We're sure that everyone who frequents our site knows of The Vatican, even if you're not a believer. But despite the openness of the Vatican (nowadays, anyway) there is still so much to learn and understand. The video below attempts to shed some light on this most venerated of institutions.
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Design and Art
If you frequent our site, you'll know how much we love architecture: it's a part of life, especially when it is executed with creativity, originality and love. We especially like the Bauhaus and modern movements from the start of the twentieth century. It is often almost impossible to visit, let alone stay in some of…
Raimondo di Sangro Prince of Sansevero (Torremaggiore 1710 – Naples 1771) was an original exponent of the first European Enlightenment. A brave soldier, man of letters, publisher, first Grand Master of Neapolitan Masonry, he was – more than anything else – a prolific and enterprising inventor and patron. In the underground laboratories of his palace,…
Machine-written literature might offend your tastes but until the dawn of Romanticism most writers were just as formulaic. Since its inception in 2015, the research laboratory OpenAI – an Elon Musk-backed initiative that seeks to build human-friendly artificial intelligence – has developed a series of powerful ‘language models’, the latest being GPT-3 (third-generation Generative Pre-trained…
Gratifyingly, people are starting to understand that climate change is real. Turn on the television every day and a new horrifying example of our changing world appears. On a very positive note, though, Dubai just got the world's first ‘green’ mosque. As per the reports, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) inaugurated the world's first…
Trains are everywhere in Europe. Some of the trains travel at high speed across the continent, while others move around leisurely, either by day or by night. Find out about the different European trains like sleeper trains, chocolate trains, high speed trains and the provided facilities for a clear idea of what train travel in…
Where you can escape to nature close to the city, more than 130 languages are spoken, and NYC’s only surf culture thrives... As one of the five boroughs of New York City, Queens is not only the largest and second-most populated—with over two million people—but it can be a world unto itself. While tourists often…
If you're of a certain age, or just love the art of the impossible, you'll likely know Roy Harryhausen. The film special effects superstar helped elevate stop motion animation to an art. His innovative and inspiring films, from the 1950s onwards, changed the face of modern movie making forever. And now his work can be…
Before ancient Egyptians built the Great Pyramid of Giza, with its impossibly straight sides, they worked on other variations of the structure. One such predecessor, which has rounded sides, is now welcoming visitors. Read more here courtesy of TravelAndLeisure.com
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With a rich pre-Colombian history, Ecuador's capital was founded on the ruins of an Incan city but offers everything a modern traveller might need.
It remains the least-altered historic centre in Latin America and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Quito’s important sites include baroque gems like San Francisco and Santo Domingo monasteries, as…
The tube houses of Hanoi Narrow residential houses, known as ‘nha ong’ in Vietnamese or ‘tube houses’, found in an urban area of Hanoi. Tall, thin and brightly colored, Hanoi's "tube houses" dominate the city's streets as 9 million people compete for space in Vietnam's bustling capital. Although Vietnam saw a number of villas and…
If the name "art depot" strikes you as one of those fly-by-night operations that appear in dying shopping malls, or in sketchy weekend flea markets, you'd likely be right. But, in this instance, you'd be wrong. Did you know that most museums only showcase around seven percent of their collections at any given time? …
The pandemic has inspired many to jump into nature. Over the last 360 days, we have attempted new nature activities like kayaking and spelunking, sought out remote hideaways, and found inner peace on long hikes. Maybe we even hugged (or spoke to) a few trees, because we were just so elated to be out of…
Always brash and cheeky, Pablo Picasso was never short on attitude. And here is a humorous example of that modus operandi.
His maxim that lesser artists borrow while the great ones steal is to be illustrated in Britain with a historic pairing of two artworks (David Sanderson writes). The National Gallery is collaborating with an American…
Italy is lovely enough as it is. But, when you find an opportunity to almost join the family, you should jump on it.
Here, we present to you Villa Catola in Bucine, Italy. Run by Fabio Catola and his family, from the minute you step out of the car, you will instantly feel like you've lived…
Walking through the quiet old streets of Mexico City’s San Ángel, a neighborhood hugged by old ash trees and immense colonial style buildings, there’s one edifice that doesn’t quite fit in. Two square houses, one blue and the other one red, are linked by a narrow bridge and fenced in by immense cactus plants. Most…
Now, here is some smart information. Have you every arrived in a phenomenal city, only to have a room with a view . . . of a brick wall? It happens to all of us. Well, here are some top places to stay for you, and you won't go bankrupt. And remember that when you…
We would imagine that many of us were educated in more or less the same ways, using the same topics and walking away from it with ever-lasting notions about what history was all about. We've moved on in our knowledge, of course, and every day bring a new enlightenment. Modern science and technology are turning…
New York City has one of the world’s biggest subway systems, but some areas of the city are poorly served. Even though New York City has the most extensive subway system in the Americas, less than two-thirds of the city’s population actually lives within walking distance of a station.
For the last 15 years, construction crews…
History is a "funny" old thing. Like tunics tumbling in a dryer, around and around the dynasties come and go. And, of course, sometimes they just melt into one another and no-one really remembers what it once was like.
At one of the most important places on earth sits Istanbul, Turkey. It still has a sharp…