The spectacular Leptis Magna is an exceptionally well-preserved Roman city on the coast of Libya which has a history dating back over 3,000 years. Today the archaeological site is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

With a history dating back to 1100 BC, the city gained status as a leading part of the Roman Empire in AD 193 when Lucius Septimius Severus became the first African-born Emperor of Rome.

The baths at Leptis Magna

Although there are loads of ruins here, most of the prominent remains date from the first and second centuries, including the incredible theatre.

The theatre at Leptis Magna (ground-level photo)

Severus spent lavishly on new buildings for his home town as it developed into a major trading port, making sure he had an extensive market and a truly magnificent forum.

The market and forum at Leptis Magna

One of the major projects attempted during Severus’s reign was the redevelopment of the harbour, which was known for heavy silting. However, the changes just made the problem worse. Many of the quayside buildings are intact but rather annoyingly a strip of low-resolution imagery obscures the harbour.

However the good imagery returns further east, just in time for us to be able to see Leptis Magna’s wonderful amphitheatre – the location of amazing public spectacles, and the most prized symbol of Roman citizenship that a town could have.

The amphitheatre at Leptis Magna (ground-level photo)

The city eventually fell into decline in the fourth century when trade moved elsewhere, but thanks to Emperor Severus and his ebullient spending, there remains an absolute wealth of history for people to explore in his once splendid home town.

Wikipedia of course has lots of info, but I recommend that you visit the Temehu site for excellent pictures and background, with a more detailed history to be found at Livius.org. Also see an earlier post on Google Sightseeing about the city of Sabratha.

When the Romans invaded Britain in the 1st century AD, they never quite managed to conquer Caledonia – the area now known as Scotland.

We’ll never know whether the Roman army felt it was too much like hard work to defeat the fearsome northern tribes, or were simply under-attired for the fearsome Scottish weather; either way, in AD 122 the Roman Emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of a wall to defend his territory from the lands to the north.

Hadrian’s Wall stretched for 80 Roman miles (73.5 modern-day miles, or 117km), from the Solway Firth (where the wall is still visible) to the River Tyne (where the wall has vanished, but the fort of Segedunum, which marked its eastern end, has been excavated).

Despite being almost 2,000 years old (and having been heavily plundered by the locals for building materials after the Romans left), a surprising amount of the wall can still be seen today. One of the best preserved stretches is near the village of Gilsland. Here you can also see the foundations of the Roman bridge across the River Irthing – although since it was built the course of the river has shifted westwards.

There are an astonishing number of Roman sites in this area, as a look at the Ordnance Survey map shows. Among them are Birdoswald fort; the nicely preserved milecastle 48¹ (right next to the spot where the railway line slices through the wall); and a couple of Roman camps. The shadows on the aerial photography really show up the traces of old structures and ditches, even where there is little else left on the ground.

The wall was not a single structure: at various stages in its history it was extended, and separate banks and ditches added. Among the later additions was the Vallum, consisting of three earth banks separated by ditches, running parallel to the wall a few hundred metres to the south. The surviving stretches also show up well in aerial imagery; if you scroll northwards from this point you can see the wall itself.

In many places, the builders used the natural topography to help create a formidable barrier. One spectacular stretch of wall follows a steep rocky ridge, Highshield Crags.

The low angle of the sun creates some dramatic shadows here – and if you zoom right in, you can see the shadow of a sycamore tree in the hollow between two ridges. This location, known as Sycamore Gap, will be familiar to fans of the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: it’s the spot where Kevin Costner rescued a small boy from the dastardly Guy of Gisbourne.²

Read more about Hadrian’s Wall at Wikipedia. The 84-mile-long Hadrian’s Wall Path National Trail follows the course of the wall, and its website has a great gallery of ground-level photos.

The European Space Agency is a collaboration between 18 European states with the simple aim of “exploring space” and yesterday they announced their first new recruits to the Astronaut Corps in more than a decade.

The European Space Agency’s spaceport is Guiana Space Centre, located just off the coast of South America in French Guiana. The location is ideal for space rocket launches due to it being only 500km from the equator, which means the rockets get an extra boost from the rotation of the earth¹.

The focal point of Guiana is the Ariane rocket launcher, a 52m tall tower surrounded by four 90m high lightning rods. The concrete foundation features three “flame trenches” to contain the fire from the launching boosters, and the adjacent water tower delivers 30,000 litres of water a second to cool the launch pad during take off.

The Ariane launcher is used frequently for launching communication satellites and science experiments. Already this year Guiane has launched two Ariane-5 rockets, the most recent of which was just last week, when the Herschel Space Observatory was put into orbit.

In fact, demand for satellite launches at Guiane is so great that the former Ariane-1 launch site has been adapted for launching Vega, the ESA’s new small-size launcher.

Elsewhere on the compound we also find the Booster Engine Test Stand, a 200m long, 60m deep pit where boosters can be safely fired.

There’s plenty more to explore at Guiana, I recommend turning on the Google Earth Community layer to see information about all the different buildings.

The six new recruits to the Astronaut Corps will certainly have their time to explore, as their rigourous training is leading up to a first space journey in 2013 at the earliest.

Auroville is an experimental town and self-proclaimed “universal city in the making” near the South-Indian city of Puducherry¹.

Built around a massive gold-plated meditation dome known as the Matrimandir, Auroville was created in hopes that it would be a model for peace, learning, and environmental stewardship.

The town was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa, a spiritual leader known to her followers as “The Mother”, who created the guiding principles of the town as well as a governing organisation that today is nebulously referred to as “the Foundation”.²

Taking a closer look at the Matrimandir reveals its sheer size and architectural complexity – although it does look a lot like a much shinier version of Walt Disney World’s Epcot Centre.

Getting a peek inside the sacred meditation chamber within the Matrimandir is difficult for outsiders, but it’s reported to contain a polished white marble room with a light-reflecting crystal suspended at its centre. Despite sounding like the inside of a trendy nightclub, it has been described as “a place to find one’s consciousness”.

A bit further to the south, we can make out one of Auroville’s clever alternative energy solutions. Sitting atop the aptly named “Solar Kitchen” is a 15-metre-wide solar bowl that concentrates light from the sun to heat water for the restaurant. The array is so powerful that it can heat enough water to 150°C to cook over 2,000 meals per day!

If you feel like this little slice of utopian heaven might be might be a good change of pace from your hectic lifestyle, Auroville has varying lodging options for tourists, and even a visitor’s centre. Come to think of it, I could go for some solar-boiled tofu curry right about now…

For a complete guide to all of Auroville’s sights, culture, and history visit the official Auroville website, or for just the facts, the Auroville Wikipedia page.

Thanks to Nilauro, Rob Alexandre, and Sudipto Ghosh.

Tokyo has two structures, apparently unrelated, with very similar names – the Tower of Wind and the Tower of Winds.

The Tower of Wind (singular, known locally as Kaze no Tō) is a spectacular structure in Tokyo Harbour consisting of a dazzling white circular base topped with blue and white striped ’sails’.

Google reveals a rather surprising number of blogs and other sites convinced that such a structure could only be the secret lair of Godzilla or an international super-villain. The reality is rather more mundane – the Tower of Wind is a ventilation shaft outlet for the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line – the world’s longest undersea tunnel for cars. The 9.6km tunnel is coupled with a 4.4km bridge to link the two sides of the Bay, saving up to 100km of driving.

The Tower of Winds (plural) is a 21m tall building on the mainland designed by architect Toyo Ito.

Street View shows that it is rather unremarkable by day, while Live Maps shows that it is dwarfed by the surrounding skyscrapers.

By night, however, it comes alive, with ever-changing displays of interior and exterior illumination. More than 1000 LEDs, a dozen neon rings and 30-plus floodlights respond to the noise of the city and the motion of the wind.  This movement of light is intended to represent “the visual complexity of Tokyo metaphorically in terms of a never-ceasing, ever-changing wind”. Interesting details and good night-time pictures can be found at Ego magazine and Lighting Academy.