The 10-acre Rynek Glowny (Grand Square) has been the hub of Krakow since the 13th century and today is a popular destination for tourists and locals to go shopping or hang out in the cafes, bars and clubs (you can even see the many yellow umbrellas of a cafe in our thumbnail shot).

The square’s tourist attractions include the leaning Town Hall Tower (in the South west corner), St Mary’ church (in the North east) and “Cloth Hall” in the centre. Cloth Hall is the world’s oldest shopping centre, having been in business some 700 years.

Thanks: Leslaw Frydel

This is the bizarre-looking Thames Barrier on the River Thames, London. Opened in the 1980s, the barrier is designed to protect London’s low-lying areas from flooding, and is the world’s second-largest movable flood barrier (after the Oosterscheldekering in the Netherlands – no hi-res though I’m afraid).

Between each of the piers are the gates themselves, which rotate up out of the water to form the flood barrier. In the image captured on Google Maps you can see that one of the gates has been rotated into what looks like the ‘underspill’ position, to allow for maintenance.

For lots of information and some good photography check out the Thames Barrier Wikipedia page.

Thanks to neil, Reagan Blundell, Alan, Lee Bennett, Dee and Tim Reid.

Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Yoyogi Park, Tokyo, was designed by Kenzo Tange to house a gymnasium, basketball court and Olympic swimming pool for the 1964 Summer Olympics. His futuristic tent-like design later inspired the architect behind the 1972 Olympic Park in Munich.

Thanks to Simon Madine.

The Cathedral (Duomo) of Florence is officially called Santa Maria del Fiore and is the end result of years of work spanning various architectural styles. The original building was started by a sculptor in 1296, then Filippo Brunelleschi added the distinctive dome between 1420 and 1436 and finally the modern facade was added between 1867 and 1887. It is apparently the 3rd largest church in the world.

Duomo di Milano is the largest gothic cathedral in the world, a bit of a cheat as it comes somewhere nearer seventh in the list of largest churches in the world. Still, on full zoom it is pretty huge and has the added sightseeing bonus of the adjacent ‘Piazza Del Duomo’ (I think I can see tourists?) and the ‘Galleria Vittorio Emanuele’, a covered street just to the north (it looks like a dark cross).

Thanks: Massimo, Philip R, Giampaolo Bellavite, cristian contini, Valdo, Bennet Langlotz, Dave Lartigue, Yuval, Elliot Sather, Gian Giacomo, Ron Vogel, ITALIANO, Dee, Jack & Jay

Here you can see the shadow of one of Spain’s famous Osborne bull signs. The Osborne sherry company placed these huge silhouettes of their logo on hills near major roads throughout Spain, and although there was a law passed which demanded their removal, they have become an unofficial national symbol of Spain – and today nearly a hundred of them still remain overlooking the passing motorists.

Here’s the Wikipedia page, and here’s a ground-level shot of one of the bulls.

Thanks to Christophe.