Author: Ms. R.

The Jardins de les 3 Xemeneies, or the Garden of the Three Chimneys is an outdoor art museum with giant exhibits that change weekly. Located near Montjuïc in the Poble-sec neighborhood, the park gets its name from the three giant brick chimneys nearby. They are all that remains of an early 20th-century power station built by the Barcelona Traction Power and Light Company. Dominated by over a dozen concrete walls of various shapes and sizes, the space is designed……

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It might seem strange that tea is practically the official drink of the Canadian Rockies. Usually, trekkers tend to subsist on trail mix and as much water as can be comfortably carried. But visitors to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, not only want to climb the glorious slopes, photograph the crystal lakes, and peer at the mighty glaciers. Whether spring, summer, or fall, many set out to visit one of the park’s century-old teahouses. At these two quaint……

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The mechanical creature swooped over shadowlands. Like a bird of prey on the hunt, its eye scanned a landscape black as orc blood and broken only by glowing streams of lava. It flew through choking fumes, into the heart of a malodorous hell. There it saw, and preserved for all to see, what appeared to be a single, baleful eye staring back. Okay, it was a camera drone flying over a volcano that thousands of people were able to……

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Way before businesswomen wore shoulder pads in the 1980s to shove their way into the male-dominated business world, Empress Elizabeth of Russia and her niece-in-law Catherine the Great pushed 18th-century sartorial gender norms to cement their authority. “The Empress had a fancy to have all men appear at the Court balls dressed as women and the women as men, without masks,” Catherine wrote in her memoirs. These “metamorphosis balls” became a weekly occurrence at the Russian court. Elizabeth……

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In the East Midlands of England, Roz Edwards has assembled one of the world’s most unique collections: a pile of mannequins so high they form a mountain. Edwards started her business during the 2007 recession, when many clothing stores were shutting their doors and looking to get rid of things like mannequins. Edwards rents out the plastic models to shows like Top Gear and The X Factor and supplies them to artists and the local police department, which uses them for……

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Though Thomas Edison is commonly referred to as “The Wizard of Menlo Park,” it would be in West Orange, New Jersey, where his imagination and innovative spirit would truly run wild.  In 1884, Edison’s first wife, Mary, died and Edison left Menlo Park to move to West Orange to expand operations. He’d already done extensive experimentation on long-lasting filaments in the electric lightbulb and was looking to explore other avenues of invention. Edison purchased roughly five blocks in the……

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Under a housing area in Orrholmen in Karlstad, visitors will find an underground parking garage with bus stops and hundreds of parking spots. When it was built during the late 1960s, it was considered state of the art, but as time went on, the garage became bleak and unsafe. To minimize the problems, the car park was filled with classical music and art, thanks to a collaboration between the local public housing company, residents, and various artists. Now, when drivers……

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The city of Leiden is home to many historical buildings and objects such as the old observatory, a floating Christmas market, and is home to Einstein’s Sink. One of its newest monuments is a very tiny one, the house of a Dutch Kabouter or gnome.  The house appeared between the roots of a tree from 1833, initially as a small red door but eventually, a small front yard, a little garden, and even a special marker that denotes monumental buildings in……

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