The countries receiving updated imagery are Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Romania, South Africa, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Additionally, there is brand new coverage of two of Britain’s Crown Dependencies, the Isle of Man, and Jersey.

Peel Castle, Isle of Man

Mont Orgueil, Jersey

Of particular interest in the United States, brand new imagery has been added throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego, taking in sights such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Staples Center, and USS Midway which are now shown in stunning high-resolution.

What can you find in the new imagery? Send us your finds via our suggestion form, or on Twitter, and we’ll post a roundup later in the week of your best finds!

Read the full story at the Google Latlong blog.

Locations: Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, North America, Norway, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom / Categories: Street Views

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Carlsberg Brewery, Copenhagen

To start, we visit the quite ornate Carlsberg Brewery in Copenhagen, Denmark². The western gate tower is supported by four carved granite elephants, the symbol of the brewery. The Latin inscription above the gate means Let us work for our country.

Businessman J.C. Jacobson founded this brewery, which has become a major part of what is now a global brewing conglomerate. He named it after his son Carl, who – after a feud – started his own New Carlsberg company. Following the elder’s death the breweries merged under Carl’s leadership.

The elephants are each marked with an initial of one of Carl’s four children, as well as a swastika. This was originally seen as a symbol of luck based on its origin in eastern religions, though the brewery abandoned its use when it was adopted by the German Nazi party.

One thing I remember from my visit is that workers were allowed to help themselves to a beer any time during the day. They went on strike in 2010 when the company tried to regulate that consumption!

The eastern gate is also notable for the plaque describing Carl Jacobsen’s vision for the brewery, and the depictions of his family and important figures from the business. Learn more about this historic brewery at its official site.

St. James’s Gate Brewery, Ireland

Over to Ireland now, and one of the world’s best known brands – Guinness, and its original brewery St James’s Gate. The gate is marked ’1759′ – the year Arthur Guinness first made beer here, and when he signed a 9,000 year lease!

Once the world’s largest brewery, the plant occupies a huge area south of the river Liffey. Along Crane Street we can find both an attractive brewery gate and a slogan painted by conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner.

At the heart of the factory is The Guinness Storehouse visitor centre³. While it’s difficult to get a clear view of it from Street View, it does have a new glass atrium designed to resemble a pint of their famous beer.

Weihenstephan Abbey, Germany

While Street View is available in some German cities, it has not yet made it to Freising in Bavaria, where the Weihenstephan Abbey claims to be the world’s oldest operating brewery.

While there are records of hops being used at the monastery as early as the 8th century, it was granted an official license in 1040, meaning it will celebrate its thousandth anniversary just 3 decades from now!

Abbaye Notre-Dame de Leffe, Belgium

A different group of monks created one of my personal favourite beers, Leffe. It’s no longer made at the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Leffe⁴ in Dinant, Belgium, though a revitalised religious community there does offer tours of the building, and there’s also a nearby museum.

Bragdy Gwynant, Wales

And finally, just to prove that size isn’t everything⁵, how about the world’s smallest brewery? The title is claimed by Bragdy Gwynant in Wales – basically a tiny shed where real ale is brewed for the Tynllidiart Arms pub next door!

We’d love to hear from our readers – post a comment with a link to the location of your personal favourite brewery or brewpub!

Locations: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Wales / Categories: Buildings, Street Views

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Middelgrundsfortet was constructed in the late 19th century, with much of the materials coming from the excavations taking place to expand the nearby harbour. With an area of 70,000 sq m it also claims the slightly-technical world record for being the “largest artificial island without abutments”².

The excellent high-res images give us a good look at the various fortifications and buildings around the island.

The Danish military maintained a presence here until 1984, and in 2002 it was sold to a private owner who now uses the island and its buildings as a hotel and conference centre. We can actually get a very distant glimpse of Middelgrundsfortet from Street View’s visit to the outskirts of Copenhagen, and there’s also a nearby wind farm of the same name that GSS visited back in 2005.

About 3km to the south-east is a second well-preserved sea fort – Flakfortet, which was built in between 1910 and 1915. Again we can see the various structures in great detail.

Flakfortet was also sold to a private owner, and is today open to visitors for weddings, concerts, and … mini-golf?

The third, and oldest, artificial island is found right at the entrance to Copenhagen harbour – Trekroner Fort.

Named after one of three ships sunk here in the late 18th century to create a foundation for the island, Trekroner has protected the harbour through numerous conflicts, beginning with the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. It was, however, occupied by German forces during the second world war. The island is now a tourist attraction, clearly visible³ from the harbour roads.

Locations: Denmark / Categories: Abandoned, Islands, Street Views

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This 360m long, 72m high behemoth weighing 220,000 tons was constructed in Turku, Finland, where unfortunately Google only has very low resolution images. However, we’re fairly sure that the white rectangle in the centre of this image is the Oasis! Panoramio has numerous photos of the ship under construction.

Designed to carry up to 6,300 passengers and over 2,000 crew, this ship is almost 50% larger than the Freedom class vessels mentioned in our previous post. It is so large that, soon after delivery, it faced a major obstacle in the form of the Great Belt Fixed Link bridge in Denmark. The Oasis had to safely pass under this bridge in order to reach the North Sea.

Her retractable funnels were lowered as much as possible, but still she had to build up speed to ride low enough in the water to pass under the bridge with less than 60cm to spare! A pair of YouTube videos show how perilous this was – from on board the ship, and from land.

After surviving this first test, the Oasis crossed the Atlantic to its home port of Port Everglades in Florida, from where it will cruise the Caribbean starting in December. It will be joined by a sister ship, MS Allure of the Seas, in 2010.

In addition to now-standard activities such as surf simulators and climbing walls, passengers will enjoy numerous ground-breaking cruise ship features such as an open air central park (with real trees and grass) running the length of the ship, ‘loft’ cabins and a bar which travels up and down between decks. There is also 25m zipline and a boardwalk (with carousel and tattoo parlour) leading to an outdoor theatre for aquatic shows with a spectacular backdrop of the open ocean.

Most cruises will call in at Labadee – Royal Caribbean’s ‘private island’ – in reality a fenced-off peninsula on Haiti’s northern coast, where workers are rushing to finish construction on a pier long enough to accommodate these new ships.

While this fake tourism would be unbearable by many, 500 locals directly benefit from employment or from selling their wares at the ‘flea market’, and Haiti’s poverty-strapped government happily rakes in $6 for each passenger. At other ports, locals and visitors alike complain about overcrowding when multiple ships are in port on the same day. This new generation of ships may only increase this problem, as well as the usual environmental concerns of fuel usage and the effect on coral reefs and wildlife.

Marine Buzz has an excellent article about the Oasis, while USA Today has some great pictures of the construction process.

Locations: Denmark, Finland, Florida, Haiti / Categories: Bridges, Islands, Watercraft

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The form and position of the sandbank’s tip can vary considerably over short periods of time, when waves³ and currents remove or deposit sand.

On the long term however, Grenen is growing by almost a kilometre (roughly half a mile) per century, slowly extending towards the north east. A closer look at the aerial picture shows distinct stripes in the landscape: successive layers of silt and sand that have accumulated over time.

Of great importance is the 46m (150ft) high lighthouse close to the tip.

Despite the increasing use of advanced navigational systems, the lighthouse is still crucial to the safe passage of more than 100,000 ships that pass Grenen every year.

Due to its prominent position in between seas, the location has also been of great military interest for many years. What remains today are several very sturdy concrete fortifications and artillery positions built by the Germans during World War II.

These structures are part of the huge Atlantic Wall project, a chain of coastal defences built by the German Third Reich that runs from southern France to the northern end of Norway. The Wall was never completely finished, and save its French parts never saw much use.

A little further to the south lies the “Tilsandede Kirke“, or “silted up church“. Built around the 12th century, it was the region’s most important church.

However, beginning in the 16th century, it had to regularly be dug out of the sand that amassed around it, and was finally given up in 1795. Its main building was torn down to reuse the building materials, while the church’s tower remains as a historical site.

Grenen today is a popular leisure destination⁴ and a nature reserve, protecting the region’s distinct vegetation including several kinds of orchids. It is also a popular site for bird spotters looking for passing eagles, ospreys, cranes, storks and ernes, amongst many others.

Locations: Denmark / Categories: Abandoned, Natural Landmarks

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A 35 metre tall giant is (admittedly very slowly), clawing his way out of the earth to wreak havoc upon the defenceless surface-dwelling Danes. So far the terrifying creature has only managed to completely free his hands, but he’s threatening to break the rest of himself through at any moment.

Which means that we have the unique opportunity to present a very special award; this is, without doubt, quite probably the world’s largest arse!

While we’re unclear whether or not visitors may take a picnic onto the grass, we’re sure that the giant’s giant-butt-crack would afford a reasonable amount of shelter from the wind if someone chose to attempt such a thing…

This isn’t the only example of giants breaking free from their underground lairs – over in Washington D.C. another giant is clawing his way out of the ground, watched by a crowd of onlookers (Wikipedia).

Given that he’s managed to expose a little more of himself, perhaps we should be grateful that he chose to emerge face first…

Thanks to bjarnebf, Simon and Jimbo.

Locations: Denmark, District of Columbia / Categories: Crowds, Monuments, Rudeness, Weirdness

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This is what used to be the island of Jordsand in the Wadden Sea, just off the coast of Denmark, and east of the German island of Sylt.

Once upon a time it may have connected to both the mainland and Sylt, but by 1873 it was down to just 18.4 hectares in size. Attempts to protect the island were made during the 1970s but recurring floods continued to reduce its area and, during the winter of 1998, the little island was finally submerged for good.

Interestingly, the low resolution image used on Google Maps for the more zoomed-out views still shows some small sections of land protruding from the water.

Thanks to Lars Dybdahl.

Locations: Denmark, Germany / Categories: Islands

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Unfortunately not, as it’s man-made. But the face is the work of famous 1800s Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, who originally created the design by cutting some holes in a bit of paper.

Titled “The Sun as a Face”, I doubt he ever expected to have the crude artwork recreated in the medium of forest. Neither would he have expected a “nature playground”, as seen in this smaller representation to the north.

The forest was planted in 2005 as part of Odense‘s celebration of the bicentenary of Hans Christian Andersen’s birth.

However, the city officials went completely overboard, and plastered this design all over the city!

Further information is available in PDF leaflets for the wood and the celebrations.

Thanks to DJoe.

Locations: Denmark / Categories: Large Type

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Starting on Funen at the Western end we have a 6611m bridge that carries both road and rail.

This bridge then abruptly ends at the tiny island of Sprogø, the site of a former prison used for women deemed “pathologically promiscuous”! During the bridge’s construction Sprogø’s landmass was quadrupled in size.

Here the road and rail tracks diverge, with the rail track diving under a tunnel to the North, while the road continues along the 6790m Eastern bridge.

This Eastern bridge has a single suspended span (without ground support) of 1624m, making it the second longest suspended span in the world. It would actually have been the title holder, at least temporarily, but for a delay in construction which meant that the longer-spanned Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge was completed first.

Prior to the construction of both the Great Belt and Akashi-Kaikyo bridges, the longest span title was held by the Humber Bridge in England, wich reigned from its construction in 1981 until 1998.

Everyone’s favourite Humber fact is that the perfectly vertical towers are actually 36mm² further apart at the top than they are at the bottom, due to the curvature of the earth!

Wikipedia has the complete list of largest suspension bridges and pages on the Great Belt, Sprogø and the Humber Bridge.

Thanks to Jonathan Rawle, Tobias Hader and Cyan

Locations: Denmark, England / Categories: Bridges, Shadows

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From the looks of it, there may be a pipe going from the recovery truck to the lorry, so maybe they are going to attempt an air cushion lift?

Check out previous lorry accidents here, here and here.

Thanks to Raskii at the Google Earth community.

Locations: Denmark / Categories: Other Vehicles

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