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Central Saint Giles, London

May 5, 2013, 6:58 am
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Central Saint Giles is a mixed-use development in central London. Built at a cost of £450 million and completed in May 2010, it was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano and is his first work in the UK. The development consists of two buildings of up to 15 storeys in height, arranged around a public courtyard lined with shops and restaurants. It is chiefly notable for its façades, covered with 134,000 glazed tiles in vivid shades of green, orange, lime and yellow. It has attracted a number of high-profile tenants including NBCUniversal, MindShare and Google
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Machu Picchu, Peru

May 5, 2013, 6:59 am
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Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level. Machu Picchu is located in the Cusco Region of Peru, South America. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is perhaps the most familiar icon of Inca civilization.

The Incas built the estate around 1450, but abandoned it as an official site for the Inca rulers a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of what the structures originally looked like. By 1976, thirty percent of Machu Picchu had been restored. The restoration work continues to this day.
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Cube House, Netherlands

May 5, 2013, 7:00 am
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Kubuswoningen, or cube houses, are a set of innovative houses built in Rotterdam and Helmond in The Netherlands, designed by architect Piet Blom and based on the concept of "living as an urban roof": high density housing with sufficient space on the ground level. Blom tilted the cube of a conventional house 45 degrees, and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pylon. His design represents a village within a city, where each house represents a tree, and all the houses together, a forest.
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Streets of Mykonos, Greece

May 5, 2013, 7:01 am
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Mykonos is a Greek island, part of the Cyclades, lying between Tinos, Syros, Paros and Naxos. The island spans an area of 85.5 km2 (33 sq mi) and rises to an elevation of 341 m (1,119 ft) at its highest point. There are 10,134 inhabitants (2011 census) most of whom live in the largest town, Mykonos, which lies on the west coast. The town is also known as Chora.

In ancient times, Mykonos, due to its proximity to the then highly populated island of Delos (situated about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) away), became very important as a supply island and possibly as a getaway location for Delian citizens.
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Navagio Beach - Zakynthos, Greece

May 5, 2013, 7:03 am
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Navagio Beach, or the Shipwreck, is an exposed cove, often referred to as 'Smugglers Cove', on the coast of Zakynthos, in the Ionian Islands of Greece and is the location of the wreck of the alleged smuggler ship Panagiotis.
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Saltaire Church - Bradford, Yorkshire

May 5, 2013, 7:05 am
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Photograph by Declan O'Doherty.


Saltaire is a Victorian model village within the City of Bradford Metropolitan District, West Yorkshire, England, by the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. UNESCO has designated the village as a World Heritage Site, and it is an Anchor Point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

Saltaire was founded in 1851 by Sir Titus Salt, a leading industrialist in the Yorkshire woollen industry. The name of the village is a combination of the founder's surname and the name of the river. Salt moved his business (five separate mills) from Bradford to this site near Shipley to arrange his workers and to site his large textile mill by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the railway. Salt employed the Bradford firm of Lockwood and Mawson as his architects.
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Pink sunset at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

May 5, 2013, 7:06 am
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Puerto Vallarta is a Mexican balneario resort city situated on the Pacific Ocean's Bahía de Banderas. The 2010 census reported Puerto Vallarta's population as 255,725 making it the second largest city in the state of Jalisco. The City of Puerto Vallarta is the government seat of the Municipality of Puerto Vallarta which comprises the city as well as population centers outside of the city extending from Boca de Tomatlán to the Nayarit border (the Ameca River).

The city is located at 20°40′N 105°16′W. The municipality has an area of 502.19 square miles (1,300.7 km2). To the north it borders the southwest part of the state of Nayarit. To the east it borders the municipality of Mascota and San Sebastián del Oeste, and to the south it borders the municipalities of Talpa de Allende and Cabo Corriente.
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Window to the Sea - Porto Venere, Italy

May 5, 2013, 7:08 am
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Porto Venere is a town and comune (municipality) located on the Ligurian coast of Italy in the province of La Spezia. It comprises the three villages of Fezzano, Le Grazie and Porto Venere, and the three islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto. In 1997 Porto Venere and the villages of Cinque Terre were designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

The ancient Portus Veneris is believed to date back to at least the middle of the 1st century BC. It has been said that the name refers to a temple to the goddess Venus which was sited on the promontory where the church of Peter the Apostle now stands. The name has also been linked to that of the hermit Saint Venerius. In Roman times the city was essentially a fishing community.
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Sarpi Border Checkpoint in Georgia

May 5, 2013, 7:09 am
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Architects: J. Mayer H. Architects
Location: Sarpi, Georgia
Client: Ministry of Finance of Georgia
Project Team: Juergen Mayer H., Jesko Malkolm Johnsson-Zahn, Christoph Emenlauer
Project Year: 2011
Photographs: Ucha Tsotseria, Jesko Malkolm Johnsson-Zahn, Beka Pkhakadze

November 2011 marks the completion of Sarpi Border Checkpoint. Designed by J. MAYER H. architects the customs checkpoint is situated at the Georgian border to Turkey, at the shore of the Black Sea. With its cantilevering terraces, the tower is used as a viewing platform, with multiple levels overlooking the water and the steep part of the coastline.

[Source]
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Rousanou Monastery - Meteora, Greece

May 5, 2013, 7:11 am
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The Holy Monastery of Rousanou/St. Barbara was founded in the middle of 16th century and decorated in 1560.

The Metéora is one of the largest and most important complexes of Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Greece, second only to Mount Athos. The six monasteries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars, at the northwestern edge of the Plain of Thessaly near the Pineios river and Pindus Mountains, in central Greece. The nearest town is Kalambaka. The Metéora is included on the UNESCO World Heritage List under criteria I, II, IV, V and VII.
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Saint Sebastian Church - Ramsau, Germany

May 5, 2013, 7:12 am
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Ramsau is a German municipality in the Bavarian Alps with a population of around 1,800. It is located in the district of Berchtesgadener Land in Bavaria, close to the border with Austria, 35 km south of Salzburg and 150 km south-east of Munich. It is situated north of the Berchtesgaden National Park.

Ramsau is famous for its high mountains, including the third highest mountain in Germany, the fabled Mount Watzmann (2713 m), and for the lake Hintersee. The church of Ramsau is often on postcards.
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Spring in Conservatory Garden - Central Park, NYC

May 5, 2013, 7:14 am
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The Conservatory Garden is the only formal garden in Central Park, New York City. Comprising 6 acres (24,000 m2), it takes its name from a conservatory that stood on the site from 1898 to 1934. The park's head gardener used the glasshouses to harden hardwood cuttings for the park's plantings. After the conservatory was torn down, the garden was designed by Gilmore D. Clarke, landscape architect for Robert Moses, with planting plans by M. Betty Sprout; constructed and planted by WPA workers, it was opened to the public in 1937.

After the Second World War the garden had become neglected, and by the 1970s a wasteland. It was restored and partially replanted under the direction of horticulturist and urban landscape designer Lynden Miller, to reopen in June 1987. The overgrown, top-heavy crabapples were freed of watershoots and pruned up to a higher scaffold for better form. The high-style mixed planting was the first to bring estate garden style to urban parks, part of the general renewal of Central Park under Elizabeth Barlow Rogers of the Central Park Conservancy.
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Tiber River flowing through Vatican City

May 5, 2013, 7:15 am
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The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing 406 kilometres (252 mi) through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at 17,375 square kilometres (6,709 sq mi). The river has achieved lasting fame as the main watercourse of the city of Rome, founded on its eastern banks.

The river rises at Mount Fumaiolo in central Italy and flows in a generally southerly direction past Perugia and Rome to meet the sea at Ostia. Popularly called flavus ("the blond"), in reference to the yellowish colour of its water, the Tiber has heavily advanced at the mouth by about 3 km since Roman times, leaving the ancient port of Ostia Antica 6 km inland. However, it does not form a proportional delta, owing to a strong north-flowing sea current close to the shore, to the steep shelving of the coast, and to slow tectonic subsidence
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The Rings of Moray, Peru

May 5, 2013, 7:16 am
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Moray is an archaeological site in Peru approximately 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Cuzco on a high plateau at about 3500 m (11,500 ft) and just west of the village of Maras. The site contains unusual Inca ruins, mostly consisting of several enormous terraced circular depressions, the largest of which is about 30 m (98 ft) deep. The purpose of these depressions is uncertain, but their depth and orientation with respect to wind and sun creates a temperature difference of as much as 15 °C (27 °F) between the top and bottom. This large temperature difference was possibly used by the Inca to study the effects of different climatic conditions on crops. In other words, Moray was perhaps an Inca agricultural experiment station. As with many other Inca sites, it also has a sophisticated irrigation system.
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Sunset in Venice, Italy

May 5, 2013, 7:19 am
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Venice is one of the most important tourist destinations in the world for its celebrated art and architecture. The city has an average of 50,000 tourists a day (2007 estimate). In 2006, it was the world's 28th most internationally visited city, with 2.927 million international arrivals that year. It is regarded as one of the world's most beautiful cities.

Today, there are numerous attractions in Venice, such as St Mark's Basilica, the Grand Canal, and the Piazza San Marco. The Lido di Venezia is also a popular international luxury destination, attracting thousands of actors, critics, celebrities, and mainly people in the cinematic industry. The city also relies heavily on the cruise business.
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Alberta National Park, Canada

May 8, 2013, 8:45 am
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The origin of Canadian National Parks lies in Alberta, where in 1885, with creation of the Banff National Park the foundation for Canadian National Parks was laid.

Waterton, Elk Island (1913) and Wood Buffalo National Park (1922) were soon to follow. Nowadays there are five National Parks within the province of Alberta.

Alberta's National Parks also internationally play a major role. Wood Buffalo National Park is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.

[Source]
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Bodleian Library, Oxford

May 8, 2013, 8:46 am
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The Bodleian Library, the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library with over 11 million items. Known to Oxford scholars as "Bodley" or simply "the Bod", under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 it is one of six legal deposit libraries for works published in the United Kingdom and under Irish Law it is entitled to request a copy of each book published in the Republic of Ireland. The Bodleian operates principally as a reference library and in general documents may not be removed from the reading rooms.

All Oxford colleges have their own libraries, which in a number of cases were established well before the foundation of the Bodleian. Historically, the college libraries were entirely independent of the Bodleian. However, recent years have seen them brought together for certain purposes under the umbrella of what was formerly known as Oxford University Library Services (OULS), and now as the Bodleian Libraries, of which the Bodleian is just one.
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Fingal's Cave, Scotland

May 8, 2013, 8:48 am
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Fingal's Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, part of a National Nature Reserve owned by the National Trust for Scotland. It is formed entirely from hexagonally jointed basalt columns within a Paleocene lava flow, similar in structure to the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland and those of nearby Ulva. In all these cases, cooling on the upper and lower surfaces of the solidified lava resulted in contraction and fracturing, starting in a blocky tetragonal pattern and transitioning to a regular hexagonal fracture pattern with fractures perpendicular to the cooling surfaces. As cooling continued these cracks gradually extended toward the centre of the flow, forming the long hexagonal columns we see in the wave eroded cross-section today. Similar hexagonal fracture patterns are found in desiccation cracks in mud where contraction is due to loss of water instead of cooling.

Its size and naturally arched roof, and the eerie sounds produced by the echoes of waves, give it the atmosphere of a natural cathedral. The cave's Gaelic name, An Uaimh Bhinn, means "the melodious cave."
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Burj Khalifa from Top, Dubai

May 8, 2013, 8:49 am
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Burj Khalifa, known as Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 m (2,722 ft).

Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010, and is part of the new 2 km2 (490-acre) development called Downtown Dubai at the 'First Interchange' along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai's main business district. The tower's architecture and engineering were performed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of Chicago, with Adrian Smith as chief architect, and Bill Baker as chief structural engineer. The primary contractor was Samsung C&T of South Korea.

In March 2009, Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of the project's developer, Emaar Properties, said office space pricing at Burj Khalifa reached US$4,000 per sq ft (over US$43,000 per m²) and the Armani Residences, also in Burj Khalifa, sold for US$3,500 per sq ft (over US$37,500 per m²). He estimated the total cost for the project to be about US$1.5 billion.
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Frozen Montmorency Falls - Quebec, Canada

May 8, 2013, 8:50 am
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The Montmorency Falls are a large waterfall on the Montmorency River in Quebec, Canada. The falls are located on the boundary between the borough of Beauport, Quebec City, and Boischatel, about 12 km from the heart of old Quebec City. The area surrounding the falls is protected within the Montmorency Falls Park.

The falls, at 84 meters (275 ft) high, (and 150 feet wide) are the highest in the province of Quebec and 30 m (98 ft) higher than Niagara Falls. The basin at the foot of the falls is 17 m (56 ft) deep. The falls are at the mouth of the Montmorency River where it drops over the cliff shore into the Saint Lawrence River, opposite the western end of the Île d'Orleans. The falls were given this name in 1613 by Samuel de Champlain. He named them in honour of Henri II, duc de Montmorency, who served as viceroy of New France from 1620 until 1625.
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