Articles and posts of topic travel
In the Far East of Indonesia, where cinnamon and nutmeg shake hands, are the Moluccan Island; the myth-enshrouded Spice Islands. That’s where the journey leads to, to Ibu volcano on the island of Halmahera. Its steep crater and continuously Strombolian erupting lava dome are the product of Sunda plate rubbing with the Philippines…
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With more than 80 million years of existence, Namib desert is the oldest on Earth. With day temperatures easily exceeding 120 °F it is also one of the world’s most hostile places. Despite all inhospitality it boasts with beauty, especially at sunrise or in the evening hours. Then the desert becomes on eye candy made by giant dunes, strong contrasts and hidden structures, that are being revealed best when seen from above with a helicopter flight…
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Iranian Dasht-e Lut is the world’s hottest desert. In 2016 satellites measured unbelievable 78.2°C, what is the highest ever calculated surface temperature on Earth. Our planet’s heat pole is a UNESCO World Heritage and impresses with sand dunes being up to 450 metres high as well as the rugged surreal rock landscape of the Kalouts…
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Once the Persian Empire was one of the largest of the ancient global empires and existed long before our time reckoning has started. The ruins of its former capital Persepolis as well as the tombs of Naqsh-e Rustam tell of that period. For about 200 years it united areas reaching from North Africa to Indus River and involved Caucasus as well as the Kazakhstan steppe.…
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Far in the west of old Constantinople and originally being located outside the city walls a jewel and testimony of early Christianity can be seen, that is the Chora Church. Like Hagia Sophia it was once being transformed into a mosque. Today it is called Kariye Museum and holds the worldwide most historically significant as well as elaborated mosaics and frescos of Palaiologan Renaissance…
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For more than 1.000 years Hagia Sophia sits where Europe and Asia shake hands. Even today this last of late antiquity’s main churches can still boast with having the largest dome of the world. It served as main and coronation church of old Byzantium and its capital Constantinople, present Istanbul, as well as Ottoman main mosque.…
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Belarus unclenches itself towards the rest of Europe and welcomes meanwhile visitors, landing at the Minsk International Airport, with a visa on arrival. Beside a typical Soviet style metro inviting me to continue my European subway photo project, Minsk boasts with an urban architecture telling from pre- as well as post-war Socialist times, the so called Socialist modernism…
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Scotland is much better than its food-based reputation. Meanwhile the notorious Scottish-English weather even excels our Berlin mix of clouds and rain. No matter if in the Highlands or in east coast cities and villages, there’s always a break in the clouds permitting the light of low standing October sun to push through and to stage the mountainous landscape between Edinburgh and the lovely Isle of Skye.…
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The giant red dunes of Namib desert belong to the worldwide tallest of its kind. They pile up at Sossusvlei, were Tsauchab River disappears in the sand of Namibia. Only one of those sand heaps may be climbed, that is the dune at kilometre 45. It rises up some ~170 metres high and is built by 5-million-year old sand deposits of the Kalahari.…
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If conditions are good, then life in Africa becomes literally exuberant. One of those places is Cape Cross, where about 250.000 brown fur seals romp about the cold but rich in nutriment waters of Benguela Current. The home of one of the largest seal colonies of the black continent has a large kindergarten full of cute seal puppets, but out in the water lie great white sharks in ambush…
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