…but why write about things like that when we can show you a giant Einstein head made out of Lego bricks!

Yes, the symbol of scientific intellectual rebellion is just as familiar these days as an icon of advertising. From giant posters on Broadway chiding passers-by to assert themselves, to giant adverts for real estate developers painted on the sides of inner-city tattoo parlours, Albert Einstein is indeed everywhere – and he’s here to sell!¹

For example, check out this fairly detailed mural of Einstein on a windswept beach on the side of this Sao Paulo surfboard shop. His Hawaiian shirt even gets painted different colours based on the season.

Quite strangely, Einstein is the mascot for a barber shop in Taipei, because if there’s one hairstyle anyone wants to emulate, it’s Albert Einstein’s. ‘Yeah, I’ll have the “just inserted my finger in an electrical outlet”, thank you.’

Then, of course, there are the businesses which have aped the man’s name entirely. In particular, Einstein seems to be popular with restaurants. A university cafe like this one at the University of Toronto? Makes sense. A pizzeria in Prague? Not so much.

The most unlikely Einstein-related business, however, may be this dance club in Muro del Alcoy, Valencia, which prominently features a mural of Einstein next to a DJ in the middle of a set. One can only wonder which side old Albie would have taken in the UK funky/two-step revival debate.

This Einstein Day, don’t get sucked in by all of this crass commercialism. When your family is gathered around the wormhole in the sitting room tonight to sing relativity carols and watch Yahoo Serious movies, remember the real reason for the season.

Locations: Alberta, Australia, Brazil, Czech Republic, New Jersey, New York, Ontario, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan / Categories: Monuments, Street Views, Weirdness

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Above is Estadio Lluís Sitjar in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Built in 1945, for over half a century the 18,000 seat stadium was the home of football club RCD Mallorca. The stadium has sat unused since 2007, but the word ‘Mallorca‘ can still be plainly seen spelled out in the seats. The field of play, however, is already in a sad state.

On another populous Spanish island, Gran Canaria, lies Estadio Insular, which was the home of UD Las Palmas. Built in the same year as Lluís Sitjar, the 21,000 seater was abandoned four years earlier. Grass and trees are already rooting themselves in the stands, and the walls are covered in graffiti.

Stade des Charmilles in Geneva was the site of five FIFA World Cup games in 1954. Much of the facility was dismantled in 2002 and the field is completely barren, but the grandstands remain in place. In the rival city of Zurich, the demolished Hardturm also hosted World Cup games. Satellite imagery shows the shells of the grandstand are still intact, and Street View shows the rubble surrounding it.

In Germany, Gelsenkirchen’s Parkstadion was the home of the Bundesliga’s Schalke 04 from 1973 to 2001. Since then, about one-half of the seating has been removed, but the rest remains.

The largest abandoned stadium seen on Google Maps is the Estadio Fonte Nova in Salvador, Brazil. Originally built to a capacity of 66,080, the stadium was expanded to a monstrous 110,000 seats in 1971. Tragedy struck Fonte Nova in 2007, when an upper terrace collapsed during a Third Division championship final, killing seven spectators and injuring forty. The stadium was immediately closed. Since this imagery was captured, Fonte Nova has been demolished.

At one point the largest arena in the Czech Republic, Brno’s Stadion Za Lužánkami has sat in state for the past decade. Not only is the old playing field easy to make out, but even the goalposts are still standing. Around the edges, though, trees up to 3 metres high have sprouted in the bleachers.

Not all abandoned stadiums are left to rot. The Dell, the former home of English side Southampton, was redeveloped as a housing estate after its 2001 closure. Not only does the estate retain the shape of the original stadium, but all of the apartment blocks are named for famous Saints players.

Naturally, there aren’t only modern abandoned arenas to be found on Google Maps. The Plaza de Toros in Cartagena, Spain has been abandoned for nearly a century. Built on top of an ancient Roman arena, the location is set to be the home of a new Roman museum. Over in Merida, this ancient amphitheatre dates all the way back to 25 BC. The gladiator pit is exposed in the middle of the arena.

We end the first part of our tour in South Africa, where in Cape Town, Greenpoint Stadium was torn down to make way for the neighbouring Cape Town Stadium in advance of the 2010 World Cup¹. Here we see demolition crews working to dismantle the arena. The north grandstand, however, remains standing.

Read part two of our abandoned stadium tour: Abandoned Stadiums of the United States.

Locations: Brazil, Czech Republic, England, Germany, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland / Categories: Abandoned, Stadiums and Sport

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Railway pigtails can be found throughout the world. One example was featured on Google Sightseeing several years ago, the Tehachapi Loop outside of Bakersfield, California. Automobiles climb tighter slopes but they also operate in smaller spaces so there are plenty of examples on roadways too. Pigtails can appear in city settings where motorway or bridge ramps converge in constricted downtown areas, or as a common feature in multi-level parking decks. I’m more interested in their rural cousins however, the roads that might be rather fun to drive!

Following a reader suggestion, I tossed the idea to the usual crowd at my own site, Twelve Mile Circle. The result presented here on GSS reflects contributions by several people and demonstrates the effectiveness of respectful online conversations.¹

Great Smoky Mountains, USA

A national park protects much of the Great Smoky Mountains, an offshoot of the Appalachians. Newfound Gap Road cuts directly through the park, a rare path through the rugged range, connecting park headquarters in Tennessee to protected areas in North Carolina. The road dips, snakes and curves along the gap, and finally pigtails near one of the park’s most recognisable features, Chimney Tops on Sugarland Mountain.

Black Hills, USA

Pigtail roads and bridges can be found in considerably greater quantity in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This suggests a great scenic drive for those interested in experiencing the pigtail phenomenon in person. Start first at Wind Cave National Park, and head north on Route 87 on a course towards Mt. Rushmore. The first pigtail will be experienced perhaps two km from the Wind Cave visitors centre.

Chart a path from there that involves Route 16A — Iron Mountain Road — approaching Mt. Rushmore from the south, and three more pigtails will appear in quick succession about 50 km (30 m) from Wind Cave.

This unusual concentration of pigtail roads and bridges is not coincidental: they were all constructed in the 1920s to provide an elegant solution to sudden elevation changes while slowing drivers down so they could enjoy the scenery.

Majorca, Spain

A particularly spectacular instance can be found on the road between Escorca and Sa Calobra on the island of Majorca, Spain. This one is simply stunning, both for the expansive view and for the complete visibility of the loop. No doubt others feel likewise as there is a pullout on the northeast side of the pigtail for people to stop and appreciate what they’ve encountered.

This 12.5 km road and its awesome pigtail, first opened in 1932, are a signature achievement of Italian road engineer Antonio Paretti.

Savona, Italy

If one pigtail road and bridge should get an award for sheer elevation gain, this occurrence on A6, the Autostrada Torino-Savona, might likely win. The road visible in the valley foreground is the same as the one on the viewer’s side of the guardrail. The road navigates several tunnels through the mountainside as it climbs to this point. This stretch was once known as the Autostrada della morte, the Highway of Death, until improvements were made in recent decades.

Besides the pigtail, it has all sorts of amazing curves and tunnels in general.

I wouldn’t mind going for a drive on any of these roads.

Locations: Italy, South Dakota, Spain, Tennessee / Categories: Bridges, Natural Landmarks, Street Views

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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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Publishing UFO sightings on the internet can be a risky business, especially when using the fuzzy eye of the street view car to find them. Most “UFOs” are easily explained away as things like low flying airplanes, big balloons, or passing birds. In this case however, it’s not very easy to fit this object into one of these categories. So what could it possibly be?

GSS reader Jose sent us a sequence of four street view photos that seem to show something in the sky on the north side of the Autovia del Cantabrico in Spain. Considering this is a highway, and the street view car was presumably moving quite quickly, the fact that we only see this object in 4 frames indicates that it was either moving very fast in the opposite direction, or alternatively barely moving at all.

So what could it be?

Well, if Marvin the Martian was speeding his way up the Spanish coast, then this is definitely what it would look like. The object appears to be out over the beach, away from the road and camera, and the speeds needed to actually pull off a low-pass like this would easily be faster than a military jet. So fast perhaps that most people on the ground wouldn’t have seen it speed by.

If we’re being confused by the lack of depth in the images, it could perhaps then be an insect. Considering most bugs are not very big at all, the street view car would never see it unless it was right next to it. If we assume that such a bug would be moving comparatively slowly compared to the car then it would seem highly unlikely that it would have appeared in so many different frames as the car sped past.

Well how about a low-flying airplane then? Possibly, but taking a look at the surrounding scenery there are’t any airports to support the theory of a departing or arriving aircraft. Maybe it was someone out for a joyride but once again, it’s moving so fast!

So what does this flying object actually look like? Well, it has all the characteristics of a classic UFO! It’s metallic looking, saucer shaped, moving very quickly, and doesn’t really look like either an insect or an airplane.

While I’m not quite claiming that Katy Perry is about to descend from the stars in a duet with a bug-eyed ET wannabe, but I do think it’s very interesting, and one of most intriguing finds I’ve seen in a long time. Many thanks to GSS reader Jose for sending it in!

So let’s hear it, what do you think it is?

Locations: Spain / Categories: Aircraft, Spacecraft, Street Views, Weirdness

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Take Monaco, for instance, where the cameras approach the eastern border only to be greeted with this giant abstract sculpture at the crossing (or is that just Monaco giving a massive middle-finger to Google’s camera?).

The western entrance to Monaco is quite stunning, with the road descending into the principality as cliffs loom overhead.

Moving south into the Pyrenees, we reach the border of Andorra, where we can sneak a peek into the ski resort of Pas de la Casa, including some oddly-coloured apartments on the hillside.

For sheer impressiveness, however, it’s hard to beat the sight of the Rock of Gibraltar looming over the Spanish border at La Linea while a thunderstorm prepares to hit overhead:

The prize for ‘Most Ornate Entrance Captured on Street View’ might have to go to the border between Rimini, Italy and Serravalle, San Marino, where the microstate has constructed a pedestrian overpass and an observation tower for tourists, leading into a major shopping district. The other main entrance to San Marino would probably be described as ‘quaint’ by comparison.

The absurdly complicated Dutch-Belgian border at Baarle (documented previously on Google Sightseeing) is likely to have presented special challenges to the Street View team. However, they have cleverly managed to avoid publishing any images captured on Belgian soil – despite examples such as this, where the camera car must drive from Holland at one end of the block, across a tiny sliver of Belgium, and back to Holland at the other end.

Baarle’s not the only town cut in half in Street View. Here’s a place where you park in France to dine at a cafe in Luxembourg:

Near the tri-point of Italy, Austria and Slovenia, we get this multi-national flag arrangement at an old Austrian customs building. Further into the Alps, the Street View car camera ends its trip at the ski resort of Nassfeld, where one of the ski lifts lies right next to a field of grazing cattle.

The lone glimpse of Russian soil captured so far on Street View is the view across a small lake from Norway (the only place you can actually drive south into Russia from), where we get a blurry view of a building on a hill overlooking the lake. Hmm, a regular house, or a Cold War spy shanty? You be the judge…

South Africa is the only African country so far visited by Street View, but sadly most of the border shots are not particularly notable. For example, the images simply stop by a fence on the middle of the road at the border with Swaziland, while the border with Botswana couldn’t be any more different, merely possessing a single stop sign.

We end our forbidden borderland odyssey with a glimpse from Singapore across the Straits of Johor to downtown Johor Bahru.

With luck, one day we’ll be able to get a glimpse beyond those borders as Street View continues to roll out coverage in countries across the globe. (Then we can finally find out just what it is they’re trying to hide from us…)

Locations: Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Crown Dependencies, France, Italy, Malaysia, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Street Views, Structures

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The Street View cameras gained access to the area thanks to the Street View Trike, which entered the plaza in front of the cathedral and provides a stunning view:

And here is the north facade of the cathedral:

We can also see a number of pilgrims arriving in the plaza in front of the cathedral or just outside the main plaza. With their large backpacks and walking sticks, they are easy to spot.

The entrance to the crypt that contains the remains of the Apostle is visible here at the main entrance of the cathedral:

Pilgrims who complete the journey can register with the cathedral to receive the Compostela, or certificate of accomplishment of the pilgrimage. However to qualify, pilgrims must meet certain qualifications:

1. carry the credencial or pilgrim passport (which entitles you to a place in the Spanish refugios) and produce it, stamped and dated at each stage of the journey;
2. have walked or ridden on horseback the last 100 km to Santiago, or cycled the last 200 km, and
3. declare a spiritual or religious motivation

The number of pilgrims making the journey has steadily increased, up to more than 100,000 per year now. However, the number rises during a Holy Year and 2010 has proven to be the busiest Holy Year since the cathedral began keeping records.

Locations: Spain / Categories: Buildings, Street Views, World Heritage Sites

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Europeans are no strangers to speed, some of the biggest races in the world occur throughout the continent. Arguably the most famous street race of them all, Monte Carlo in Monaco, has been a staple in the motorsports calendar since 1929! Let’s take a look at some of the other street circuits in the region…

Pau, France – Pau first held a motorsports race way back in 1901, and hosted a race almost every year through the remainder of the 20th century. The modern day circuit runs through the heart of the French town and up until 2010, it was used by World Touring Cars and Formula Three. Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton (then only an aspiring open wheel driver), won the event here in 2005 in a Formula Three car. Visible on Google’s satellite view, we can see the markings on the street indicate where the start/finish line is located, as well as the hairpin between Avenue Leon Say and Allee Alfred de Musset.

Cagliari, Italy – Street tracks aren’t limited to just streets (as we saw with Cleveland, USA) – take Circuito Cittadino di Cagliari in Italy for example. This 2.414 km (1.500 mi), 18-turn track runs mainly through a car park adjacent to the large Stadio Sant’Elia. Euro F3000 cars circled the stadium here for two years (2002-2003) before the track was abandoned. Today Google allows us to see the remnants of the track’s outline snaking around the complex.

Valencia, Spain – Beginning in 2008, Formula 1 began using the harbour-front streets of Valencia to host the European Grand Prix. The site is unique because it required an almost total reconstruction of the roads and buildings in the area in order to accommodate the event. The 5.419 km (3.367 mi) track packs in 25 turns and runs adjacent to the city’s harbour and America’s Cup port area, even going over the water at one point. Using some clever street view navigation, we are able to tour the site during different phases of construction and actually see the track coming together!

Early construction (left), and late construction (right)

The Street View car raced (or possibly drove) the entire length of the front straightaway giving us images of the fresh asphalt used to reinforce the racing surface. The final hairpin comes in at an odd angle compared to the road, so temporary walls were used to route traffic appropriately.

The pit complex building used by the race teams was renovated from former port stalls that probably held some of the finest sailing vessels in the world. Further south, towering grandstands can been seen in the distance lining the track between turns 16 and 17.

The track eventually veers off and skirts along the harbour before returning to the meet the Street View car near what would become turn 5. The last image of the road shows the track heading towards turn 6 and the beach in the distance.

For more information including race histories and track layouts, visit Wikipedia’s expanding article on street circuits. Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of GSS’s tour of the sites as well.

Locations: France, Italy, Spain / Categories: Stadiums and Sport, Street Views

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Fortunately the girl, who must have been slightly taken aback when the world’s media¹ turned up at her door asking if she was dead, was in fact perfectly all right.

A fact that any of the reporters could have been assured of if they’d moved down the street one step, from where you can see the girl is clearly playing with a friend.

Perhaps this will spark a new trend however, as presented with the Google car, some less playful people continue to get up to their old tricks…

As Google’s cars have covered even more ground around the world, there have been some interesting things to learn about the human condition. For example, apparently some girls are rather adept at something the world’s men thought they had all to themselves.

Although it does appear that not all women have mastered the art of peeing standing up quite yet.

Not to be outdone, men have gone one step further and LEARNED TO FLY. Yes ladies, you heard us right. (Although we can only do it momentarily, and it helps to be over a deep bit of water).

We hope that wider knowledge of Street View provokes more interesting responses from people when they see the car – there was another media frenzy recently when someone was spotted multiple times on the streets of Aberdeen, wearing a horse’s head. Suspiciously the images have all been removed now, so instead here’s a real horse, wandering through traffic on the way to the local Tesco.

Of course, if we all started lying down in the street, or donning interesting masks at the first sign of an approaching camera then, in an attempt to keep the controversy alive, the international press will have to start making up stories about politician’s homes being removed from Google’s services.

Sorry, I forgot, we debunked that particular story the week before last.

So have you been captured on Street View?² What did you do? And if you haven’t yet, what do you plan to do to gain international notoriety when your time finally comes?

Locations: England, Italy, Netherlands, Saskatchewan, Spain / Categories: Street Views

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Located in the south of Spain, the protected wilderness area features three seperate wild west villages, which have been used as locations in many films and all are now tourist attractions. Spread over an area of 280 km2 (108 square miles) Tabernas is an ideal stand-in for the American West as it receives just 24 cm of rain a year, over 3000 hours of sunlight, and has an average temperature of 18˚C.

Texas Hollywood, also known as Fort Bravo, close to the town of Tabernas, was used a location for the making of Laurence of Arabia, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and many, many more films.

The location comprises both a Texas and Mexican-styled village, including saloons, hotels, churches, a fort and close-by, an Indian village of wigwams which are visible in streetview.

Western Leone was most-famously used to film Once Upon in the West and is named after its director Sergio Leone. Wigwams can be seen, on both maps and streeview.

Mini Hollywood, also known as Oasys Theme park, was used in For a Few Dollars More, Conan the Barbarian, and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The film set is part of a theme park, which includes a zoo with bears, giraffes and tigers – and if you’re looking for somewhere to host a western-themed wedding, the set is available to hire.

Locations: Spain / Categories: Buildings, Deserts, Movie Locations, Street Views

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