James' World 2

Click the link below the picture

.

Located close to Cabo da Roca cape, Ursa Beach is reached via dirt track along a twisting and steep route right through to this calm and sparsely populated beach.

The strains of the route are more than justified by the superb landscape that awaits with the enormous rocky formations dominating the beach. The beach itself was named after one such formation that takes a shape suggestive of an urso (bear).

.

An image from Praia Da Ursa Portugal

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Catania is the second-largest city in Sicily, after Palermo, and among the ten largest cities in Italy. It is located on Sicily’s east coast, at the base of the active volcano, Mount Etna, and it faces the Ionian Sea. It is the capital of the 58-municipality region known as the Metropolitan City of Catania, which is the seventh-largest metropolitan city in Italy. The population of the city proper is 311,584, while the population of the Metropolitan City of Catania is 1,107,702.

Catania was founded in the 8th century BC by Chalcidian Greeks. The city has weathered multiple geologic catastrophes: it was almost completely destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake in 1169. A major eruption and lava flow from nearby Mount Etna nearly swamped the city in 1669 and it suffered severe devastation from the 1693 Sicily earthquake.

During the 14th century, and into the Renaissance period, Catania was one of Italy’s most important cultural, artistic, and political centers. It was the site of Sicily’s first university, founded in 1434. It has been the native or adopted home of some of Italy’s most famous artists and writers, including the composers Vincenzo Bellini and Giovanni Pacini, and the writers Giovanni Verga, Luigi Capuana, Federico De Roberto, and Nino Martoglio.

Catania today is the industrial, logistical, and commercial center of Sicily. Its airport, the Catania-Fontanarossa Airport, is the largest in Southern Italy. However, the central “old town” of Catania features exuberant late-baroque architecture, prompted after the 1693 earthquake, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The ancient indigenous population of the Sicels named their villages after the geographical attributes of their location. The Sicilian word, katane, means “grater, flaying knife, skinning place” or a “crude tool apt to pare”. Other translations of the name are “harsh lands”, “uneven ground”, “sharp stones”, or “rugged or rough soil”. The latter etymologies are easily justifiable since, for many centuries following an eruption, the city has always been rebuilt within its black-lava landscape. Wikipedia

.

An image from Catania, Province of Catania, Italy

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

The Zaō Mountains, commonly called Mount Zaō, are a complex cluster of stratovolcanoes on the border between Yamagata Prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture in Japan. The central volcano of the group includes several lava domes and a tuff cone, Goshiki-dake, which contains a crater lake named “Okama”. Also known as the “Five Color Pond” (五色沼, goshiki numa) because it changes color depending on the weather, it lies in a crater formed by a volcanic eruption in the 1720s. The lake is 360 meters (1,200 ft) in diameter and 60 m (200 ft) deep and is one of the main tourist attractions in the area.

One striking feature of Zaō’s famous ski resorts is the “snow monsters” that appear in mid-winter. Strong wind over the nearby lake fling water droplets which freeze against the trees and their branches, until near-horizontal icicles begin to form. Falling snow settles on the ice formations, and the end result is a grotesque figure of a tree. The effect of a full forest of such trees gives visitors a ghostly impression. Zaō is one of the 100 famous mountains in Japan.

Rotaria rotatoria and Pinnularia spp. are found in the acidic Okama Lake. Wikipedia

.

An image of the Mount Zao Snow Monsters

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Cádiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia.

Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, with archaeological remains dating to the 8th century BC, was founded by the Phoenicians. It has been a principal home port of the Spanish Navy since the accession of the Spanish Bourbons in the 18th century. It is also the site of the University of Cádiz.

Situated on a narrow slice of land surrounded by the sea‚ Cádiz is, in most respects, a typically Andalusian city with well-preserved historical landmarks. The older part of Cádiz, within the remnants of the city walls, is commonly referred to as the Old Town (Spanish: Casco Antiguo). It is characterized by the antiquity of its various quarters (barrios), among them El Pópulo, La Viña, and Santa María, which present a marked contrast to the newer areas of town. While the Old City’s street plan consists of narrow winding alleys connecting large plazas, newer areas of Cádiz typically have wide avenues and more modern buildings. In addition, the city is dotted with numerous parks where exotic plants flourish, including giant trees allegedly brought to Spain by Columbus from the New World.

Very little remains of the Phoenician language, but numismatic inscriptions record that they knew the site as a Gadir or Agadir (Phoenician: ‬𐤀𐤂𐤃𐤓, ʾGDR), meaning “The Wall”, “The Compound”, or (by metonymy) “The Stronghold”. Borrowed by the Berber languages, this became the agadir (Tamazight: “wall”; Shilha: “fortified granary”) common in North African place names. (The Israeli town Gedera shares a similar etymology, as well as the Moroccan city Agadir). The Carthaginians continued to use this name and all subsequent names have derived from it. The Greek cothon refers to a Carthaginian type of fortified basin that can be seen at ancient sites such as Motya. Wikipedia

.

An image from Cadiz, Spain

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Nā Pali Coast State Park is a 6,175-acre (2,499 ha) state park in the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the center of the rugged 16-mile (26 km) northwest side of Kauaʻi, the second-oldest inhabited Hawaiian island. The Nā Pali coast itself extends southwest from Keʻe Beach all the way to Polihale State Park. The nā pali (high cliffs) along the shoreline rise as much as 4,000 feet (1,200 m) above the Pacific Ocean. The state park was formed to protect the Kalalau Valley.

To the east of the state park is the Hono O Nā Pali State Natural Reserve. It was established in 1983 and later extended to over 3,578 acres (14.5 km²) in 2009. Hiking trails and hunters’ roads provide access to the sharp ridges from Koke’e Road (route 550) in Waimea Canyon.

Although inaccessible to vehicles, this coast can be enjoyed overland by hiking or in a helicopter, and from the ocean by kayak and paddleboard. Charter tours are available on rigid-hulled inflatable boats or catamarans, originating from Port Allen and Hanalei Bay. The Kalalau Trail from the end of Hawaii Route 56 (called the Kuhio Highway) provides the only land access along the coast, traversing 11 miles (18 km) and crossing five major valleys (and many smaller ones) before reaching Kalalau Beach at the base of Kalalau Valley. Side trails along the way lead to waterfalls in the valleys above. The first settlers on the Nā Pali Coast were Polynesian navigators around 1200 AD. Soon after, many Tahitian migrants followed, shaping the culture of Kauai and other Hawaiian islands today. The coast was a center for trade between Hanalei, Waimea, and Ni`ihau, and branched out to nearby island colonies. After Kauai was visited by Captain Cook in 1778, many Westerners began traveling to the island. As more foreigners arrived, the Hawaiian tribes along the Nā Pali Coast, where Nā Pali Coast State Park now exists, began to die off from Western diseases. The last known native Hawaiians to live along the Nā Pali Coast were sighted in the 20th century. Wikipedia

.

An image from Na Pali Coast, Hawaii

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Calgary is a city in the western Canadian province of Alberta. With a population of 1,239,220, Calgary is the most populous city in Alberta, the third most populous city in Canada after Toronto and Montreal, and the most populous city in Western Canada. The Calgary Metropolitan Area had a population of roughly 1,581,000 in the beginning of 2021, making it the second-most-populous in western Canada, and the fourth-largest census metropolitan area (CMA) in Canada.

Calgary is situated at the confluence of the Bow River and the Elbow River in the south of the province, in the transitional area between the foothill and the prairie, about 80 km (50 mi) east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies, roughly 299 km (186 mi) south of the provincial capital of Edmonton and approximately 240 km (150 mi) north of the Canada–United States border. The city anchors the south end of the Statistics Canada-defined urban area, the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor.

Calgary’s economy includes activity in the energy, financial services, film and television, transportation and logistics, technology, manufacturing, aerospace, health and wellness, retail, and tourism sectors. The Calgary Metropolitan Region is home to Canada’s second-highest number of corporate head offices among the country’s 800 largest corporations. In 2015 Calgary had the highest number of millionaires per capita of any major Canadian city. In 1988 it became the first Canadian city to host the Winter Olympic Games.

The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Calgary the most livable city in North America in both 2018 and 2019. Calgary has been a top 5 contender for this title for the last 10 years.

Calgary was named after Calgary on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, United Kingdom. In turn, the name originates from a compound of kald and gart, similar Old Norse words, meaning “cold” and “garden”, likely used when named by the Vikings who inhabited the Inner Hebrides. Alternatively, the name might be Gaelic Cala ghearraidh, meaning “beach of the meadow (pasture)”, or Gaelic for either “clear running water” or “bay farm”. Wikipedia

.

An image from Calgary, AB, Canada

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in the Nevşehir, Kayseri, Aksaray, Kırşehir, Malatya, Sivas and Niğde provinces in Turkey.

Since the late 300s BC, the name Cappadocia came to be restricted to the inland province (sometimes called Great Cappadocia), Upper Cappadocia, which alone will be the focus of this article. Lower Cappadocia is focused to elsewhere.

According to Herodotus, in the time of the Ionian Revolt (499 BC), the Cappadocians were reported as occupying a region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine (Black Sea). Cappadocia, in this sense, was bounded in the south by the chain of the Taurus Mountains that separate it from Cilicia to the east by the upper Euphrates, to the north by Pontus, and to the west by Lycaonia and eastern Galatia.

The name, traditionally used in Christian sources throughout history, continues in use as an international tourism concept to define a region of exceptional natural wonders, in particular characterized by fairy chimneys and a unique historical and cultural heritage.

The earliest record of the name of Cappadocia dates from the late 6th century BC when it appears in the trilingual inscriptions of two early Achaemenid kings, Darius I and Xerxes, as one of the countries (Old Persian dahyu-) of the Persian Empire. In these lists of countries, the Old Persian name is Katpatuka. It was proposed that Kat-patuka came from the Luwian language, meaning “Low Country”. Subsequent research suggests that the adverb katta meaning ‘down, below is exclusively Hittite, while its Luwian equivalent is zanta. Therefore, the recent modification of this proposal operates with the Hittite katta peda-, literally “place below” as a starting point for the development of the toponym Cappadocia. The earlier derivation from Iranian Hu-aspa-dahyu ‘Land of good horses’ can hardly be reconciled with the phonetic shape of Kat-patuka. A number of other etymologies have also been offered in the past.

Herodotus tells us that the name of the Cappadocians was applied to them by the Persians, while they were termed by the Greeks “White Syrians” (Leucosyri), who were most probably descendants of the Hittites. One of the Cappadocian tribes he mentions is the Moschoi, associated by Flavius Josephus with the biblical figure Meshech, son of Japheth: “and the Mosocheni were founded by Mosoch; now they are Cappadocians”. Wikipedia

.

An image from Underground City Cappadocia Turkey

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Cancún is a city in southeast Mexico on the northeast coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. It is a significant tourist destination in Mexico and the seat of the municipality of Benito Juárez. The city is on the Caribbean Sea and is one of Mexico’s easternmost points.

Cancún is just north of Mexico’s Caribbean coast resort area known as the Riviera Maya.

Cancún is derived from the Mayan name kàan kun, composed of kàan “snake” and the verb kum ~ kun “to swell, overfill”. Two translations have been suggested: the first is “nest of snakes” and the second, less accepted one is “place of the golden snake”.

The shield of the municipality of Benito Juárez, which represents the city of Cancún, was designed by the Mexican-American artist Joe Vera. It is divided into three parts: the color blue symbolizes the Caribbean Sea, the yellow the sand, and the red the sun with its rays.

In older English-language documents, the city’s name is sometimes spelled “Cancoon”, an attempt to convey the sound of the name. Wikipedia

.

An image from Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

The Netherlands is a country located in Western Europe with territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In Europe, the Netherlands consists of twelve provinces, bordering Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with those countries and the United Kingdom. In the Caribbean, it consists of three special municipalities: the islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba. The country’s official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland, and English and Papiamento as secondary official languages in the Caribbean Netherlands. Dutch Low Saxon and Limburgish are recognized regional languages (spoken in the east and southeast respectively), while Dutch Sign Language, Sinte Romani, and Yiddish are recognized non-territorial languages.

The four largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht. Amsterdam is the country’s most populous city and nominal capital, while The Hague holds the seat of the States-General, Cabinet, and Supreme Court. The Port of Rotterdam is the busiest seaport in Europe, and the busiest in any country outside East Asia and Southeast Asia, behind only China and Singapore. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is the busiest airport in the Netherlands and the third busiest in Europe. The country is a founding member of the European Union, Eurozone, G10, NATO, OECD, and WTO, as well as a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. It hosts several intergovernmental organizations and international courts, many of which are centered in The Hague, which is consequently dubbed ‘the world’s legal capital.

The Netherlands literally means “lower countries” in reference to its low elevation and flat topography, with only about 50% of its land exceeding 1 m (3.3 ft) above sea level, and nearly 26% falling below sea level. Most of the areas below sea level, known as polders, are the result of land reclamation that began in the 14th century. Colloquially or informally the Netherlands is occasionally referred to by the pars pro toto Holland. With a population of 17.5 million people, all living within a total area of roughly 41,800 km² (16,100 sq mi)—of which the land area is 33,500 km² (12,900 sq mi)—the Netherlands is the 16th most densely populated country in the world and the second-most densely populated country in the European Union, with a density of 523 people per square kilometer (1,350 people/sq mi). Nevertheless, it is the world’s second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products by value, owing to its fertile soil, mild climate, intensive agriculture, and inventiveness.

.

An image from Ter Haar, Netherlands

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the 30th most populous city in the United States, with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was designated an independent city by the Constitution of Maryland in 1851, and today is the largest independent city in the United States. As of 2017, the population of the Baltimore metropolitan area was estimated to be just under 2.802 million, making it the 21st largest metropolitan area in the country. Baltimore is located about 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Washington, D.C., making it a principal city in the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area (CSA), the third-largest CSA in the nation, with a calculated 2018 population of 9,797,063.

Prior to European colonization, the Baltimore region was used as hunting grounds by the Susquehannock Native Americans, who were primarily settled further north than where the city was later built. Colonists from the Province of Maryland established the Port of Baltimore in 1706 to support the tobacco trade with Europe and established the Town of Baltimore in 1729. The Battle of Baltimore was a pivotal engagement during the War of 1812, culminating in the failed British bombardment of Fort McHenry, during which Francis Scott Key wrote a poem that would become “The Star-Spangled Banner”, which was eventually designated as the American national anthem in 1931. During the Pratt Street Riot of 1861, the city was the site of some of the earliest violence associated with the American Civil War.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the oldest railroad in the United States, was built in 1830 and cemented Baltimore’s status as a major transportation hub, giving producers in the Midwest and Appalachia access to the city’s port. Baltimore’s Inner Harbor was once the second leading port of entry for immigrants to the United States. In addition, Baltimore was a major manufacturing center. After a decline in major manufacturing, heavy industry, and restructuring of the rail industry, Baltimore has shifted to a service-oriented economy. Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins University are the city’s top two employers. Baltimore and its surrounding region are home to the headquarters of a number of major organizations and government agencies, including the NAACP, ABET, the National Federation of the Blind, Catholic Relief Services, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the Social Security Administration.

Many of Baltimore’s neighborhoods have rich histories. The city is home to some of the earliest National Register Historic Districts in the nation, including Fell’s Point, Federal Hill, and Mount Vernon. These were added to the National Register between 1969 and 1971, soon after historic preservation legislation was passed. Baltimore has more public statues and monuments per capita than any other city in the country. Nearly one-third of the city’s buildings (over 65,000) are designated as historic in the National Register, which is more than any other U.S. city. Wikipedia

.

An image from Baltimore, MD, USA

.

.

Click the link below for images:

.

__________________________________________