Travelog
FROM The man in the front seat / June 14, 2019
Catherine Palace, Pushkin
Located in 30km south of St. Petersburg in the village of Pushkin (Tsarskoye Selo), Catherine I, wife of Peter the Great, decided to build a small summer home as a rural retreat. Over the next 200 years Russian Tsars and their families would use the palace as a summer home, each adding something to eventually build one of the finest palaces in Europe. History In 1717, Catherine I hired a German architect Johann-Friedrich Braunstein to design a palace to escape the city of St. Petersburg, the newly formed capital of […]
FROM The man in the front seat / June 14, 2019
The Øresund Connection
Øresund Bridge Is a combined road and rail bridge which crosses the Øresund strait and running for almost 8km (5mi) from the Swedish coast to the artificial island of Peberholm in the middle of the strait. The bridge is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe and, along with the Drogden Tunnel, connects the Danish capital of Copenhagen with Sweden’s third largest city Malmö. It was the last piece in a connection that linked the Scandinavian Peninsula with continental Europe. The bridge also carries a data cable that carries […]
FROM The man in the front seat / March 15, 2019
Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen
Opened in 1843, the Tivoli (or Tivoli Gardens) is a garden and amusement park located in Copenhagen, Denmark. The park is the second oldest operating amusement park in the world after the Dyrehavsbakken (more commonly known as ¨Bakken¨) which was opened in 1583. Almost 5 million people visit the park each year making it also one of the most popular amusement parks in the world. The park was founded by Georg Carstensen who convinced the then King, Christian VIII, that: ¨when the people are amusing themselves, they do not think […]
FROM The man in the front seat / January 8, 2019
Wilanów Palace
In 1771 the process began to divide Poland, and its neighbour Lithuania, up and distribute large parts of the countries to their neighbours. By 1795, Poland ceased to exist as a state, and it remained like that for the next 123 years. This Partitioning, combined with two World Wars in the 20thcentury saw nearly every historical and cultural building in Poland destroyed. Wilanów Palace just outside Warsaw however is one building that survived tumultuous period, so much so that today it serves as a reminder of the culture of the […]
FROM The man in the front seat / December 13, 2018
Kryžių Kalnas – the hill of crosses
The Hill of Crosses is located 12km outside the city of Šiauliai in Northern Lithuania. For almost 200 years Catholics have been placing not only crosses, but also crucifixes, rosaries, statues of the Virgen Mary and along with carvings of Lithuanian patriots, here with the number today surpassing 100,000. Legend has it that the Virgin Mary appeared here, holding an infant Jesus, and asked believers to cover this holy place with icons. Today, the hill has become a symbol of Lithuanian endurance in the face of the numerous threats that […]
