Celebrating New Year 2018

Happy New Year! May 2018 bring us better peace, tolerance and joy. Wish you a very happy and prosperous new year. 

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The Emerald Coast: Nicaragua's hidden jewel: CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/nicaragua-emerald-coast/index.html

The Pena Palace

The Pena Palace (Portuguese: Palácio da Pena) is a Romanticist castle in São Pedro de Penaferrim, in the municipality of Sintra, Portugal. The castle stands on the top of a hill in the Sintra Mountains above the town of Sintra, and on a clear day it can be easily seen from Lisbon and much of its metropolitan area. It is a national monument and constitutes one of the major expressions of 19th-century Romanticism in the world. The palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal. It is also used for state occasions by the President of the Portuguese Republic and other government officials.

The castle's history started in the Middle Ages when a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Pena was built on the top of the hill above Sintra. According to tradition, construction occurred after an apparition of the Virgin Mary. In 1493, King John II, accompanied by his wife Queen Leonor, made a pilgrimage to the site to fulfill a vow. His successor, King Manuel I, was also very fond of this sanctuary, and ordered the construction of a monastery on this site which was donated to the Order of Saint Jerome. For centuries Pena was a small, quiet place for meditation, housing a maximum of eighteen monks. In the 18th century the monastery was severely damaged by lightning. However, it was the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, occurring shortly afterwards, that took the heaviest toll on the monastery, reducing it to ruins. Nonetheless, the chapel (and its works of marble and alabaster attributed to Nicolau Chanterene) escaped without significant damage.

For many decades the ruins remained untouched, but they still astonished young prince Ferdinand. In 1838, as King consort Ferdinand II, he decided to acquire the old monastery, all of the surrounding lands, the nearby Castle of the Moors and a few other estates in the area. King Ferdinand then set out to transform the remains of the monastery into a palace that would serve as a summer residence for the Portuguese royal family. The commission for the Romantic style rebuilding was given to Lieutenant-General and mining engineer Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege. Eschwege, a German amateur architect, was much traveled and likely had knowledge of several castles along the Rhine river. The construction took place between 1842–1854, although it was almost completed in 1847: King Ferdinand and Queen Maria II intervened decisively on matters of decoration and symbolism. Among others, the King suggested vault arches, Medieval and Islamic elements be included, and he also designed an ornate window for the main façade (inspired by the chapter house window of the Convent of the Order of Christ in Tomar).

After the death of Ferdinand the palace passed into the possession of his second wife Elisa Hensler, Countess of Edla. The latter then sold the palace to King Luís, who wanted to retrieve it for the royal family, and thereafter the palace was frequently used by the family. In 1889 it was purchased by the Portuguese State, and after the Republican Revolution of 1910 it was classified as a national monument and transformed into a museum. The last queen of Portugal, Queen Amélia, spent her last night at the palace before leaving the country in exile. The palace quickly drew visitors and became one of Portugal's most visited monuments. Over time the colors of the red and yellow façades faded, and for many years the palace was visually identified as being entirely gray. By the end of the 20th century the palace was repainted and the original colors restored. Source: Wikipedia

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What traditional buildings can teach architects about sustainability: CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/style/article/vernacular-architecture-sustainability/index.html

Bara Imambara

Bara Imambara is an imambara complex in Lucknow, India, built by Asaf-ud-Daula, Nawab of Awadh, in 1784. It is also called the Asafi Imambara. Bara means big, and an imambara is a shrine built by Shia Muslims for the purpose of Azadari. The Bara Imambara is among the grandest buildings of Lucknow. The complex also includes the large Asfi mosque, the bhul-bhulaiya (the labyrinth), and bowli, a step well with running water. Two imposing gateways lead to the main hall. It is said that there are 1024 ways to reach the terrace but only one to come back. It is an accidental architecture.

Construction of Bara Imambara was started in 1785, a year of a devastating famine, and one of [Asaf-ud-Daula]'s objectives in embarking on this grandiose project was to provide employment for people in the region for almost a decade while the famine lasted. It is said that ordinary people used to work in the day building up the edifice, while noblemen and other elite worked at night to break down anything that was raised that day. It was a project that preceded a Keynesian like intervention for employment generation. Construction of the Imambara was completed in 1791. Estimated cost of building the Imambara ranges between half a million rupees to a million rupees. Even after completion, the Nawab used to spend between four and five hundred thousand rupees on its decoration annually.

There is also a blocked tunnel passageway which, according to legends, leads through a mile-long underground passage to a location near the Gomti river. Other passages are rumoured to lead to Faizabad (the former seat of power of the Nawabs), Allahabad, Agra and even to Delhi. They exist but have been sealed after a period of long disuse as well as fears over the disappearance of people who had reportedly gone missing, while exploring but still the reality has not been checked. Source: Wikipedia

 

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New traditions: Japan's 700-year-old 'oke' craft gets a modern makeover: CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/style/article/nakagawa-mokkougei-wooden-buckets/index.html

Instant vacation: The world's best travel photos: CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/travel/gallery/best-travel-photos-2017/index.html

মার্কিন সেনাদের শেষ দলটি যেভাবে ভিয়েতনাম ছেড়ে পালিয়েছিল: BBC Bangla

http://www.bbc.com/bengali/news-42488235

See Photos Taken on Illegal Visits to Chernobyl's Dead Zone: National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/europe/ukraine/exclusion-zone-chernobyl-ukraine/

10 Trips to Gift Your Favorite Traveler: National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/lists/expeditions-trips-2017/

Best Winter Trips 2018: National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/features/best-trips/winter-vacations-visit-2018/

Top 5 Adventures to Have in Nicaragua: National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/north-america/nicaragua/adventure-nicaragua-travel-experiences/

Fantastic Adventures Near the North Pole: National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/destinations/arctic/adventures-to-the-north-pole/

This Immense, Fairy-Tale Castle was Built for One Person: National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/europe/germany/neuschwanstein-castle-fairy-tale-king-ludwig/

Château Louis XIV

The Château Louis XIV is a château constructed between 2008 and 2011 in the commune of Louveciennes in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region. The chateau was built by the property developer Emad Khashoggi's property development company COGEMAD using traditional craftsmanship techniques and materials. Located between Versailles and Marly-le-Roi on a 23-hectare (57-acre) walled site, the property is surrounded by moats and has a constructed surface area of 7,000 m² (75,350 ft²), 5,000 m² (53,800 ft²) of which are living space. The property pays various tributes to Louis XIV of France, France's Sun King and stands on a land which once formed part of the Versailles estate.

Khashoggi had previously restored the Palais Rose in Le Vésinet and the Château du Verduron in Marly-le-Roi. The Chateau Louis XIV was built on the site of the former Chateau du Camp^[5][6] in Louveciennes, with the aim of building a modern house, with hi-tech controls incorporated within a 17th-century aspect, layout, and materials. In 2015, the chateau was sold to a Middle Eastern buyer, identified by The New York Times as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The price of USD 301,000,000 was a world record for a residential property. Source: Wikipedia

The château circa 1668, as painted by Pierre Patel (Versailles Museum)

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Sanssouci - the summer palace of Frederick the Great

Sanssouci is the summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in Potsdam, near Berlin. It is often counted among the German rivals of Versailles. While Sanssouci is in the more intimate Rococo style and is far smaller than its French Baroque counterpart, it too is notable for the numerous temples and follies in the park. The palace was designed/built by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff between 1745 and 1747 to fulfill King Frederick's need for a private residence where he could relax away from the pomp and ceremony of the Berlin court. The palace's name emphasises this; it is a French phrase (sans souci), which translates as "without concerns", meaning "without worries" or "carefree", symbolising that the palace was a place for relaxation rather than a seat of power. The name in past times reflected a play on words, with the insertion of a comma visible between the words Sans and Souci, viz. Sans, Souci. Kittsteiner theorizes that this could be a philosophical play on words, meaning "without, beware" or it could be some secret religious message which nobody has interpreted, left to posterity by Frederick II.

Sanssouci is little more than a large, single-story villa—more like the Château de Marly than Versailles. Containing just ten principal rooms, it was built on the brow of a terraced hill at the centre of the park. The influence of King Frederick's personal taste in the design and decoration of the palace was so great that its style is characterised as "Frederician Rococo", and his feelings for the palace were so strong that he conceived it as "a place that would die with him". Because of a disagreement about the site of the palace in the park, Knobelsdorff was fired in 1746. Jan Bouman, a Dutch architect, finished the project.

During the 19th century, the palace became a residence of Frederick William IV. He employed the architect Ludwig Persius to restore and enlarge the palace, while Ferdinand von Arnim was charged with improving the grounds and thus the view from the palace. The town of Potsdam, with its palaces, was a favourite place of residence for the German imperial family until the fall of the Hohenzollern dynasty in 1918. Source: Wikipedia

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