Travels and Visits: August 2012

Tuesday, 21 August 2012

Champs Elysees

Champs Elysees: The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a street in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strips of real estate in the world. Several French monuments are also on the street, including the Arc de Triomphe and the Place de la Concorde. The name is French for Elysian Fields, the place of the blessed dead in Greek mythology. The Champs-Élysées is known as "The most beautiful avenue in the world", La plus belle avenue du monde in French.

Champs Elysees

Monday, 20 August 2012

Fraser Island

Fraser Island: is an island located along the southern coast of Queensland, Australia, approximately 200 kilometres (120 mi) north of Brisbane. Its length is about 120 kilometres (75 mi) and its width is approximately 24 kilometres (15 mi). It was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1992. The island is considered to be the largest sand island in the world at 1840 km². It is also Queensland's largest island, Australia's sixth largest island and the largest island on the East Coast of Australia. The island has rainforests, eucalyptus woodland, mangrove forests, wallum and peat swamps, sand dunes and coastal heaths.

Fraser Island

Sunday, 19 August 2012

Vernal Falls

Vernal Falls: is a 317 feet (97 m) waterfall on the Merced River just downstream of Nevada Fall in Yosemite National Park, California. Vernal Fall, as well as Nevada Fall, is clearly visible from Glacier Point. The waterfall runs all year long, although by the end of summer it is substantially reduced in volume and can split into multiple strands, rather than a single curtain of water. Yan-o-pah (little cloud) was the local name of the fall before it was namHikers will start at the Happy Isles trail head in Yosemite Valley. Travel is generally East-South-East.

Vernal Falls

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands: is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of 28,400 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi). The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal. The nation of the Solomon Islands is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The Solomon Islands are believed to have been inhabited by Melanesian people for many thousands of years. Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to arrive in Solomon Islands in 1568 and named them Islas Salomón.

Solomon Islands

Tuesday, 14 August 2012

Blue Grotto

Blue Grotto: is a noted sea cave on the coast of the island of Capri, Italy. Sunlight, passing through an underwater cavity and shining through the seawater, creates a blue reflection that illuminates the cavern. The Blue Grotto is one of several sea caves, worldwide, that is flooded with a brilliant blue or emerald light. The quality and nature of the color in each cave is determined by the unique lighting conditions in that particular cave. In the case of the Blue Grotto, the light comes from two sources.

Blue Grotto

Blue Caves

Blue Caves: Zakynthos or Zante (from Italian) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the third largest of the Ionian Islands. Zakynthos is a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and its only municipality. It covers an area of 410 km2 (158 sq mi) and its coastline is roughly 123 km (76 mi) in length. The island is named after Zakynthos, the son of a legendary Arcadian chief Dardanus. The name, like all similar names ending in -nthos, is pre-Mycenaean or Pelasgian in origin. Zakynthos has a thriving tourism industry.