg, but since 1945 it is again, after 173 years, part of Poland, as Malbork. Hence the name of it's castle also had to be changed in English.
The castle is a classic example of a medieval fortress; it is the world’s largest brick gothic castle and one of the most impressive of its kind in Europe.
The postcard shows The Gothic Old Town Hall from the 14th century.
Torun is a city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. The medieval old town of Torun is the birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus. Listed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites since 1997, Toruń has many monuments of architecture beginning from the Middle Ages, including 200 military structures. The city is famous for having preserved almost intact its medieval spatial layout and many Gothic buildings, all built from brick, including monumental churches, the Town Hall and many burgher houses.
Isis was a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife, matron of nature and magic; friend of slaves, sinners, artisans, the downtrodden, as well as listening to the prayers of the wealthy, maidens, aristocrats and rulers. Isis is the Goddess of motherhood and fertility.
According to "Sacred Destinations":
The Egyptian island of Philae was the center for worship of the goddess Isis and attracted pilgrims from all over the ancient world.
The original island is now completely submerged under the waters of Lake Nasser. But in a spectacular rescue operation, the great temples and monuments of Philae were pulled out of the water and re-erected on a nearby island, now renamed Philae.
The postcard shows the Benedictine Monastery in the Baroque style
built by Jakob Prandtauer in Wachau.
The Wachau is an Austrian valley with a landscape of high visibility formed by the Danube river. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations of Lower Austria, located precisely between the towns of Melk and Krems.
Winter Park is a Home Rule Municipality in Grand County, Colorado, United States.It is home to the Winter Park Resort, a well-known ski resort which is owned by the City and County of Denver and managed by Intrawest. The town and resort are served by the Ski Train of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW).
Read more...The postcard shows the City Hall in Zamosc.
Zamość is a town in south-eastern Poland.
The postcard shows Wawel Dragon; Cathedral Basilica of St. Stanislaus and St. Wenceslas on Wawel Hill.
The Gothic Wawel Castle was built at the behest of Casimir III the Great and consists of a number of structures situated around the central courtyard. In the 14th century it was rebuilt by Jogaila and Jadwiga of Poland.
Wawel Castle is a part of the UNESCO WHS list under Cracow's Historic Centre.
Boyana Waterfall is a waterfall on the Boyana River in Vitosha Mountain and is situated at an altitude of 1260 m near the huts of Momina Skala and Esperanto. It is about 15 m high and is especially beautiful in spring when the snows are melting.
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