Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

Slide & Splash and the Mystery Bridge

Posted by Alex Turnbull, Tuesday, 20th September 2005

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Whilst I was in Portugal, we crossed this very pretty bridge, just east of Portimão, on our way to Slide & Splash (I suppose we probably crossed it on the way back too, but I was fast asleep). The thing is, my Google powers appear to be failing me, as I can’t seem to find out anything about it… I’m sure you guys can help me though, right? :-D

Anyway, we had an excellent time at Slide & Splash, which isn’t the biggest water-park in the world, but was great fun regardless :-) The best ride was definitely ‘Banzai’, which you can see running from west to east through the park. It’s basically a straight run down an open pipe, face-first on a mat, and when you reach the bottom the aim is to skim the surface of the water as far as you can go. Our technique rocked! Slide & Splash have an official site where you can check out all the rides if you’re planning a visit.

Slide & Splash

Thanks to Kerry for coming with me :-D

12 Responses to 'Slide & Splash and the Mystery Bridge'

  1. Adam says:

    This is the Portimão Bridge on the river Arade.

    Structurae has loads of information and a couple of pictures:
    http://en.structurae.de/structures/data/index.cfm?ID=s0002325

  2. Kerry says:

    No problem was so much fun! :-) x

  3. Manuel Freitas says:

    Just slightly to the west, check this: Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

    Three different resolutiions in the same window (none, medium, high)!

  4. Manuel Freitas says:

    Even better, slightly to the north, there’s a long stripe of ‘void’, definitely a ‘bug’: Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  5. Edward says:

    Manuel,

    Not a bug, you’re just zoomed in too far. ;) Low res shows up as “void” on the three highest zoom levels, except when it’s right next to a high res area.

  6. Manuel Freitas says:

    Edward, by ‘void’ I meant absolutely empty areas, different from the ’sorry, please zoom out’-areas. Your explanation fails to account for all the combinations of adjacent void/sorry/low-res/high-res areas that you can see in these URLs. Maybe you could develop your explanation or maybe know how to get feedback from Google.

  7. gIMpSTa says:

    Is it just me or are google earth links not working on recent posts?

  8. Tomb says:

    “Is it just me or are google earth links not working on recent posts?”

    They never worked for me and I have google earth installed..why is this?

  9. Alex says:

    Sorry, no idea, although I’ve tested this at work (I use a mac at home) and it seems to work fine. However sometimes I’ve had to restart firefox if the were acting funny.

    Thanks for letting us know though, I’ve forwarded your comments to Olly :-D

  10. Olly says:

    The Google Earth link on this post works fine for me. What browsers are you guys using?

  11. Edward says:

    Manuel

    When I zoomed out the blanked out areas were replaced with satellite images, whether they were “void” as you described or they had text.

  12. Isa says:

    Great choice! I’ve been in S&S dozens of times and I love it!!
    (btw, I’m from Lagos)

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