James' World 2

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Vienna is the national capital, largest city, and one of nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria’s most populous city, with about 2 million inhabitants (2.6 million within the metropolitan area, nearly one-third of the country’s population), and its cultural, economic, and political center. It is the 6th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, Vienna was the largest German-speaking city in the world, and before the splitting of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I, the city had 2 million inhabitants. Today, it is the second-largest German-speaking city after Berlin. Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations, OPEC, and the OSCE. The city is located in the eastern part of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region. Along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city center was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In July 2017 it was moved to the list of World Heritage in Danger. Additionally, Vienna is known as the “City of Music” due to its musical legacy, as many famous classical musicians such as Beethoven and Mozart called Vienna home. Vienna is also said to be the “City of Dreams”, because of it being home to the world’s first psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Vienna’s ancestral roots lie in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city. It is well known for having played a pivotal role as a leading European music center, from the age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The historic center of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque palaces and gardens, and the late-19th-century Ringstraße lined with grand buildings, monuments, and parks.

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Consuegra windmills In the region of La Mancha, on the top of the hill Calderico, you can find one of the most impressive images of Spain, twelve windmills surround a huge fortress making an astonished icon in your mind. History, culture, and fiction comes together here. Welcome to Consuegra Consuegra windmills There is no feeling like driving your car on the highway with your sunglasses on while you breathing the pure air and suddenly, the landscape changes. The great flat land, the endless skyline where soil and sky connected appears in front of you, and in the distance twelve windmills and a huge castle on the top of a hill crowning the plain. You are arriving at the heart of Spain, you are in Consuegra It is Consuegra a town with a large history which goes back thousands of years. It is a place where you can relive the history and the tradition, understand not only the Spanish history but the human history too

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An image from Don Quixote Windmills Spain

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Würzburg is a city in the traditional region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. At the next-down tier of local government, it is the administrative seat of Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main.

Würzburg is about 120 kilometers (75 mi) from Frankfurt am Main, to the west, and Nuremberg (Nürnberg), to the east. The city has around 130,000 residents.

The regional dialect is East Franconian.

The city is outside of the Landkreis Würzburg (district of Würzburg) but has its administrative center.

A Bronze Age (Urnfield culture) refuge castle, the Celtic Segodunum, and later a Roman fort, stood on the hill known as the Leistenberg, the site of the present Fortress Marienberg. The former Celtic territory was settled by the Alamanni in the 4th or 5th century, and by the Franks in the 6th to 7th. Würzburg was the seat of a Merovingian duke from about 650. It was Christianized in 686 by Irish missionaries Kilian, Kolonat, and Totnan. The city is mentioned in a donation by Duke Hedan II to bishop Willibrord, dated 1 May 704, in castellum Virteburch. The Ravenna Cosmography lists the city as Uburzis at about the same time. The name is presumably of Celtic origin, but based on a folk etymological connection to the German word Würze “herb, spice”, the name was Latinized as Herbipolis in the medieval period. Wikipedia

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An image from Wurzburg, Germany

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Litløy Lighthouse (Norwegian: Litløy fyr) is a coastal lighthouse in Bø Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is located on the island of Litløya in the Vesterålen archipelago, which overlooks the nearby Lofoten Islands.

The lighthouse and the adjoining buildings were built in 1912, and the light itself was electrified in 1959. In 1991, the light was automated. The people who worked at Litløy Lighthouse remained, however, first and foremost to do maintenance at the lighthouse and nearby beacons. Secondly, there was a need to keep shipping activity under observation, both to control and assist if need be. There was also a meteorological weather station on the island. Eventually, the cost of keeping the staff at the island caused the lighthouse to be depopulated on 26 June 2003.

In 2005-06, the Norwegian Coastal Administration (NCA) sold 20 lighthouses along the coast of Norway. One of these was Litløy Lighthouse. Bø municipality was offered to buy the lighthouse but chose not to accept the offer. It was then sold to Ellen Marie Hansteensen. She bought the lighthouse in order to make it accessible to the public, in accordance to Norwegian law (Stortingsmelding 28 (2000–2001)). Wikipedia

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Images from Lofoten Islands Norway

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Warsaw (/ˈwɔːrsɔː/ WOR-saw; Polish: Warszawa [varˈʂava]) is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula River in east-central Poland and its population is officially estimated at 1.8 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of 3.1 million residents, which makes Warsaw the 7th most populous capital city in the European Union. The city area measures 517.24 square kilometers (199.71 sq mi), while the metropolitan area covers 6,100.43 square kilometers (2,355.39 sq mi). Warsaw is an alpha global city, a major international tourist destination, and a significant cultural, political, and economic hub. Its historical Old Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The city rose to prominence in the late 16th century, when Sigismund III decided to move the Polish capital and his royal court from Kraków. The elegant architecture, grandeur, and extensive boulevards earned Warsaw the nickname ‘Paris of the North’ prior to the Second World War. Bombed at the start of the German invasion in 1939, the city withstood a siege but was largely destroyed by the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, the general Warsaw Uprising in 1944, and the systematic razing by the Germans in advance of the Vistula–Oder Offensive. Warsaw gained the new title of Phoenix City because of its reconstruction after the war, which had leftover 85% of its buildings in ruins.

In 2012, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Warsaw as the 32nd most liveable city in the world. In 2017, the city came 4th in the “Business-friendly”, 8th in “Human capital and lifestyle” and topped the quality of life rankings in the region. The city is a significant center of research and development, business process outsourcing, and information technology outsourcing. The Warsaw Stock Exchange is the largest and most important in Central and Eastern Europe. Frontex, the European Union agency for external border security as well as ODIHR, one of the principal institutions of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have their headquarters in Warsaw. Jointly with Frankfurt and Paris, Warsaw features one of the highest number of skyscrapers in the European Union. Wikipedia

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An image from Warszawa, Poland

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Joshua Tree National Park is an American national park in southeastern California, east of Los Angeles and near Palm Springs. It is named after the Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) native to the Mojave Desert. Originally declared a national monument in 1936, Joshua Tree was redesignated as a national park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act. Encompassing a total of 790,636 acres (1,235.4 sq mi; 3,199.6 km²) – slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island – the park includes 429,690 acres (671.4 sq mi; 1,738.9 km²) of designated wilderness. Straddling San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, the park includes parts of two deserts, each an ecosystem whose characteristics are determined primarily by elevation: the higher Mojave Desert and the lower Colorado Desert. The Little San Bernardino Mountains traverse the southwest edge of the park. Wikipedia

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An image from Joshua Tree National Park, California​

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Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and also known as D.C. or just Washington, is the capital city of the United States. It is located on the east bank of the Potomac River which forms its southwestern and southern border with Virginia and shares a land border with Maryland on its remaining sides. The city was named after George Washington, the first president of the United States and a Founding Father, and the federal district is named after Columbia, a female personification of the nation. As the seat of the U.S. federal government and several international organizations, the city is an important world political capital. It is one of the most visited cities in the U.S., seeing over 20 million visitors in 2016.

The U.S. Constitution provides for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress; the district is therefore not a part of any U.S. state (nor is it one itself). The signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of a capital district located along the Potomac River near the country’s East Coast. The City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the national capital, and Congress held its first session there in 1800. In 1801, the territory, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia (including the settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria), officially became recognized as the federal district. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia, including the city of Alexandria; in 1871, it created a single municipal government for the remaining portion of the district. There have been efforts to make the city into a state since the 1880s, a movement that has gained momentum in recent years, and a statehood bill passed the House of Representatives in 2021.

The city is divided into quadrants centered on the Capitol Building, and there are as many as 131 neighborhoods. According to the 2020 Census, it has a population of 689,545, which makes it the 20th-most populous city in the U.S. and gives it a population larger than that of two U.S. states: Wyoming and Vermont. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city’s daytime population to more than one million during the workweek. Washington’s metropolitan area, the country’s sixth-largest (including parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia), had a 2019 estimated population of 6.3 million residents. Wikipedia

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An image from Washington D.C., DC, USA

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La Digue is the third most populated island of Seychelles, and the fourth-largest by land area, lying east of Praslin and west of Felicite Island. In size, it is the fourth-largest granitic island of Seychelles after Mahé, Praslin, and Silhouette Island. It has a population of 2,800 people, who mostly live in the west coast villages of La Passe (linked by ferry to Praslin and Mahé) and La Réunion. There is no airport on La Digue, so to get there from a foreign country, one has to fly to Victoria and continue by ferry, usually via Praslin. It has an area of 10.08 km², which makes it relatively easy to travel around by bike or on foot.

La Digue was named after a ship in the fleet of French explorer Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, who visited Seychelles in 1768. Wikipedia

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Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, roughly 350 kilometers (220 mi) from the Baltic Sea to the north and 40 kilometers (25 mi) from the Sudeten Mountains to the south. The official population of Wrocław in 2020 was 643,782, with a further 1.25 million residing in the metropolitan area.

Wrocław is the historical capital of Silesia and Lower Silesia. Today, it is the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. The history of the city dates back over a thousand years; at various times, it has been part of the Kingdom of Poland, the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria, the Kingdom of Prussia, and Germany. Wrocław became part of Poland again in 1945 as part of the so-called Recovered Territories, the result of extensive border changes and expulsions after the Second World War.

Wrocław is a university city with a student population of over 130,000, making it arguably one of the most youth-oriented cities in the country. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the University of Wrocław, previously Breslau University, has produced 9 Nobel Prize laureates and is renowned for its high quality of teaching. Wrocław also possesses numerous historical landmarks, including the Main Market Square, Cathedral Island, and the Centennial Hall, which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Wikipedia

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An image from Wroclaw, Poland

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Llanes is a municipality of the province of Asturias, in northern Spain. Stretching for about 30 km along the coast at the extreme east of the province, Llanes is bounded to the south by the high ridge of the limestone Sierra del Cuera, which rises to over 1,100 m. The region is part of the Costa Verde (Green Coast) of Spain, which is known for its spectacular coastal scenery, with 32 white sand beaches, and mountains covered with a deep green mantle. Llanes lies to the north of the Picos de Europa, a mountain range whose geology is almost entirely of limestone karst.

Most of the inhabitants of the district live on the coastal plain, on which the largest town is Llanes itself, with a population of about 4,000 out of the total for the district of about 13,000. The folklore, food, and fiestas of the region are famous for their color and history.

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An image from Llanes Spain

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