A sailor with a rifle slung over his right shoulder stands under foliage on the edge of the Cemetery of the March Revolution (Der Friedhof der Märzgefallenen) in Berlin’s Friedrichshain district. Like the cemetery as a whole, the bronze sculpture is somewhat hidden yet a monument to tumultuous, formative times in Germany and Europe.
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At the corner of the park stand a couple of police officers on crowd control duty. Normally my eyes would be drawn to the bright yellow of their high visibility vests. But it’s their black Stetsons and shades that make me do a double take.
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If you’ve seen films such as The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Reader or Inglourious Basterds then you’ve already caught glimpses of Goerlitz. Some of the scenes that appear in those movies were filmed in Germany’s most easterly city. So to was Around The World in 80 Days, starring Jackie Chan.
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In 1975 Burntcoat Head in Nova Scotia, Canada, entered The Guinness Book of Records as the place where the world’s highest average tide was recorded. The difference in the water level between low and high tide was measured at 47.5 feet—around 14.50 metres.
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Saigon, formerly the capital of the Republic of Vietnam, was renamed in honour of the revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, who was the chairman of the Worker’s Party of North Vietnam between 1951 and 1969. Decades prior to that he worked in London at the Drayton Court Hotel.
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The Casa das Historias Paula Rego is an eye-catching centre for the display and appreciation of contemporary art in Cascais. The seaside town is 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of Lisbon.
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Dotted with medieval castles and Martello towers built to defend Britain from French invasion, Sussex has much for history lovers. At Bignor Roman Villa, near Pulborough, you can view mosaics laid down approximately 1,800 years ago.
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Americans come to visit Saint John and are surprised to learn that Benedict Arnold lived here for a few years. The funny thing is that he’s famous as a traitor in the States. He was a bit of a butthead when he lived here.
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There's lots to see and do in Newcastle. The ‘new castle’ which lends its name to the city is centuries old: it dates from the reign of King Henry II, 840 years ago. You can climb its steep, honey-coloured stone steps to visit the great hall before watching a video that explains the role of the fortress through the ages.
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In woodland close to Rainau, a small town a little over 80 kilometres eastwards of Stuttgart, I saw one of the tallest remaining sections of the stone wall that was a key element of the Upper German-Rhaetian Limes. Crunching across pine cones and bouncing over sun-dappled ground springy with fallen pine needles, I visited a remnant of the stonework accompanied by Dr Stefan Bender, an archaeologist working at Baden-Wuerttemberg’s Limes information centre in Aalen. “It was known as the Devil’s Wall,” said Dr Bender as we approached the stonework. “People thought in former centuries that the devil had constructed the wall.”
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