Tag Archives: UNESCO

It’s hard to imagine a more dramatic location for a most picturesque city! Surrounded by steep, snowcapped mountains with glaciers tucked within them, and sliced by deep fjords and fast-running rivers, historic Bergen has long Viking roots and rich Hanseatic heritage. The iconic medieval harbour district Bryggen is immediately recognisable with its colourful collection of […]

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It is heartbreaking watching the situation in India with the Kappa and Delta B.1.617 variants of COVID-19 sweeping through the population and devastating communities. First detected last October, the variants – and the societal factors enabling them – have caused a huge second wave of infections and resulted in around 4000 deaths per day at […]

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The Netherlands is known for its flat landscape punctuated by canals and dikes. If fact, I was taught at school that dyke was a Dutch word. While it is true that dijk (pronounced ‘dyke’) is a common word in Dutch, it comes from the same Old German word that gave English ‘ditch’. Sadly, the little […]

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India is in the news at the moment – because of Covid. In spite of the fast-tracking of any vaccines the country can get hold of, a second wave of virus variants is sweeping the country. India now has the second-highest number of Covid cases in the world, and their public and private hospital systems […]

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The statistics are staggering: the 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands that make up the Great Barrier Reef stretch across 2300 kilometres (1,429 miles) into the Coral Sea off the northeast coast of Queensland, Australia. Between 24 km (15 mi) and 240 km (386 mi) wide, this – the world’s largest coral reef system – […]

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