Placearama

Neemrana Fort Palace Hotel (Rajasthan India)

picMaster — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:33:04 +0000

On the fringes of the formidable Thar Desert lies the Neemrana Fort Palace hotel, India’s oldest heritage hotel. Built in 1464, this was the 3rd capital of the descendants of Prithivraj Chauhan III (A famous ruler killed in a battle with the invader Muhammad Ghori in 1192). Neemrana stands on a hill in ten levels, and is an imposing combination of whaleback roofs, jharokhas (carved windows), jaalis (stone filigree screens), and balconies. A ruin till it was renovated by French experts in the 1990s, Neemrana blends medieval and modern, East and West. The rooms, each one unique, are scattered across the entire palace. [text source: igougo.com]

More info at Wikipedia. Also, a nice slideshow of the renovation of the hotel (in 1991) is locatated at archnet.org.

The hotel’s main site (for more information or for bookings) is here.

Credit: Niels J. Hoffmeyer Source: panoramio.com

Credit: anjali Source: picasaweb.google.com

Credit: David Haberlah Source: flickr.com

Source: econ.ucdavis.edu

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Credit: anjali Source: picasaweb.google.com

Source: team-bhp.com

Credit: David Haberlah Source: flickr.com

Credit: Niels J. Hoffmeyer Source: panoramio.com

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Château de Chillon (Montreux, Switzerland)

picMaster — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:51:11 +0000

The Chillon Castle (Château de Chillon) is located on the shore of Lake Geneva, at the eastern end of the lake, near Montreux, Switzerland. The castle consists of 100 independent buildings that were gradually connected and now form a single whole.

The oldest parts of the castle have not been definitively dated, but the first written record of the castle is in 1160 or 1005. From the mid 12th century, the castle was home to the Counts of Savoy, and it was greatly expanded in the 13th century by Pietro II. The Castle was never taken in a siege, but did change hands through treaties. (from Wikipedia)

Tours are available and the Castle is also available for special functions (see their official site).

Credit: mairabc Source: flickr.com

Credit: Benjamin Gimmel Source: wikimedia.org

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Credit: Benjamin Gimmel Source: gimmels.net

Credit: Dan Staehelin Source: panoramio.com

Castle Chillon was made popular by Lord Byron, who wrote the poem The Prisoner Of Chillon (1816) about François de Bonivard, a Genevois monk and politician who was imprisoned there from 1530 to 1536; Byron also carved his name on a pillar of the dungeon shown above.

Credit: Pear Biter Source: flickr.com

California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco, California, USA)

picMaster — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:13:57 +0000

The California Academy of Sciences is one of the ten largest museums of natural history in the World. Remodeled in 2008, it is also one of the newest in the United States. It is located in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, USA. (Wikipedia Article)

Credit: Tim Griffith Source: archdaily.com

Source: earth2tech.com

Credit: Tim Griffith Source: archdaily.com

Source: mergy.org

Credit: Melissa Source: picassaweb.google.com

Credit: Tim Griffith Source: archdaily.com

Tropical Islands Dome (Brandenburg, Germany)

picMaster — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:46:30 +0000

Just 60 km south of Berlin, the German capital city, Tropical Islands Dome is a converted airship hangar that is now home to the Worlds largest indoor rainforest, a complete Tropical village with authentic houses, shops and restaurants, white sand beaches, a Balinese lagoon and Tropical sea for bathing – plus Germany’s highest water slide. (Link to official site: www.tropical-islands.de)

More information can be found on Wikipedia.

If you’d like to book a vacation here, why not try Sun Kiss Travel (their images used in this post, but no compensation received.)

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Roraima Tepui (Canaima National Park, Venezuela)

picMaster — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:06:17 +0000

Mount Roraima is the highest of a group of table-top mountains, known as tepuis, in South America.

Reference: Wikipedia

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In the south-eastern corner of Venezuela, and also overlapping into parts of Brazil and Guyana, is the geological formation known as the Roraima Group. These sedimentary rocks, up to 3,000m deep, were laid down over 2 billion years ago as the ancient continent of Pangea was eroded by thousands of years of incessant rain, and remained unsubmerged as Gondwanaland was split apart under the forces of Continental Drift to form Africa and the South America. It is sobering to think that when the first plant life appeared these rocks were already at least 1.4 billion years old.

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The present-day tepuis, a Pemón Indian word for mountain, are believed to be remnants of the gigantic sandstone plateau which was selectively eroded after movements in the Earth’s crust caused points of weakness which were exploited by the great rivers of the region. Today the table mountains tower above the surrounding savanna, often with sheer cliffs of thousands of feet.

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The highest tepui in the Venezuelan Gran Sabana is Roraima, 2,810 metres, on the border with Brazil and Guyana. The name is a Pemón Indian word meaning ‘The large and ever-fruitful Mother of the streams”. Its 44 square mile plateau was first climbed by the English botanist Everard Im Thurn on an expedition sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society in 1884, and it was his subsequent lectures in England, together with those of Colonel P H Fawcett on the Serra Ricardo Franco range in Brazil, that are believed to have been the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Lost World”.

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To view the website of the caving expedition that took these pictures, visit here: audy.speleo.cz

They also have a DVD of the expedition for sale here.

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Autana Tepui (Amazonas state, Venezuela)

picMaster — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 05:15:54 +0000

Autana, the tree of life, is a spectacular tepui located in the Amazonas state in Venezuela. It stands 1,220 m (4,000 f) above sea level. A unique cave runs from one side of the mountain through the other.

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Lago Conguillío, Araucanía Region of Chile, Conguillío National Park

picMaster — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:53:16 +0000

Conguillío National Park is located in the Andes, in the provinces of Cautín and Malleco, in the Araucanía Region of Chile. Its name derives from the Mapuche word for “water with Araucaria seeds”. This national park covers about 608 square kilometers.

Among the attractions in the park are the Llaima volcano, Sierra Nevada and wild landscapes characterized by islands of vegetation completely surrounded by vast areas of basaltic to andesitic lava flows. Wikipedia Article

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Invernadero de Atocha (Madrid, Spain)

picMaster — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 05:48:10 +0000

Invernadero de Atocha (literally “Atocha’s Greenhouse“) is a tropical botanical garden in Atocha railway station (Madrid, Spain)

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Tree House in Kamishihoro, Northern Japan (Hokkaido)

picMaster — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:59:38 +0000

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TAKASHI KOBAYASHI, a clothing buyer turned professional treehouse builder who lives in Kamakura, Japan, was not to the treehouse born. “Japan doesn’t have a tradition of treehouses,” said Mr. Kobayashi, 49. “There’s little private land with big trees.” But that didn’t stop him from building his first treehouse in 1993, on a piece of land he rented in Tokyo; since then, he has built 25 more, most of them for elementary schools. In September, Dentsu, an advertising agency in Tokyo, hired him to design a treehouse for a Nescafé commercial now running on Japanese television; it shows Mr. Kobayashi and a well-known actor, Toshiaki Karasawa, talking and drinking coffee in the tree. Using driftwood gathered in Obihiro, on the northern island of Hokkaido, Mr. Kobayashi built an oval bird’s nest of a house, 12 feet high and 9 feet in diameter, reached by a circular staircase, for about $38,000. The house is located on a field there owned by the town of Kamishihoro, where it remains an enticing, if off-limits, gift from Nestlé, the makers of Nescafé, to the people of Hokkaido. (Source: New York Times)

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Glass House, Freetown Christiania, Copenhagen, Denmark

picMaster — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:38:43 +0000

More information on this very interesting community in Copenhagen may be found here: Wikipedia.org

Multiple Resolutions Source: flickr.com Credit: seier+seier+seier