Petra

Petra is an archaeological site in Arabah, Aqaba Governorate, Jordan.

The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it was discovered by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. It was famously described as “a rose-red city half as old as time” in a Newdigate prize-winning sonnet by John William Burgon. UNESCO has described it as “one of the most precious cultural properties of man’s cultural heritage.”In 1985, Petra was designated a World Heritage Site. It is one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World” as determined by the New Open World Corporation

Petra is a famous city carved out of stone, hidden by towering sandstone mountains in Jordan. Although uninhabited today, during ancient times, it was an important city, and was the main city of an ancient people called the Nabataens, who lived in southern Jordan, Canaan and the northern part of Arabia, and created a kingdom with its capital at Petra. Lying in the centre of an ancient caravan trade routes, Petra benefited from the resulting commerce. Caravans pass through Petra for Giza in the south, Bosra and Damascus in the north, Aqaba on the Red Sea, and eastward to the Persian Gulf.

Until they settled at Petra, the Nabateans were largely nomadic. They founded Petra around the 6th century BC and ruled over it until AD 100, when the Romans conquered Petra. In AD 106 it was absorbed into the Roman Empire and was known as Arabia Petraea. Although having lost its autonomy, Petra continued to flourish for another one hundred years. It then began to decline when trade routes changed. An earthquake in AD363 devastated Petra and destroyed its waterworks. Petra lay in ruins until the 12th century, when the Crusaders occupied it and built a citadel there. After they were gone, Petra was left to its native inhabitants. It was first seen by a Westerner in 1812, when Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt discovered it. Petra was made popular in recent times by the Indiana Jones movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Although it is Petra's most elaborate ruin, Al Khazneh is by no means the only sight worth visiting. There are more tombs and chambers on the cliffs surrounding Al Khazneh. The smaller tombs look like black holes on the cliff walls. On the left of Al Khazneh to the left, at the foot of a mountain called en-Nejr, is an amphitheatre that can accommodate up to 8000 people. There are more tombs on the rock walls behind it. When the amphitheatre was carved, it was probably cut into some of the existing tombs as well.
basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba.

Machu Picchu

It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Sacred Valley which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cuzco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is the most familiar icon of Inca civilization.

Machu Picchu

7,000 feet above sea level and nestled on a small hilltop between the Andean Mountain Range, the majestic city soars above the Urabamba Valley below. The Incan built structure has been deemed the “Lost Cities”, unknown until its relatively recent discovery in 1911. Archaeologists estimate that approximately 1200 people could have lived in the area, though many theorize it was most likely a retreat for Incan rulers. Due to it’s isolation from the rest of Peru, living in the area full time would require traveling great distances just to reach the nearest village.

In the summer of 1911 the American archaeologist Hiram Bingham arrived in Peru with a small team of explorers hoping to find Vilcabamba, the last Inca stronghold to fall to the Spanish. Traveling on foot and by mule, Bingham and his team made their way from Cuzco into the Urubamba Valley, where a local farmer told them of some ruins located at the top of a nearby mountain. The farmer called the mountain Machu Picchu, which translates to “old peak” in the native Quechua language. On July 24, after a tough climb to the mountain’s ridge in cold and drizzly weather, Bingham met a small group of peasants who showed him the rest of the way. Led by an 11-year-old boy, Bingham got his first glimpse of the intricate network of stone terraces marking the entrance to Machu Picchu.

Archaeologists have identified several distinct sectors that together comprise the city, including a farming zone, a residential neighborhood, a royal district and a sacred area. Machu Picchu’s most distinct and famous structures include the Temple of the Sun and the Intihuatana stone, a sculpted granite rock that is believed to have functioned as a solar clock or calendar.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983 and designated one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007, Machu Picchu is Peru’s most visited attraction and South America’s most famous ruins, welcoming hundreds of thousands of people a year. Increased tourism, the development of nearby towns and environmental degradation continue to take their toll on the site, which is also home to several endangered species. As a result, the Peruvian government has taken steps to protect the ruins and prevent erosion of the mountainside in recent years.

The Semmering Railway The Semmering Railway

The Semmering Railway, built over 41 km of high mountains between 1848 and 1854, is one of the greatest feats of civil engineering from this pioneering phase of railway building. The high standard of the tunnels, viaducts and other works has ensured the continuous use of the line up to the present day. It runs through a spectacular mountain landscape and there are many fine buildings designed for leisure activities along the way, built when the area was opened up due to the advent of the railway.

The Semmering Railway

IT is a daring feat of civil engineering that uses sixteen viaducts(several supported by two-storey arches), fifteen tunnels and over one hundred curved stone bridges to surmount the 460m difference in height. The engineer was Carlo di Ghega, a man who pushed the technical boundaries during the pioneering heyday of railway construction.

 The track had to rise up over a kilometre-high mountain pass – which then became the highest altitude that could be reached by railway in the world – and overcome extreme radii and upward gradients. Twenty thousand workmen laboured to carve the vision from the limestone rock; such was the feat that afterwards it was triumphantly claimed that there was nowhere that a railway could not be built.
In 1854 got built the Semmering train, who was one of the first train to pass through high alpine mountains. The spectacular landscape and the monumental buildings were declared UNESCO world heritage. The railway made it easily accessible from Vienna and at the fin-de-siecle several monumental hotels were raised here. Semmering is the best known alpine resort in eastern Austria.

The Semmering line, engineered by Carl Ritter von Ghega, runs from Gloggnitz to Murzzuschlag, crosses the high Alps in a 42 km (26 mile) long section known as the Semmering Pass. It still forms part of the railway from Vienna in Austria to Italy and Slovenia. The Adriatic port of Trieste had special importance as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: Since it was the only access the state had to the sea, an efficient railway connection was of the utmost importance.

Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park is a United States national park located in the state of Washington, in the Olympic Peninsula.The park has four basic regions: the Pacific coastline, alpine areas, the west side temperate rainforest and the forests of the drier east side.

Olympic National Park

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt originally created Mount Olympus National Monument on 2 March 1909.It was designated a national park by President Franklin Roosevelt on June 29, 1938. In 1976, Olympic National Park became an International Biosphere Reserve, and in 1981 it was designated a World Heritage Site. In 1988, Congress designated 95 percent of the park as the Olympic Wilderness.


Encompassing 1,441 square miles of the Olympic Peninsula, Olympic National Park invites visitors to explore three distinct ecosystems: subalpine forest and wildflower meadow; temperate forest; and the rugged Pacific shore. Because of the park's relatively unspoiled condition and outstanding scenery, the United Nations has declared Olympic both an international biosphere reserve and a World Heritage site.

Inside the park, the Olympic mountain range is nearly circular, contoured by 13 rivers that radiate out like the spokes of a wheel. No road traverses the park, but a dozen spur roads lead into it from US 101, making it easily accessible from outside the park.

Residents of the Olympic Peninsula refer to it as a gift from the sea, and its features were indeed shaped by water and ice. The rock of the Olympics developed under the ocean—marine fossils are embedded in the mountain summits. Another component, basalt, originated from undersea lava vents. About 30 million years ago, the plate carrying the Pacific Ocean floor collided with the plate supporting the North American continent. As the heavy oceanic plate slid beneath the lighter continental plate, the upper layers of seabed jammed against the coastline, crumpling into what would become the Olympic Mountains. Glaciers and streams sculptured the mountains into their current profiles.

Glaciers nearly one mile thick also gouged out Puget Sound and Hood Canal to the east, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the north, isolating the peninsula from the mainland.

Ice Age isolation led to the 15 animals and 8 plants that evolved nowhere else on Earth, including the Olympic mountain milkvetch, Olympic marmot, Olympic Mazama pocket gopher, Olympic mud minnow, Beardslee, and crescent trout.

There are also the 11 mammals common in the nearby Cascades and Rockies that either died out in the Olympics or never found their way into the peninsula. The missing include the grizzly bear, lynx, and mountain sheep.

The mountain goats found here are non-native. They were introduced in the 1920s before the park was established. The goat population eventually boomed to over 1,000 and so damaged Olympic’s alpine meadows in 1981 the park staff began efforts to manage their numbers within the park.

Moist winds from the Pacific condense in the cool air of the Olympics and drop rain or snow, bestowing on the mountains' western slopes the wettest climate in the lower 48 states. Mount Olympus, which crowns the park at 7,980 feet, receives 200 inches of precipitation a year.