A deep ravine, a thundering river and a collection of ropes swinging across from one side to the other. You can easily associate rope bridges with the difficult terrain of the Andean mountains. Despite the popular image, only very few of these Inca rope bridges remain. One of these traditional Inca rope bridges is Q’eswachaca …
The scattered rock faces, arches and tunnels break up the dense green vegetation of the hills. When the setting sun shines on the rocks they glow with an almost orange color. The landscape of Las Médulas seems unreal and in a way it is. It is ancient, yet man-made and it was once the largest …
The Nilgiri Mountain Railway in the jungle of Southern India has the steepest slope of any railway in Asia. What is the reason that a railway line was built through such difficult terrain? As the name suggests, the Nilgiri Mountain Railway connects Mettupalayam on the plains of southern India with Ooty (or Udhagamandalam) in the …
The Kii Peninsula in Japan is the location of a remarkable network of old pilgrimage trails known as the Kumano Kodo. Apart from the Camino de Santiago (St. James Way) in Spain, these are the only pilgrimage routes that received World Heritage status. History of the Kumano Kodo pilgrimages The hilly area of the Kii …
In Panama, the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are only about 60 km apart. This makes the isthmus a truly strategic location for global transportation. A hundred years ago the Panama Canal was opened and since then allows ships go directly from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific. This obviously was not possible …
The Hellweg is the most famous road in Westphalia. This historic region of Germany stretches from the Rhine to the Weser rivers. Following the Westphalian Hellweg today is a journey back in time more than 1,000 years when Charlemagne built this road. The Ruhr Area I was curios how much of the old Westphalian Hellweg …
