Structures

More Gravitational Observatories

Just when my non-scientific brain had recovered from writing the recent LIGO post, my co-writer Noel kindly informed me that there are two similar gravitational observatories in Europe: GEO 600 in Germany and VIRGO in Italy. GEO 600 (Wikipedia, official…

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Wednesday, 14th April 2010

LIGO Gravitational Observatories

These two huge L-shaped structures visible at a very low zoom level are the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) facilities in Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington. Each arm of the structures is 4km in length, making them longer than the…

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Friday, 19th March 2010

Hampi

The village of Hampi is a site of Hindu pilgrimage and the location of the former capital city of the Vijayanagara empire. Its temples and ruins are a World Heritage Site collectively known as The Group of Monuments at Hampi.…

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Wednesday, 10th March 2010

Don Justo’s Cathedral

In the Spanish town of Mejorada Del Campo, former monk Justo Gallego Martínez has devoted the past 50 years of his life to constructing a cathedral, all by himself. After contracting tuberculosis as as a young man, Don Justo promised…

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Monday, 1st March 2010

Leaning Buildings

We can’t always be perfect right? Even some of history’s best architects made mistakes when they designed some of the world’s most beautiful structures. Maybe the ground was too unstable, or adding another 20 meters to the top wasn’t such…

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Thursday, 4th February 2010

Alert, Nunavut

Welcome to Alert, Nunavut, the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world. Only 817 km (508 miles) from the North Pole, Alert1 has a chilly average high temperature of -14.7 C (6 F), and winter lows of around -46 C…

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Thursday, 28th January 2010

Welcome to Google Sightseeing

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. Our team of authors present weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

Could you be one of our authors? We're looking for more freelance writers - please get in touch for more information.

Best of Google Sightseeing

Sivash: The Rotten Sea

Sivash is the shallow system of lagoons that separates Crimea from mainland Ukraine. Home to large-scale salt deposits, Sivash may just contain the most colourful waters to be found in Google Maps, with ponds of blue, beige and organe readily visible.

Robben Island

Robben Island is a prison island off Capetown, South Africa, best known as the jail where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated…

Revisiting Area 51

Whether it’s space aliens, light-speed travelling spaceships, or just some top-secret government testing, the world’s most famous “secret place” has…

Top Ten Northernmost Items on Google Maps

Here at Google Sightseeing, our obsession with superlatives knows no bounds, whether it be the largest, the smallest, the funniest, or the strangest. Join us as we literally go in another direction with our look at ten items that have the right to be called the northernmost such things on Earth!

Top 5 Worst Traffic Cities in the World

Nobody likes traffic. The frequent starts and stops just to roll another few feet can grind away at anyone’s mind.…

World’s Tallest Lighthouses

For centuries lighthouses have served as navigation aids, helping protect marine traffic from running aground on dangerous coastlines, rocks and…

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