Monday 24 December 2012

Albanian Alps (Prokletije Mountains)

The mountain range called Prokletije Mountains (or Albanian Alps) extends from northern Albania, to southwestern Serbia and eastern Montenegro and is characterized by abundant rain. A lot of grazing sheep could be seen on the slopes of the enchanting and wild mountains. This is the perfect tourist destination for adventurers who seek for solitude, for alpinists or hikers, as there are not any marked trails. The mountain range is also known for the rich variety of its flora and fauna and for the Thetit National Park. The highest peak of the Albanian Alps is Maja Jezerece with height of 2694 m and is the second highest in Albania.

Albania "Butrint"

Butrint

Situated on the Straits of Corfu, surrounded by gorgeous lagoon, Butrint is one of the most picturesque and remarkable sites in the in the Adriatic Sea region. It was an ancient Greek and later Roman city in Epirus, inhabited since prehistoric times and functioned as port from Hellenistic to Ottoman times. A nymphaeum, an aqueduct, a Roman bath and a forum complex were erected to make it typical Roman settlement. Today the city is home to several significant finds in archeology and a true archaeological wonder. It has been declared by UNESCO in 1992 a World Heritage Site.

Albania "Kruja Castle"

Kruja Castle

Built during the 5th and 6th centuries, the Kruja Castle is one of the most famous forts of Albania and center of Skanderbeg's battle against the Ottoman Turks. It is distinguished with its elliptical shape with a total area of 2.25 hectares and surrounding walls which are reinforced by nine towers. They served as signal and observation post during times of war. Remains of a few houses could be still seen within the massive walls of the castle. Today the Kruja Castle is among the top attractions in Albania and source of pride and inspiration to Albanians.

Archaeological site of Apollonia

About eight miles outside the city of Fier lay the ruins of the notorious ancient city of Apollonia. The city flourished in the Roman period and was home of the renowned philosophical school. Founded in 588 BC by Greeks from Corinth, Apollonia is an emblematic city for the rich cultural-historic heritage of Albania. The Illirian city was the most significant of all the 30 cities in the ancient world, named after God Apollo. It is therefore home to many archaeological sites from different periods - Roman, Greek, Venetian, Albanian, etc. The monuments of this city hold the impressive 1000 years of history and preserved the spirit of the ancient legendary epochs with the imprint of their specific cultures.

Read beach

Red Beach

Red beach Santorini: The red beach is one of the most famous and beautiful of the beaches of Santorini. It is located near the village and ancient site of Akrotiri

Sunday 23 December 2012

Bala Hisar

Bala Hissar is an ancient fortress located in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan. The estimated date of construction is around the 5th century A.D. Bala Hissar sits to the south of the modern city centre at the tail end of the Kuh-e-Sherdarwaza Mountain. The Walls of Kabul, which are 20 feet (6.1 m) high and 12 feet (3.7 m) thick, start at the fortress and follow the mountain ridge in a sweeping curve down to the river. It sports a set of gates for access to the fortress.

Bala Hissar was originally divided into two parts: The lower fortress, containing the stables, barracks and three royal palaces, and the upper fortress (the actual fort with the name Bala Hissar) housing the armory and the dungeon of Kabul, known as the "Black Pit" (the Siyah Chal).

Mousallah Complex

On a short walk from the city center are the remains of old madrassa built by the Queen Gaur Shad in 1417. The wife of Timurid ruler Shah Rukh, Gaur Shad was the daughter-in-law of Timur and a remarkable woman in her own right who kept the empire intact for many years. The Mousallah Complex has been described as the most beautiful example in color in architecture ever devised by man to the glory of his God and himself. Gaur Shad’s mausoleum still stands near the madrassa. There were 12 minarets in this complex but six of them were demolished by British troops in 1885 whereas earthquakes subsequently downed rest of the three in 1931 & 1951. The mausoleum of Gaur Shad still stands near the madrassa. This is a beautiful tomb with tile work and typical ribbed dome as of Tamerlane in Samarkand.

Shahr-e-Gholgola

The cave town of Shahr-e-Gholgola is located in central part of Afghanistan. These are the ruins of a once prosperous city of 05^th to 07^th A.D., which was demolished by Genghis Khan during his invasion in Bamiyan Valley in 1221 A.D. The name is derived from Persian and means the “city of noise”. Others refer to it as “Silent city” or “Screaming city”. The Mongols themselves have called this city “Mao Balegh”, meaning the “Cursed city”. Infact when Genghis Khan brought the defenders of this town to their knees where upon he entered the citadel to fulfill a vow to kill everybody including man, woman, child, bird and animal in the valley. The scream that accompanied the final massacre gave the citadel the name by which it is known today.

Sultan Masood Palace

This palace was completed in 112 A.D. and it used to be the court of Masud III who was born in Ghazni in 1061. He ruled from 1099 to 1114 A.D. This palace is a vast complex including a throne room, government offices, soldiers’ quarters, a mosque with its minarets and pockets of gardens in addition to the royal apartment.

The Mausoleum of Ahmed Shah Durrani

Ahmad Shah Durrani (c. 1722–1773), also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī and born as Ahmad Khān, was the founder of the Durrani Empire (Afghan Empire) in 1747 and is regarded by many to be the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan.

Ahmad Khan enlisted as a young soldier in the military of the Afsharid kingdom and quickly rose to become a commander of four thousand Abdali Pashtun soldiers. After the death of Nader Shah Afshar of Persia in June 1747, Abdali became the Emir of Khorasan. Rallying his Pashtun tribes and allies, he pushed east towards the Mughal and the Maratha Empire of India as well as west towards the disintegrating Afsharid Empire of Persia and north toward the Khanate of Bukhara. Within a few years he had conquered all of today's Afghanistan and Pakistan, including much of northeastern Iran and the Punjab region in the Indian subcontinent. He decisively defeated the Marathas at the 1761 Battle of Panipat which was fought north of Delhi in India.

After his natural death in 1772–73, his son Timur Shah took control of the empire. Ahmad Shah's mausoleum is located at Kandahar, Afghanistan, adjacent to the famous Mosque of the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed in the center of the city. The Afghans often refer to him as Ahmad Shah Bābā

Saturday 22 December 2012

Bote-Bambiyan

The Buddhas of Bamiyan were two 6th century monumental statues of standing buddha carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, situated 230 km (140 mi) northwest of Kabul at an altitude of 2,500 meters (8,202 ft). Built in 507 CE, the larger in 554 CE, the statues represented the classic blended style of Gandhara art.

The main bodies were hewn directly from the sandstone cliffs, but details were modeled in mud mixed with straw, coated with stucco. This coating, practically all of which wore away long ago, was painted to enhance the expressions of the faces, hands and folds of the robes; the larger one was painted carmine red and the smaller one was painted multiple colors.

The lower parts of the statues' arms were constructed from the same mud-straw mix while supported on wooden armatures. It is believed that the upper parts of their faces were made from great wooden masks or casts. Rows of holes that can be seen in photographs were spaces that held wooden pegs that stabilized the outer stucco.

They were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were idols.[5] International opinion strongly condemned the destruction of the Buddhas, which was viewed as an example of the intolerance of the Taliban. Japan and Switzerland, among others, have pledged support for the rebuilding of the statues.

Photojournalist David Adams filmed the Buddhas prior to their destruction for an episode of Journeys to the Ends of the Earth, a travel series for the Discovery Channel

Friday 21 December 2012

Afghanistan tourist place Gardens of Babur

Gardens of Babur

The Gardens of Babur, locally called Bagh-e Babur, is a historic park in Kabul, Afghanistan, and also the last resting-place of the first Mughal emperor Babur. The gardens are thought to have been developed around 1528 AD (935 AH) when Babur gave orders for the construction of an ‘avenue garden’ in Kabul, described in some detail in his memoirs, the Baburnama.

It was the tradition of Moghul princes to develop sites for recreation and pleasure during their lifetime, and choose one of these as a last resting-place. The site continued to be of significance to Babur’s successors, and Jehangir made a pilgrimage to the site in 1607 AD (1016 AH) when he ordered that all gardens in Kabul be surrounded by walls, that a prayer platform be laid in front of Babur’s grave, and an inscribed headstone placed at its head. During the visit of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in 1638 (1047 AH) a marble screen was erected around the group of tombs, and a mosque built on the terrace below. There are accounts from the time of the visit to the site of Shah Jahan in 1638 (1047AH) of a stone water-channel that ran between an avenue of trees from the terrace below the mosque, with pools at certain intervals.

Masjet-e-Jam

The mosque was constructed by the Timurids. As the mosque came under different rulers, it was extended, expanded and renovated. Some of the rulers that had a hand in its renovation include the Mughals and the Safavids.

This mosque was not always the biggest in the area. In fact, the Timurids constructed a much bigger one. This was established at the north of the city. However, these were destroyed by the British Indian Army in 1885. The British had the structures destroyed so the Russians would not be able to use them as a base during their invasion of India.

The mosque that stands today was built upon an even older mosque dating from the 10th century. The renovation of the place began in 1943. It was in a state of disrepair. The reconstruction would subsequently make it one of the main tourist attractions in the country.It is visited by thousands of people yearly.

www.afghanistantourism.net/tag/masjet-e-jam/

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a United States National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site that straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The border between Tennessee and North Carolina runs northeast to southwest through the centerline of the park. It is the most visited national park in the United States. On its route from Maine to Georgia, the Appalachian Trail also passes through the center of the park. The park was chartered by the United States Congress in 1934 and officially dedicated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940. It encompasses 522,419 acres (816.28 sq mi; 2,114.15 km2), making it one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States. The main park entrances are located along U.S. Highway 441 (Newfound Gap Road) at the towns of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Cherokee, North Carolina. It was the first national park whose land and other costs were paid for in part with federal funds; previous parks were funded wholly with state money or private funds

Empire Mall

Empire Mall is a shopping mall in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA. Opened in 1975, the mall comprises more than 140 tenants (180 including carts, kiosks, hotels, ATMs, grocery stores and surrounding outdoor retail which can vary by season) in 1,341,202 square feet (124,601.7 m2) of retail space, including four anchor stores (JCPenney, Macy's, Sears and Younkers) and a food court. It is also the 3rd largest mall located between Minneapolis, Minnesota and Denver, Colorado[citation needed] with Iowa's Jordan Creek Town Center in West Des Moines, IA having the largest with 2,000,000 square feet (190,000 m2) which ranks it 23rd in the List of largest shopping malls in the United States.[better source needed] Empire Mall is, however, the largest tourist attraction in South Dakota, with more than seven million visitors annually. The mall is owned and managed by Simon Property Group.

www.theempiremall.com/

Lake Mead National Recreation Area

Lake Mead National Recreation Area is a U.S. National Recreation Area located in southeastern Nevada and northwestern Arizona. Operated by the National Park Service, Lake Mead NRA follows the Colorado River corridor from the westernmost boundary of Grand Canyon National Park to just north of the cities of Laughlin, Nevada and Bullhead City, Arizona. It includes all of the eponymous Lake Mead as well as the smaller Lake Mohave – reservoirs on the river created by Hoover Dam and Davis Dam, respectively – and the surrounding desert terrain and wilderness.

Formation of Lake Mead began in 1935, less than a year before Hoover Dam was completed. The area surrounding Lake Mead was established as the Boulder Dam Recreation Area in 1936. In 1964, the area was expanded to include Lake Mohave and its surrounding area and became the first National Recreation Area to be designated as such by the U.S. Congress.

Lake Mead NRA features water recreation - boating, swimming, and fishing – on both lakes as well as the stretches of river between the lakes. It also features hiking trails and views of the surrounding desert landscape; three of the four desert ecosystems found in the U.S. — the Mojave Desert, the Great Basin Desert, and the Sonoran Desert — meet in Lake Mead NRA. Tours of Hoover Dam – administered by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation – are also a major attraction within the recreation area.

About 20,000 acres (8,100 ha) of the recreation area are managed separately under the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, established in 2000. Water covers about 186,000 acres (75,000 ha) of the recreation area.

Navy Pier

Navy Pier is a 3,300-foot (1,010 m) long pier on the Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan. It is located in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area. The pier was built in 1916 at a cost of $4.5 million, equivalent to $96.1 million today. It was a part of the Plan of Chicago developed by architect and city planner Daniel Burnham and his associates. As Municipal Pier #2 (Municipal Pier #1 was never built), Navy Pier was planned and built to serve as a mixed-purpose piece of public infrastructure. Its primary purpose was as a cargo facility for lake freighters, and warehouses were built up and down the Pier. However, the Pier was also designed to provide docking space for passenger excursion steamers, and in the pre-air conditioning era parts of the Pier, especially its outermost tip, were designed to serve as cool places for public gathering and entertainment. The Pier even had its own streetcar. Today, Navy Pier is Chicago's

number one tourist attraction

www.navypier.com/

Niagara Falls

From largest to smallest, the three waterfalls are the Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls. The Horseshoe Falls lie on the Canadian side and the American Falls on the American side, separated by Goat Island. The smaller Bridal Veil Falls are also located on the American side, separated from the other waterfalls by Luna Island. The international boundary line was originally drawn through Horseshoe Falls in 1819, but the boundary has long been in dispute due to natural erosion and construction.

Located on the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, the combined falls form the highest flow rate of any waterfall in the world, with a vertical drop of more than 165 feet (50 m). Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, as measured by vertical height and also by flow rate. The falls are located 17 miles (27 km) north-northwest of Buffalo, New York and 75 miles (121 km) south-southeast of Toronto, between the twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York.

Niagara Falls were formed when glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation (the last ice age), and water from the newly formed Great Lakes carved a path through the Niagara Escarpment en route to the Atlantic Ocean. While not exceptionally high, the Niagara Falls are very wide. More than 6 million cubic feet (168,000 m³) of water falls over the crest line every minute in high flow, and almost 4 million cubic feet (110,000 m³) on average.

The Niagara Falls are renowned both for their beauty and as a valuable source of hydroelectric power. Managing the balance between recreational, commercial, and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 19th century.

www.niagarafallshilton.com/