Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country’s largest and most populated municipality (central area), with over 2.7 million residents in 496.3 sq mi, while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million. It is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber river. The city has been one of history’s most powerful and important centres, being the home of the emperor during the Roman Empire and the Italian government. The city also has a significant place in Christianity and is the present day home of the Roman Catholic Church and the site of the Vatican City, an independent city-state run by the Catholic Church. Due to this, the city has often been nicknamed “Caput Mundi” and “The Eternal City”. Also, Rome is widely regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful ancient cities.

1. The Colosseum or Roman Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre, is an elliptical amphitheatre in the center of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. It is one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and Roman engineering. Occupying a site just east of the Roman Forum, its construction started between 70 and 72 AD under the emperor Vespasian and was completed in 80 AD under Titus, with further modifications being made during Domitian’s reign (81–96). The name “Amphitheatrum Flavium” derives from both Vespasian’s and Titus’s family name (Flavius, from the gens Flavia). Capable of seating 50,000 spectators, the Colosseum was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles. As well as the gladiatorial games, other public spectacles were held there, such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology. The building ceased to be used for entertainment in the early medieval era. It was later reused for such purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry, and a Christian shrine. It has been estimated that about 500,000 people and over a million wild animals died in the Colosseum games.

2. Vatican City, officially the State of the Vatican City is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, the capital city of Italy. At approximately 44 hectares and with a population of barely over 800, it is the smallest country in the world by both population and area. Vatican City is a city-state that came into existence in 1929. It is distinct from the Holy See, which dates back to early Christianity and is the main episcopal see of 1.142 billion Roman Catholic and Eastern Catholic adherents from around the globe. Ordinances of Vatican City are published in Italian; official documents of the Holy See are issued mainly in Latin. The two entities even have distinct passports: the Holy See, not being a country, only issues diplomatic and service passports; the state of Vatican City issues normal passports. In both cases the passports issued are very few.

3. The Pantheon is a building in Rome, built by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in about 126 AD. A near-contemporary writer, Cassius Dio, speculates that the name comes from the statues of many gods placed around the building, or from the resemblance of the dome to the heavens. Since the French Revolution, when the church of Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, was deconsecrated and turned into a secular monument, the Panthéon, the generic term pantheon may be applied to any building in which illustrious dead are honoured or buried. The building is circular with a portico of three ranks of huge granite Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four behind) under a pediment opening into the rotunda, under a coffered, concrete dome, with a central opening (oculus) to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon’s dome is still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome. The height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same, 142 feet. A rectangular structure links the portico with the rotunda. It is one of the best preserved of all Roman buildings. It has been in continuous use throughout its history, and since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been used as a Roman Catholic church dedicated to “St. Mary and the Martyrs” but informally known as “Santa Maria Rotonda.”

4. The Borghese Gallery is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana, a building that was from the first integral with its gardens, nowadays considered quite separately by tourists as the Villa Borghese gardens. The Galleria Borghese houses a substantial part of the Borghese collection of paintings, sculpture and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (reign 1605–1621). The Villa was built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese himself, who used it as a villa suburbana, a party villa at the edge of Rome. Scipione Borghese was an early patron of Bernini and an avid collector of works by Caravaggio, who is well represented in the collection by his Boy with a Basket of Fruit, St. Jerome, Sick Bacchus and others. Other paintings of note include Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love, Raphael’s Entombment of Christ and works by Peter Paul Rubens and Federico Barocci.

5. The Trevi Fountain is a fountain in the Trevi rione in Rome, Italy. Standing 85 feet high and 65 feet wide, it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city. The fountain at the junction of three roads marks the terminal point of the “modern” Acqua Vergine, the revivified Aqua Virgo, one of the ancient aqueducts that supplied water to ancient Rome. In 19 BC, supposedly with the help of a virgin, Roman technicians located a source of pure water some 8 miles from the city. However, the eventual indirect route of the aqueduct made its length some 14 miles. This Aqua Virgo led the water into the Baths of Agrippa. It served Rome for more than four hundred years. The coup de grâce for the urban life of late classical Rome came when the Goth besiegers in 537/38 broke the aqueducts. Medieval Romans were reduced to drawing water from polluted wells and the Tiber River, which was also used as a sewer. The Roman custom of building a handsome fountain at the endpoint of an aqueduct that brought water to Rome was revived in the 15th century, with the Renaissance. In 1453, Pope Nicholas V finished mending the Acqua Vergine aqueduct and built a simple basin, designed by the humanist architect Leon Battista Alberti, to herald the water’s arrival.

Montreal

Montreal is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Originally called Ville-Marie the city takes its present name from Mont-Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, whose name was also initially given to the island on which the city is located, or Mont Réal as it was spelled in Middle French.
As of the 2006 census, 1,620,693 people resided in the city, ranking it as the sixth largest city overall across Canada and the United States. The population of the metropolitan area (known as Greater Montreal) was 3,635,571 at the same 2006 census.
The language most spoken at home in the city is French by 57% of the population, followed by English at 19% (as of 2006 census). The official language of Montreal is French as defined by the city’s charter. Montreal is the second-largest primarily French-speaking city in the Western world, after Paris. Though historically the commercial capital of Canada, it was surpassed in population and commercial importance in the 1970s by Toronto, but today is an important centre of commerce, finance, industry, technology, culture and world affairs.

1. Old Montreal is the oldest area in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, dating back to New France. Located in the borough of Ville-Marie, the area is usually thought of as being bounded to the west by McGill St., to the north by Ruelle des Fortifications, to the east by Berri St., and to the south by the Saint Lawrence River. Following recent amendments, the district has been slightly expanded to include rue des Soeurs Grises to the west, Saint Antoine St. to the north and the St-Hubert Street in the east. It also includes the Old Port of Montreal. Most of Old Montreal has been declared historic district in 1964 by the Ministère des Affaires culturelles du Québec.

2. Notre-Dame Basilica is a basilica in the historic district of Old Montreal, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The church is located at 110 Notre-Dame Street West, at the corner of Saint Sulpice Street. It is located next to the Saint-Sulpice Seminary and faces the Place d’Armes square.
The church’s Gothic Revival architecture is among the most dramatic in the world; its interior is grand and colorful, its ceiling is colored deep blue and decorated with golden stars, and the rest of the sanctuary is a polychrome of blues, azures, reds, purples, silver, and gold. It is filled with hundreds of intricate wooden carvings and several religious statues. Unusual for a church, the stained glass windows along the walls of the sanctuary do not depict biblical scenes, but rather scenes from the religious history of Montreal. It also has a Casavant Frères pipe organ, which comprises four keyboards, 97 stops, almost 7000 individual pipes and a pedal board.

3. Mount Royal is a mountain in the city of Montreal, immediately north of downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the city to which it gave its name.
The mountain is part of the Monteregian Hills situated between the Laurentians and the Appalachians. It gave its Latin name, Mons Regius, to the Monteregian chain. The mountain consists of three peaks: Colline de la Croix (or Mont Royal proper) at 764 ft, Colline d’Outremont (or Mount Murray, in the borough of Outremont ) at 692 ft, and Westmount mount at 659 ft elevation above mean sea level. At this height, it might be otherwise considered a hill, but it has always been called a mountain.

4. Montreal’s Underground City (officially RÉSO or La Ville Souterraine in French) is the set of interconnected complexes (both above and below ground) in and around Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is also known as the indoor city, and is the largest underground complex in the world.
The lower floors of the Eaton Centre between the McGill and Peel metro stations.
Not all portions of the indoor city are underground. The connections are considered tunnels architecturally and technically, but have conditioned air and good lighting as any building’s liveable space does. Many tunnels are large enough to have shops on both sides of the passage. With over 20 miles of tunnels spread over more than 4.6 sq miles, connected areas include shopping malls, apartment buildings, hotels, condominiums, banks, offices, museums, universities, seven metro stations, two commuter train stations, a regional bus terminal and the Bell Centre amphitheatre and arena.[citation needed] There are more than 120 exterior access points to the underground city. Each access point is an entry point to one of 60 residential or commercial complexes comprising 1.4 sq miles of floor space, including 80% of all office space and 35% of all commercial space in downtown Montreal. In winter, some 500,000 people use the underground city every day. Because of its Underground City, Montreal is often referred to as the “Double-Decker City” or “Two Cities in One”.

5. The Montreal Botanical Garden is a large botanical garden in Montreal, Quebec, Canada comprising 185 acres of thematic gardens and greenhouses. The botanical garden is located at 4101 Sherbrooke Street East at the corner of Pie-IX and Sherbrooke Streets, in Maisonneuve Park, facing Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. It contains a greenhouse complex full of plants from around the world, and a number of large outdoor gardens, each with a specific theme. The outdoor gardens are bare and covered with snow from about November until about April, but the greenhouses are open to visitors year round, hosting the annual Butterflies Go Free exhibit from February to April.

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America. The city was the capital of Brazil for nearly two centuries, from 1763 to 1822 during the Portuguese colonial era, and from 1822 to 1960 as an independent nation. It is also the former capital of the Portuguese Empire (1808–1821). Commonly known as just Rio, the city is also nicknamed A Cidade Maravilhosa or “The Marvelous City.”
Rio de Janeiro is famous for its natural settings, its carnival celebrations, samba, Bossa Nova and hotel-lined tourist beaches, such as Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon, along with its slums. Some of the most famous landmarks in addition to the beaches include the giant statue of Christ, known as Christ the Redeemer (‘Cristo Redentor’) atop Corcovado mountain, named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World; Sugarloaf mountain (Pão de Açúcar) with its cable car; the Sambódromo, a giant permanent parade stand used during Carnival and Maracanã stadium, one of the world’s largest football stadiums. Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Summer Olympics, and will be the first South American city to host the event and the second in Latin America 48 years after Mexico City hosted in 1968.
The city also boasts the largest and second largest urban forests in the world: Floresta da Tijuca, or “Tijuca Forest.” and (almost connected to the first) the forest in Parque Estadual da Pedra Branca, or White Stone State Park. The Galeão-Antônio Carlos Jobim International Airport, commonly known simply as Galeão connects Rio de Janeiro with many Brazilian cities and also operates several international flights.
Despite its charm and beauty, Rio is reputed to be one of the most violent cities in the world. Much of the violent crime is concentrated in the shantytowns but it also spills into middle and upper-class neighborhoods.

1. Christ the Redeemer is a statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; considered the largest art deco statue in the world. The statue stands 130 ft tall, including its 31 ft pedestal, and 98 ft wide. It weighs 635 tons, and is located at the peak of the 2,300 ft Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city. It is one of the tallest of its kind in the world. The statue of Cristo de la Concordia in Cochabamba, Bolivia, is slightly taller, standing at 132.7 ft tall with its 20.5 ft pedestal and 112.2 ft wide. A symbol of Catholicism, the statue has become an icon of Rio and Brazil. The statue of Christ the Redeemer is a very important symbol of Brazil’s Catholicism. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone.

2. Sugarloaf Mountain is a peak situated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the mouth of Guanabara Bay on a peninsula that sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean. Rising 1,299 ft above the harbor, its name is said to refer to its resemblance to the traditional shape of concentrated refined loaf sugar. However, it is believed by some that the name actually derives from Pau-nh-acuqua (“high hill”) in the Tupi-Guarani language, as used by the indigenous Tamoios.
The mountain is only one of several monolithic morros of granite and quartz that rise straight from the water’s edge around Rio de Janeiro. A glass-paneled cable car (in popular Portuguese, bondinho – more properly called teleférico), capable of holding 75 passengers, runs along a 1400-meter route between the peaks of Pão de Açúcar and Cara de Cão every 20 minutes. The original cable car line was built in 1912 and rebuilt around 1972/1973 in its current form. The cable car goes from the base, not the peak of the Babilônia mountain, to the Urca mountain and then to the Pão de Açúcar mountain.

3. Carnival - Starting out as a festival before the somber mood of Lent, Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is considered one of the greatest shows on Earth. The first festivals of Rio date back to 1723.
The carnival parade is filled with people and floats from various samba schools. A samba school can either be an actual school or just a collaboration of local neighbors that want to attend carnival. Samba schools include: Mocidade Independente, Imperio Serrano, Academicos do Salgueiro, Unidos da Tijuca, and Beija-Flor de Nilopolis.
The purpose of carnival is for samba schools to compete with fellow rival schools; this competition is the climax of the whole carnival festival. Each school chooses a theme to try and portray in their entry. The samba schools work to build the best floats and costumes to represent their themes, and to include the best music they can from their band called the bateria. There are many parts to each school’s entry including the six to eight floats and thousands of participants.
There is a special order that every school has to follow with their parade entries. Each school begins with the “comissão de frente”, which is the first wing. The “comissão de frente” is made up of ten to fifteen people only, and they are the ones who introduce the school and set the mood. These people have choreographic dances in fancy costumes that usually tell a short story. Following the “comissão de frente” is the first float of the samba school, called “abre-alas”.
Some of the important roles include the porta-bandeira and mestre-sala. The porta-bandeira is a very important lady who is in charge of the samba school flag, including making sure to not allow the flag to roll. She is accompanied by the mestre-sala, who is supposed to draw everyone’s attention to “his queen”, the porta-bandeira. Floatees, who are also important, are the people who populate the floats, also known as destaques. The floatees have the most luxurious and expensive costumes that can be extremely heavy. Along with all the floatees is one main floatee that is located at the top of each float. The main destaque dances and sings for the entire time that the float is on the runway.
One other aspect that is mandatory is the presence of the ala das baianas. This is a wing of the samba school entry that includes at least 100 females only. These women along with many other people do not ride on the floats as many others do, instead they are passistas, the people who belong to the samba school that do the marching alongside and between the floats.

4. Copacabana is a borough located in the southern zone of the city Rio de Janeiro, known for its 4 km beach which is one of the most famous in the world. The district was originally called Sacopenapã until the mid-18th century. It was renamed after the construction of a chapel holding a replica of the Virgen de Copacabana, the patron saint of Bolivia. It was incorporated into the city on July 6, 1892. Copacabana begins at Princesa Isabel Avenue and ends at Posto Seis (lifeguard watchtower Six). Beyond Copacabana, there are two small beaches, one inside Fort Copacabana and other, right after it: Diabo Beach. Arpoador beach, where surfers use to go after its perfect waves, comes in the sequence, followed by the famous borough of Ipanema.

5. Ipanema is adjacent to Copacabana beach, but it is distinct from its neighbor. It is relatively easy to navigate because the streets are aligned in a grid. Private infrastructure has created world-class restaurants, shops, and cafes. Ipanema is one of the most expensive places to live in Rio. At the forefront of the beach culture are the many surfers and sun worshippers who socialize daily at the beach. Every Sunday, the roadway closest to the beach is closed to motor vehicles and local residents and tourists use the opportunity to ride bikes, roller skate, skateboard, and walk along the ocean. Ipanema has played its own role in Rio’s culture since its beginning. It has universities, art galleries, theaters and cafes. Ipanema holds its own street parade during Carnival festivities, separate from Rio de Janeiro’s. Banda de Ipanema attracts up to 15,000 people to the streets of Ipanema for Carnival.

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city in China, and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, with over 20 million people. Located on China’s central eastern coast at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the city is administered as a municipality of the People’s Republic of China with province-level status.
Originally a fishing and textiles town, Shanghai grew to importance in the 19th century due to its favorable port location and as one of the cities opened to foreign trade by the 1842 Treaty of Nanking. The city flourished as a center of commerce between east and west, and became a multinational hub of finance and business by the 1930s. However, Shanghai’s prosperity was interrupted after the 1949 Communist takeover and the subsequent cessation of foreign investment. Economic reforms in 1990 resulted in intense development and financing in Shanghai, and in 2005 Shanghai became the world’s largest cargo port.
The city is a tourist destination renowned for its historical landmarks such as the Bund and City God Temple, its modern and ever-expanding Pudong skyline including the Oriental Pearl Tower, and its new reputation as a cosmopolitan center of culture and design. Today, Shanghai is the largest center of commerce and finance in mainland China, and has been described as the “showpiece” of the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

1. The Bund is an area of Huangpu District in central Shanghai, People’s Republic of China. The area centres on a section of Zhongshan Road within the former Shanghai International Settlement, which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River, facing Pudong, in the eastern part of Huangpu District. The Bund usually refers to the buildings and wharves on this section of the road, as well as some adjacent areas. The Bund is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Shanghai. Building heights are restricted in this area.

2. The Oriental Pearl Tower is a TV tower in Shanghai, China. The Oriental Pearl Tower is located at the tip of Lujiazui in the Pudong district, by the side of Huangpu River, opposite The Bund of Shanghai.
The tower features 11 spheres, big and small. The two biggest spheres, along the length of the tower, have diameters of 164 ft for the lower and 148 ft for the upper. They are linked by three columns, each 30 ft in diameter. The highest sphere is 46 ft in diameter. The entire building is supported by three enormous columns that start underground. The tower has fifteen observatory levels. The highest (known as the Space Module) is at 1148 ft. The lower levels are at 863 ft (Sightseeing Floor) and at 295 ft (Space City). There is a revolving restaurant at the 876 ft level. The project also contains exhibition facilities, restaurants and a shopping mall. There is also a 20-room hotel called the Space Hotel between the two large spheres.

3. Yuyuan Garden, located in the center of the Old City next to the Chenghuangmiao in Shanghai, China, is considered one of the most lavish and finest Chinese gardens in the region.
The garden was first established in 1559 as a private garden created by Pan Yunduan, who spent almost 20 years building a garden to please his father Pan En, a high-ranking official in the Ming Dynasty, during his father’s old age. Over the years, the gardens fell into disrepair until about 1760 when bought by merchants, then suffered extensive damage in the 19th century. In 1842, during the Opium Wars, the British army occupied the Town God Temple for five days. During the Taiping Rebellion the gardens were occupied by imperial troops, and damaged again by the Japanese in 1942. They were repaired by the Shanghai government from 1956-1961, opened to the public in 1961, and declared a national monument in 1982.
Today, Yuyuan Garden occupies an area of 2 hectares (5 acres), and is divided into six general areas laid out in the Suzhou style:

• Grand Rockery – rockery made of huangshi stone (12 m high), featuring peaks, cliffs, winding caves and gorges. This scenery was possibly created by Zhang Nanyang in the Ming Dynasty. This area also contains the Sansui (Three Corn Ears) Hall.
• Heralding Spring Hall (Dianchun) – built in 1820, the first year of the Emperor Daoguang’s reign. From September 1853 to February 1855, it served as the base of the Small Swords Society (Xiaodao Hui).
• Inner Garden – rockeries, ponds, pavilions, and towers, first laid out in 1709 and more recently recreated in 1956 by combining its east and west gardens.
• Jade Magnificence Hall (Yuhua) – furnished with rosewood pieces from the Ming Dynasty.
• Lotus Pool – with a zigzag bridge and mid-lake pavilion.
• Ten Thousand-Flower Tower (Wanhua)

Garden areas are separated by “dragon walls” with undulating gray tiled ridges, each terminating in a dragon’s head.

4. Nanjing Road is the main shopping street of Shanghai, China, and is one of the world’s busiest shopping streets. Today’s Nanjing Road comprises two sections, Nanjing Road East and Nanjing Road West. In some contexts, “Nanjing Road” refers only to what was pre-1945 Nanjing Road, today’s Nanjing Road East, which is largely pedestrianised. Prior to 1949, the road’s English name was rendered “Nanking Road” using the standard romanization of the time.
The entirety of Nanjing Road has been a centre of commerce in Shanghai for more than a century. East Nanjing Road is a dedicated commercial zone. At its eastern end is the central section of the Bund, featuring the Peace Hotel. Immediately west of the Bund precinct was traditionally the hub of European-style restaurants and cafes, although in recent years these have become less of a feature as the demographics of visitors to Nanjing Road have shifted from affluent local residents to visitors from around the country. Close by is the Central Market, a century-old outdoor market today specialising in electronic components and digital media. Further west is the Nanjing Road pedestrian mall. Located here are most of Shanghai’s oldest and largest department stores, as well as a variety of domestic retail outlets, and some traditional eateries with a long history.
The pedestrian mall, and East Nanjing Road, ends at People’s Park, formerly the Shanghai Race Course. Opposite the park are located some of Shanghai’s most prestigious historical hotels, including Park Hotel. West Nanjing Road begins here, and features a number of upmarket shopping centres, office buildings, the Shanghai Exhibition Centre, and retail. This area also previously featured a number of large mansions and estates, most of which are today either demolished or used by the government. Nanjing Road is also the world’s longest shopping district, around 6 km long, and attracts over 1 million visitors daily.

5. Hangzhou - West Lake is located in the western area of Hangzhou City’s historic center. There are dozens of lakes called West Lake worldwide, but “West Lake” usually refers to the Hangzhou West Lake. It is surrounded by mountains on three sides, with an area of around 6.5 square kilometers. The circumference is around 15 kilometers. The average depth of West Lake is 2.27 meters, and the capacity is about 14,290,000 cubic meters. The lake is divided by Gu Shan, Bai, Su and Yanggong Causeways into five areas. Ordered by their areas, they are Outer West Lake (外西湖), West Inner Lake (西裡湖, or 後西湖, or 後湖), North Inner Lake (北裡湖 or 裡西湖), Little South Lake (小南湖 or 南湖) and Yue Lake (岳湖). “Outer West Lake” is the largest. “Gu Shan” or Gu Hill is the largest natural island in the lake. Su & Bai Causeways run cross the lake. Three small man-made islands, “Xiao Ying Zhou” (小瀛洲), “Hu Xing Ting” (湖心亭), “Ruan Gong Dun” (阮公墩), lie in the center of Outer West Lake. Thus, the basic layout is “one hill, two causeways, three islands, and five lakes”.
West Lake is not only famous for its picturesque landscape, it is also associated with many scholars, national heroes and revolutionary martyrs, thus embracing many aspects of Chinese culture. In addition, many ancient buildings, stone caves and engraved tablets in surrounding areas are among the most cherished national treasures of China, with significant artistic value.