It’s hard not to see the rear of a naked woman in the shapes made by this field in Sicily, Italy.

As you can see though, the title of this post refers not to the fact that she’s half naked (as she clearly has no clothes on at all), but rather that she’s only half a woman - as she seems to be missing all her limbs. And her head.¹

Thanks to Santi.

To celebrate International Mother Language Day¹ Google Sightseeing has some really big news - today, for the first time we’re launching Google Sightseeing in a foreign language! Not only that but we’re launching two at the same time - French and Italian!

Google Sightseeing Français will be translated by Julien Gremillot, a 30 year old software engineer originally from Paris, who now lives near Nantes, and who has had a passion for satellite sightseeing ever since Google Maps introduced satellite imagery nearly 3 years ago.

Google Sightseeing Italiano will be translated by Alexei Popov who lives and works in Rome. Although Alexei is originally from St. Petersburg, he has made Italy his permanent home after falling in love with it on his first visit. He loves to travel and says his horizons have expanded incredibly since discovering GSS.

Julien and Alexei will be translating all the best posts from the English language GSS for their own languages, as well as posting some of their own language specific stuff as well!

We’ve still got a bit of tweaking to do, so if you find a problem with functionality or appearance leave a comment here (in English please) and we’ll try and fix it.

If you have a comment about the French or Italian posts then feel free to comment in those languages and our translators will handle your queries.

Of course, we want Google Sightseeing to be available to all, so we aim to expand with more languages in the future. If you are fluent in another language and would like to have your own Google Sightseeing blog then please get in touch.

Miniature parks and model villages are sort of like a pre-internet 3D Google Earth, allowing you to view a representation of a village or city sights from above.

So it’s no surprise that on visiting my local park, Bekonscot Model Village in Buckinghamshire, I was more excited than a 5-year-old let loose in a sweetshop. As I stomped around the 1930s English villages I wondered if I could see the park on Google Earth?

Sadly, the resolution of Bekonscot in Google Earth just isn’t high enough to make out any of the lilliputian houses, trains or airplanes. However, I discovered the village is a founding member of the International Association of Miniature Parks, and many of the other member parks have great resolution.

So, today we are going to explore International Miniature Parks, where we’ll see the best sights on the globe, just smaller and more fuzzy!

Mini Europe

Mini Europe is located in Belgium but features sights from the whole of the European Union including Big Ben, Mount Vesuvius, the Berlin Wall (complete with falling action) and the Eiffel tower (pictured in the thumbnail).

Miniatürk

Miniatürk is a miniature Turkey in the city of Istanbul. In the thumbnail is the miniature version of Atatürk Olympic Stadium.

Minimundus

Minimundus in Austria claims to offer the “most beautiful buildings of all 5 continents”. St Peter’s Square is easy to spot and the Opera house is also in there somewhere.

Still in Minimundus, The CN Tower’s height is being challenged by its neighbour the Eiffel tower, despite being almost twice the size in real life!

Rügen Park

At just 926 km² Rügen (Germany’s largest island) is only 2/3 the size of London, but if that’s just too much area for you to cover you can instead explore the tiny Rügen island at Rügen Park, located on the island of Rügen.

As an added bonus, to the west of the park you will find everywhere else, including the great pyramids, the Whitehouse and, pictured in the centre of the thumbnail, a pre-sinking Titanic.

Sardegna in Miniatura

Another miniature island within itself is Sardegna in Miniatura, which reproduces the Italian island of Sardinia.

Swiss Miniatur

Swiss Miniatur aims to “summarise Switzerland” in miniature form. Clearest in the Google Earth image is the Swiss Alps, located in the north-east of the park.

Italia in Miniatura

Back to Italy, Italia in Miniatura is located on a man-made island in the shape of Italy (of course), and features the country’s most famous landmarks. Look to the north of the mini-country and again you can just about make out the white peaks of the Alps.

Despite being a mini-Italy, they also have special section for a mini Eiffel tower. The resolution is too poor to make it out, but you’ve probably seen it enough already!

The rest…

For completeness, the other members of the International Association of Miniature Parks not featured today are the low-resolution Mini Israel, Miniatuur Walcheren, Pueblo Chico, Klein Erzgebirge, Miniature World, Catalunya in Miniatura, Pirenarium, and the previously featured excellent resolution Madurodam.

Further information on all the parks is available on the group website and Wikipedia has a large list of miniature parks which features many more.

Your average portrait painting isn’t very large or, in the case of the Mona Lisa, it’s surprisingly tiny. That said, we have found one or two giant portraits which are viewable from above.

To start, Anne Frank can be seen painted on the playground of Anne-Frank-Realschule, a German Six-form high school.

Still in Germany, we can see a likeness of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart painted in chalk outside Cologne Cathedral. I think someone should head down there and put some money in the guy’s hat.

Our last portrait we have to admit isn’t actually a portrait painting, but may well be a reproduction of one of Picasso’s paintings through the medium of field.

I’ve found suggestion that the original is a portrait of Marie Therese Walter but that might be a red herring, as I can’t find any portraits of her that even resemble the field.

Can anyone do any better?

Thanks: Felippo, sladys, JackW & Jane

When it opened in 1923, Fiat’s Lingotto Building was the largest car factory in the world. It featured an entirely unique design where raw materials entered on the ground floor, and the cars were constructed on an assembly line which climbed through the building. Eventually, the finished cars emerged onto the roof - directly onto a rooftop test track!

The factory sadly closed in 1982, and has since become a multi-use complex featuring a theatre, concert halls, and a Meridien hotel.

You can read more about the wonderful Lingotto Building at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Oliver Dueck and A.

Near the top of Italy’s heel, there’s a mysterious-looking structure - an absolutely huge circle, 4 kilometres across! You might guess that this is a particle accelerator, but in fact it’s a perfectly circular high-speed test track - The Nardò Ring.

The ring is 12.5 km in circumference (around 7.8 miles) and is banked all the way round to allow the cars to achieve their absolute maximum top speed; which in practice means that a driver often need not turn the wheel at all once they get going. Essentially, cars can drive in a continuous straight line and yet somehow always end up exactly where they started…

The official site and the Wikipedia page are a little lacking, but see our other post about the Super Secret Volkswagen Test Track if you found this interesting.

Thanks to Ben, Luca D, munehiro, wanten, Luca, Rob James, woowoowoo, Craig, Dave, nixx, Alice Rizzoli, Mark, Francesco, Patrick and finally Tom!

Check out this fantastic capture of a plane towing a banner message past a packed beach in Italy.

Here’s another plane towing a message off the coast of South Carolina (where there’s also a great shot of someone parasailing too).

I don’t know what messages these planes were flying, but at North Perry Airport in Florida someone’s left one of these plane-banners lying out, and you can clearly read the message “CAT I LOVE, YO!“…

Thanks to mlc1us, nicolor and Mark Ralston.

Many places around the world hold kite-flying events, and here in Italy our trusty satellite has captured Cervia’s annual International Kite Festival in full swing. There’s all sorts of wonderful inflatable kites visible from up here, and the distinct shapes of their shadows should make it possible to identify which exact kites these are by comparing them to ground-level upward-looking photos.

Thanks to Adi Shavit