In the middle of Cornwall, England near the town of St Austell, England is a piece of Eden. The Eden Project, was built the Eden Project in Cornwall in a disused clay mine, opening ten years ago. The project is about regenerating the environment and introducing it to the public. For example, when the Eden Project started, the site was so bad it had been used as the scene of a ruined alien plante in a BBC TV series. Getting there Train to St Austell station. From there were two choices of bus. Tip: When buying the train ticket, add a St Austell Bus plus onto the fare. It…
Place Reviews (Thursday)
Category Archives for Place Reviews (Thursday).
San Francisco in 24 hours
I started the day with a run along the waterfront near the Embaracdero with the city on one side and the Bay on the other: -outstanding! I ran 5miles (8 kilometres). This got me ready for breakfast at the Ferry Plaza Farmers market. Held three times a week, it has an amazing range of local, fresh and often organic fruit and vegetables. I bought the most delicious peach I have had for years, As the juice rolled down my fingers, I marvelled at the difference to the supermarket ones I buy from time to time. No comparison.…
Way out Wadi Ramm (Wadi Rum)
Wadi Ramm or Wadi Rum as it is more commonly known, is a long valley cut into sandstone and granite rock in southern Jordan about km from Amman (see my post about that amazing city). It is one of the longest inhabited places on the planet with people living there since prehistory (at least 4500BC). The Nabateans who built Petra (see my Report on that amazing place) lived in Wadi Ramm.T. E. Lawrence known as Lawrence of Arabia based his operations here during the period of the Arab Revolt from the Turkish Empire at the…
Economists’s Top Ten Liveable cities
Melbourne, Australia is very excited that it scored 97.5 out of 100 in the Economist’s annual most liveable cites survey knocking Vancouver out of top place. The Economist designs the rankings for employers to use when assigning hardship allowances as part of job relocation but they have developed a life of their own with the rankings capturing the attention of people in the street and politicians. The indexes also ignore other issues like the cost of living in those cities, sustainability, and equity and other factors. For example housing costs in Melbourne are now some…
Petra
In 1995, a good friend visited Petra. That was the year that it was designated a World Heritage Site. I saw his picture of the main temple known as the Treasury and I was hooked. I have wanted to go ever since. Steve Davey of the BBC said it was one of Forty “Unforgettable Places To See Before You Die.” I got my chance this year! I have only had to wait 16 years! And the visit was well worth it. A few things about Petra… Petra is in modern Jordan, about 300km south of the capital Amman. I…
Amazing Amman
Amman, the capital of Jordan is somewhere I almost never hear about. I was curious to find out what the city was like. I loved it.Home to almost 3 million people, the city straddles a series of hills. Originally it was built on seven hills – now 19.Amman has had an existence for almost 12 000 years. The city is expecting to double in size in the next 15 years straining its natural resources such as waterIts transit system is very frustratingly under developed. There are buses running throughout the city but information is hard to access and it…
Baffling Brasilia-Trying to Cross Brasilia by foot
This is the last of my posts on Brasilia, Brazil. My first was an overview of mindbogglingly fascinating planned city and would be worth reading before or in conjunction with today’s post. The others are listed in yesterday’s post. Many people I spoke to stated that Brasilia was built for the car not the pedestrian. This is not strictly true. The designer’s intention was that people and cars would be separated giving people safe spaces to walk in and cars few restrictions eg few pedestrian crossings. The idea is that between the city’s sectors, people would drive…
Buildings of Brasília – Awe Inspiring Capital
Aboard the tourist bus I have two more blogs to conclude my description of my experiences of Brasilia, the planned capital city of Brazil. The previous four are: Boggling Brasília – overview of a planned metropolis June 14, 2011- Bewitching Brasília -birds eye view of the capital June 17, 2011- Appraising Brasília –How does this planned city rate? July 28, 2011: Touring Brasília – the Tourist Experience Tomorrow’s Blog will tackle the fundamental problem of Brasília- successfully being a pedestrian! I took a very informative Tourist bus for a two hour tour of Oscar Niemeyer’s awe inspring architecture. Niemeyer’s was responsible for most of the…
Auckland is getting better
I first came to Auckland as an adult in November, 1991 – almost 20 years ago. It was the middle of the 1990s recession and Auckland felt grim. Wellington, Auckland’s rival city 640 km (398 miles) was also grim but I connected to Wellington with its art and fashion scene, good public transport and walkable sights. Auckland and I never connected. I have always been someone who has favoured one city over another (hence why I do my city rankings): San Francisco over Los Angeles Melbourne before Sydney Paris and not London Liverpool over Manchester Glasgow before Edinburgh Toronto before Vancouver…
Buzzing Brasilia- the Tourist Experience
This is my fourth article on my recent experiences on Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. When I told people that I was going to visit there, I got one of three reactions: Why? Where? What for? I was regaled with tales of people going mad with boredom in the sterile cityscape and the empty streets. Even Brazilians said to me that it would not take long to see the sights! Brasilia gets such a bad rap – from anyone who has never been there. The locals I spoke to, however, liked their city. Many who were born there, bristle at the…
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