Trompe-l’œil, or Trick of the Eye, is a long-established art technique where an artist uses very realistic imagery to create the illusion that the things shown in the image are actually three dimensional. The technique has been popularised on the…

If you’ve ever dreamt of travelling the world to see the world’s most famous landmarks, but couldn’t afford to finance the big trip, perhaps you might consider visiting one of the many not-so-famous sites that attempt to replicate those better-known…

The world’s first and largest tidal power generation facility is located on the Rance River in north-western France. The estuary of the Rance River sees tides averaging 8 metres between low and high tide, and up to 13.5 metres in…

It’s Island Week 4 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week. The last remaining fragments of the formerly immense French Empire in North America are the islands which make up the Territorial…

8 years ago today, on 21 September 2001, a huge explosion occurred in the AZF (AZote Fertilisant – nitrogen fertiliser) factory in Toulouse, France. Three hundred tonnes of ammonium nitrates blew up, creating a 200 m wide crater up to…

A tripoint is a geographical location where three borders meet – most notably those of different countries, but also (to a lesser extent) counties, states, provinces, etc. While many of the world’s 157 national tripoints are located in the middle…