Denali (Mount McKinley), Alaska, USA

Mount McKinley or Denali ("The Great One") in Alaska is the highest mountain peak in North America, at a height of approximately 20,320 feet (6,194 m). It is the centerpiece of Denali National Park.

Famous for its breathtaking mountain vistas and raw, untamed landscape, Denali National Park is home to an abundant population of wildlife including moose, grizzly bears, caribou, dall sheep, wolves, and many smaller animals.


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Denali National Park is located in southcentral Alaska. Denali Park's headquarters is located along Alaska Route 3, the George Parks Highway, approximately 240 miles north of Anchorage, Alaska and 125 miles south of Fairbanks, Alaska and 12 miles south of Healy, Alaska.

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Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy - France

Le Mont-Saint-Michel is a rocky tidal island and a commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometre off the country's north coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches.


Mont Saint Michel is always accessible, the causeway is never recovered by the water.
The water starts to rise up two hours before the high tide.
The parking lot is about 400 meters. Those can be recovered sometimes. Arriving on the car park, you will be told the place where you can leave your car.
In case of high tide, you can let your car on the causeway. If there are two many cars you
will have to use the parking lot at two kilometers. It is free of charge and situated at the entrance of the causeway.


In prehistoric times the bay was land. As sea levels rose erosion shaped the coastal landscape over millions of years. Several blocks of granite or granulite emerged in the bay, having resisted the wear and tear of the ocean better than the surrounding rocks. These included Lillemer, the Mont-Dol, Tombelaine and Mont Tombe, later called Mont-Saint-Michel.


Le Mont-Saint-Michel was previously connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge, which before modernization was covered at high tide and revealed at low tide. This has been compromised by several developments. Over the centuries, the coastal flats have been polderised to create pasture. Thus the distance between the shore and the south coast of Mont-Saint-Michel has decreased. The Couesnon River has been canalised, reducing the flow of water and thereby encouraging a silting-up of the bay. In 1879, the land bridge was fortified into a true causeway. This prevented the tide from scouring the silt round the mount.


On 16 June 2006, the French prime minister and regional authorities announced a €164 million project (Projet Mont-Saint-Michel) to build a hydraulic dam that will help remove the accumulated silt and make Mont-Saint-Michel an island again. It is expected to be completed by 2012.


Mont-Saint-Michel is connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge, which before modernization was covered at high tide and revealed at low tide, giving the mount a mystical quality.


However, the insular character of the mount has been compromised by several developments. The Couesnon River has been canalized, reducing the flow of water and thereby encouraging a silting-up of the bay. In 1879, the land bridge was fortified into a true causeway. This prevented the tide from scouring the silt round the mount. Now there are plans to remove the causeway and replace it with a bridge and shuttle.


The tides in the area shift quickly, and has been described by Victor Hugo as à la vitesse d'un cheval au galop, "as swiftly as a galloping horse." The tide actually comes in at 1 meter per second. Popularly nicknamed "St. Michael in Peril of the Sea" by medieval pilgrims making their way across the tidal flats, the mount can still pose dangers for visitors who avoid the causeway and attempt the hazardous walk across the sands from the neighboring coast. The dangers from the tides and quick sands continue to claim lives.


The climb to the abbey is hard -- by the time you have mounted the celebrated Escalier de Dentelle (Lace Staircase) to the gallery around the roof of the abbey church, you will have climbed no fewer than 900 steps -- but it's worth it. Halfway up Grande-Rue is the medieval parish church of St-Pierre, which features a richly carved side chapel with its dramatic statue of St. Michael slaying the dragon.


The Grand Degré, a steep, narrow staircase, leads to the abbey entrance, from which a wider flight of stone steps climbs to the Saut Gautier Terrace (named after a prisoner who jumped to his death from here) outside the sober, dignified church.


After visiting the arcaded cloisters alongside, which offer vertiginous views of the bay, you can wander at leisure, and probably get lost, among the maze of rooms, staircases, and vaulted halls that make up the abbey.

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Damascus

Damascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is one of the the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and its current population is estimated at about 4,000,000. The city is a governorate by itself, and the capital of the governorate of Rif Dimashq ("Rural Damascus").


Early references to Damascus such as those in Ebla tablets, confirm that it was as a city of immense economic influence during 3rd millennium BC.


Ancient Pharaonic scripts refers to it as Dameska. It enjoyed great prominence during 2nd millennium BC as center of an Aramaic kingdom under the name of Dar-Misiq (the irrigated house). The Aramites were the original inhabitants of Damascus, and their language was Syriac. Many villages around Damascus are still known by their Aramaic names.


Damascus became capital of the first Arab state at time of the Umayyads in 661 AD. This marked the beginning of its golden epoch, and for a whole century it was the center of the youthful Islamic Empire. This reached its peak of expansion during this period, and came to stretch from shores of Atlantic and Pyrennese in west, to river Indus and China in east. Umayyads took a genuine interest in building up Damascus, organizing its souqs (bazaars) and districts, improving its water supply, erecting palaces, and hospitals.


Nowadays, Damascus is a living museum spanning thousands of years. A city measuring time not by hours, days, months, and years but by empires it has seen rise and crumble to ruin.


Damascus has a wealth of historical sites dating back to many different periods of the city's history. Since the city has been built up with every passing occupation, it has become almost impossible to excavate all the ruins of Damascus that lie up to 8 feet (2.4 m) below the modern level. The Citadel of Damascus is located in the northwest corner of the Old City. The Street Called Straight (referred to in the conversion of St. Paul in Acts 9:11), also known as the Via Recta, was the decumanus (East-West main street) of Roman Damascus, and extended for over 1,500 metres (4,900 ft). Today, it consists of the street of Bab Sharqi and the Souk Medhat Pasha, a covered market. The Bab Sharqi street is filled with small shops and leads to the old Christian quarter of Bab Tuma (St. Thomas's Gate). Souk Medhat Pasha is also a main market in Damascus and was named after Medhat Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Syria who renovated the Souk. At the end of the Bab Sharqi street, one reaches the House of Ananias, an underground chapel that was the cellar of Ananias's house. The Umayyad Mosque, also known as the Grand Mosque of Damascus, is one of the largest mosques in the world, and one of the oldest sites of continuous prayer since the rise of Islam. A shrine in the mosque is said to contain the head of Husayn ibn Ali and the body of St. John the Baptist. The mausoleum where Saladin was buried is located in the gardens just outside the mosque. Sayyidah Ruqayya Mosque, the shrine of the yongest daughter of Husayn ibn Ali, can also be found near the Umayyad Mosque. Another heavily visited site is Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque, which is the tomb of Zaynab bint Ali.

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Chobe National Park

Chobe National Park, in northwest Botswana, has one of the largest game concentration in Africa continent. By size, this is the third largest park of the country, after the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the Gemsbok National Park, and is the most diverse. This is also the country's first national park.

The park is probably best known for its spectacular elephant population: 50,000 elephants today, it is actually the highest elephant concentration of Africa. Moreover, most of them are probably part of the largest continuous surviving elephant population on Earth. The elephant population seems to have solidly built up since 1990, from a few thousand. They have not been affected by the massive illicit exploitation of the 1970s and 1980s.


Elephants living here are Kalahari elephants, the largest in size of all known elephant populations. Yet they are characterized by rather brittle ivory and short tusks, perhaps due to calcium deficiency in the soils.

Damage caused by the high numbers of elephants is rife in some areas. In fact,[1] concentration is so high throughout Chobe that culls have been considered, but are too controversial and have thus far been rejected.

At dry season, these elephants sojourn in Chobe River and the Linyanti River areas. At rain season, they make a 200-km migration to the southeast stretch of the park. Their distribution zone however outreaches the park and spreads to northwestern Zimbabwe.


Rainy season: November to March with a peak during January and February. Rains often only begin in mid- December. Travelling through areas of clay soil can be very difficult at this time, but much of the Chobe River area is accessible. These are the warmest months with temperatures and humidity high and mosquitoes abundant. The wild flowers that emerge during the rains are quite stunning and bird life is abundant. Many animals give birth during this period of abundant grazing and if you are prepared to negotiate some mud, the rainy season in Chobe is a delightful time.


Dry season: May to October is dry and as the months progress and water dries up inland, animals congregate in huge numbers along the river. Game is at its most dense and easily visible during the dry season and most visitors come at this time. October is the hottest month and although it is the best for game viewing, it is also the most uncomfortable as the expectation of rain is high and the heat can be oppressive.


CHOBE'S SPECIALITIES
· Elephants by the hundreds especially by the Chobe River during the dry season
· Sundowner river cruises culminating in spectacular Chobe sunsets
· 440 species of birds
· Big cats may be seen stalking buffalo on the grassy floodplains
· Fishing on the Chobe River for 20 different species of edible fish
· Spectacularly positioned safari lodges and tented camps along the Chobe River
· Rare Pel's Fishing owl can be spotted at night
· Small flocks of African skimmers, only found in this region are best seen in June or July
· Exceptional photographic opportunities

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Cappadocia

Cappadocia was an extensive inland district of Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The name continued to be used in western sources and in the Christian tradition throughout history and is still widely used as an international tourism concept to define a region of exceptional natural wonders characterized by fairy chimneys (image below) and a unique historical and cultural heritage. The term, as used in tourism, roughly corresponds to present-day Nevşehir Province of Turkey.


Cappadocia's limits are debated. In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians are supposed to have occupied the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine (Black Sea). Cappadocia, in this sense, was bounded in the south by the chain of Mount Taurus, to the east by the Euphrates, to the north by Pontus, and to the west by Lake Tuz, in Central Anatolia. But Strabo, the only ancient author to provide a major account of the area, greatly exaggerated its dimensions. It is now believed that 400 km (250 mi) east-west by 200 km (120 mi) north-south is a more realistic appraisal of Cappadocia's area.


Cappadocia was one of the most important places in the spreading periods of the Christian religion. The first christians trying to escape from the Roman soldiers who wanted to avoid the spreading of the Christian religion have settled in the region of Cappadocia which was so suitable for hiding and so they were able to continue their natures and to spread their religions. Saint Basileious from Kaisera and Saint Gregorios from Nyssa had settled in Cappadocia. In 647 A.C. together with occupation of Kayseri by Muaviye Cappadocia has met with the Arabian invasions. Cappadocia which went under the domination of the Seljuks in 1072 has been added to the lands of Ottoman Empire in 1399 by the Ottoman Sultan Yildirim Beyazit.

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