0681 ITALY (Campania) - Historic Centre of Naples (UNESCO WHS)

Naples is one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world, Greek settlements being established there in the second millennium BC. Subsequent the city named Neápolis played a key role in the merging of Greek culture into Roman society. Following the decline of the Western Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire recaptured the city from the Ostrogoths, keeping them, with little interruption, until the early 9th century, when it gained the independence. In 1137 the Duchy of Naples came under Norman control, joining with the Kingdom of Sicily, which in 1197 went to the German House of Hohenstaufens. Becoming King of Sicily in 1266, the Angevin duke Charles I moved the capital from Palermo to Naples. In 1282 the Kingdom of Sicily was split in half and Naples served as the capital city of the Kingdom of Naples until 1816. Thereafter, in union with Sicily, it became the capital of the Two Sicilies until the unification of Italy in 1861.

0680 FRANCE (Occitania) - Villefranche-de-Conflent - part of Fortifications of Vauban (UNESCO WHS)

Located in the Conflent region of Catalonia (now in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in France), at the confluence of the Têt and Cady rivers, Villefranche-de-Conflent bars the road down the valley from Mont-Louis and Spain. The town is dominated by the mountainsides around it, which provide many ideal locations for enemy batteries to hammer the walls, so it was fortified for the beginning, since it was founded, in 1098. Captured by the French in 1654, it was part of the program of construction and improvement of outlying French defenses led by through 1707 by Marshal Vauban.

0679 MYANMAR (Kachin State) - Kachin girls on the bank of Mali River

The Kachin people (also known as Jingpho people) inhabit the Kachin Hills in northern Myanmar's Kachin State and neighbouring areas of China and India. They are actually an ethnic affinity of several tribal groups, known for their fierce independence, disciplined fighting skills, complex clan inter-relations, craftsmanship, herbal healing and jungle survival skills. In recent decades, their animist beliefs have been largely supplanted by their accelerated embrace of Christianity.

0677-0678 BULGARIA (Razgrad) - Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari (UNESCO WHS)

About Thracians I wrote when I presented the Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak, so I'll get straight to the point. One single remark I would like to make: the Danube was a barrier or a boundary only when the locals wanted that. I mean, for them, for the locals, this big river connecting central Europe to the Black Sea has been a source of food and a communication path ("Danube, Danube / Road without powder"), but in need they used it as line of defense or separation. Getae, for example, one of the most important Thracian tribes, stretched on one side and on the other of the river (in today's Romania and Bulgaria). Much later, the Cumans called a part of the territory once occupied by the Getae Deliorman (Crazy Forest), become Teleorman on the north of the Danube (in Romania) and Ludogorie on the south (in Bulgaria).

In 1982 in Ludogorie, at 2.5 km southwest of the village of Sveshtari, located 42 km northeast of Razgrad, was discovered in a mound a Getic tomb dating from the 3rd century BC. Built of limestone blocks, it consists of a dromos (corridor) and three premises (chambers), each covered by a separate vault. The decoration of the central chamber is exceptionally rich. Four different Doric and one Corinthian column support a frieze with triglyphs and metopes, between those there are ten caryatids with uplifted arms and above them is the picturesque scene of deification of the deceased ruler. A massive decorative stone door (naiskos) hid the burial bed from the eyes of the mortals. A second bed was designed for the wife.

0676 TAIWAN - Atayal women dancing

"Once upon a time, a stone named Pinspkan cracked apart and in it were three people. However, for an undisclosed reason, one of them decided to return back into the stone. Then there were two. The remaining one man and one woman then lived together for a very long time and they loved each other very much. Unfortunately, the man was too shy and would not approach the girl and tell her how he felt.The woman then came up with an idea because she could not bear to see how the man was too shy to confess to her. She firstly left her home and found some coal and with it, she blackened her face with it so she could pose as a different girl. After several days, she crept back into their home and the man mistook her for another girl and they lived happily ever after. Not long after, the couple bore children, fulfilling their mission of procreating the next generation."

0675 GERMANY (Bavaria) - The German Alpine Road at Sylvenstein Dam

The German Alpine Road (Deutsche Alpenstrasse) is a 430 km long stretch of roads snaking along the Austrian border, through the spectacular Alpine foothills of southern Bavaria, starting at Lindau on Lake Constance and ending at Berchtesgaden on Lake Königssee - just short of Salzburg. Dreamt up by Hitler in the 1920s and only recently fully completed, it is the most spectacular mountainous scenery in Germany, with ski resorts, more than 60 spa resorts, 21 mountain lakes, 25 castles, palaces and abbeys, not to mention the charming villages with their baroque, onion-domed churches, and a host of bridges, viaducts, tunnels and mountain passes.

0674 ITALY (Lombardy) - Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie with "The Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci (UNESCO WHS)

Santa Maria delle Grazie (Holy Mary of Grace) is a church and Dominican convent in Milan, included in the UNESCO World Heritage sites list. The convent was completed in 1469, at the order of Duke of Milan Francesco I Sforza, but the church took more time. The next duke, Ludovico Sforza (known also as Ludovico il Moro), decided to have the church as the Sforza family burial place and rebuild the cloister and the apse (attributed to Donato Bramante) which were completed after 1490.The church contains the mural of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, which is in the refectory of the convent and depicts the moment after Jesus tells his disciples that one of them will betray him.The Santa Maria delle Grazie is famous also thanks to its architectural history, which resulted in an intriguing combination of Gothic and Renaissance design.

0672 RUSSIA (Moscow) - Red Square - part of Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow (UNESCO WHS)

0672 Red Square, with Saint Basil's Cathedral and Spasskaya tower

Often considered the central square of Moscow, Red Square separates the Kremlin from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod. The name neither originates from the pigment of the surrounding bricks nor from the link between the colour red and communism. Rather, the name came about because the Russian word krasnaya, which means both "red" and "beautiful," was applied to a small area between St. Basil's Cathedral, the Spasskaya tower of the Kremlin, and the herald's platform called Lobnoe Mesto, and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich officially extended the name to the entire square.

0670 UZBEKISTAN (Surxondaryo) - A Kungrat old woman

Besides Uzbeks, in Uzbekistan live a number of ethnic minorities, among which are the Kungrats (also named Hongirat, Qongirat, Onggirat, Qongrat, Wangjila, Yongjilie, or Guangjila), who can be found mainly on the Surxondaryo valley, on extreme south-east of the country. The homeland of this tribe, one of the major divisions of the Mongols and Kazakhs, was located in the vicinity of Lake Hulun in northeastern Mongolia. Because the clans were never united, the tribe didn't known the military glory. Their greatest fame comes from the fact that Genghis Khan's mother, great grandmother, and first wife were all Kungrats.

0669 MEXICO (Chiapas) - Parachicos in the traditional January feast of Chiapa de Corzo (UNESCO ICH)

Located in the Grijalva River valley of the Chiapas highlands, Chiapa de Corzo is a small city, important of the archaeological point of view, because here were found the earliest inscribed date, the earliest form of hieroglyphic writing and the earliest Mesoamerican tomb burial. It's also the first Spanish city founded in Chiapas (1528), but after a while, because of the climate, many of the Spaniards moved into what is now San Cristóbal de las Casas. Chiapa was left for indigenous and Dominicans and called Chiapa de los Indios, San Cristobal being known as Chiapa de los Españoles.

0668 SPAIN (Catalonia) - Palau Güell - part of Works of Antoni Gaudí (UNESCO WHS)

This Palau Güell, one of the most luxurious of Barcelona, was commissioned to Antoni Gaudí by his main patron and lifetime friend, Eusebi Güell i Bacigalupi, Count of Güell, The architect started the project around 1880 and signed it in 1886, and the building, placed close to La Rambla, in an area  that in this period was the center of Barcelona, was developed between 1886 and 1888, although the decoration wouldn't finish until 1889. The palace was the Güell residence for a while, much later, in 1945, being sold by the count's daughter to the Diputació de Barcelona (Provincial government of Barcelona).

0664 AUSTRALIA (Australian Antarctic Territory) - David Range from Framnes Mountains

In 1933 United Kingdom placed the Antarctic territory situated from 60°S latitude to the South Pole and between longitudes 160°E and 45°E under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia. It became the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT), which is the largest territory of Antarctica claimed by any nation. Australia has a long historic connection with Antarctica dating back to the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (about which I wrote here) led by geologist Sir Douglas Mawson. Now, the territory is inhabited by the staff of research stations.

0663 TAIWAN - Amis young women dancing at the Adult Ceremony

The Amis are the largest ethnic group among the fourteen officially recognized peoples of Taiwanese aborigines, and they identify themselves as Pangcah, which means "human being", "people with the same ethnicity", or "people of the same descent". Even though their communities have been moved many times due to interaction with other ethnic groups and geographical factors, can be considered that their traditional territory include the narrow valley between the Central Mountains and the Coastal Mountains, the Pacific coastal plain eastern to the Coastal Mountains, and the Hengchun Peninsula, so they are considered to be "Plain Aborigines".

0662 UKRAINE - A Cossack kobzar

His name is Ostap Kindrachuk, was born in 1937 in Horodenka (a small town now in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, in western Ukraine), and lives în Yalta (Crimea). He attempt to recreate the Ukrainian Cossack's image, which to transmit to the younger generations, and is also a bandurist, his repertoire including the national ballads, historical and folk songs and songs of today, sung not only in Ukrainian or Russian, but also in Polish, German, Tatar or Romanian.

0659 FINLAND (Satakunta) - Bronze Age Burial Site of Sammallahdenmäki (UNESCO WHS)

Sammallahdenmäki is a Bronze age burial site in the village of Kivikylä, on a hill in a remote area off the road between Tampere and Rauma. Originally, it was near the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, but the land has risen, so now it is 15km from the sea. It was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1999, under the name Bronze Age Burial Site of Sammallahdenmäki, and includes 36 granite burial cairns dating back more than 3,000 years, from 1500 BC to 500 BC. Four of the cairns were excavated by archaeologist Volter Högman in 1891, including Kirkonlaattia (Church Floor), an unusual rectangular cairn covering 16 x 19m with a flat top, and Huilun pitkä raunio (long ruin of Huilu), which is surrounded by an ancient stone wall.

0657 HUNGARY (Komárom-Esztergom) - The Basilica of Esztergom

Esztergom, one of the oldest towns in Hungary, was a long time a frontier town, as also its name say it (the Old Slavonic name, Strěgom, means guard post). Erected by Celts, then conquered by Romans, who turned it into an important frontier point on the boundary of the province of Pannonia, the town was mastered successively by Germans and Avars. At about 500 AD, Slavic peoples settled there, in the 9th century, the region being part of Great Moravia. After the arrival of the Magyars, Géza chose Esztergom as his residence in 960, and his son, future Stephen I, was born in his palace built on the Roman castrum on the Várhegy (Castle Hill). Here, in Esztergom, he was baptised and later crowned. For almost 300 years it was the center of the country's political and economic life, and it has retained its importance even after moving the capital to Buda. Only the Ottoman conquest in 1526 brought a decline of the city.

0656 THAILAND (Kanchanaburi) - The Bridge on the River Kwai

Until 1957, when was released the film The Bridge on the River Kwai, world public opinion didn't know much about how was built the Burma Railway. The largely fictional film plot is loosely based on the building in 1943 of one of the railway bridges over the Mae Klong - renamed Khwae Yai in the 1960s - at a place called Tha Ma Kham, 5km from the town of Kanchanaburi. This railway, also known as the Death Railway, was a 415km railway between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar), built by the Empire of Japan during WWII, to support its forces in the Burma campaign.

0655 NETHERLANDS (Netherlands / Gelderland) - Devils House in Arnhem

Located on both banks of the river Nederrijn (Lower Rhine) as well as on the stream Sint-Jansbeek, Arnhem was first mentioned in 893, received city rights in 1233 and entered the Hanseatic League in 1443. In fact it arose on the location where the road between Nijmegen and Utrecht/Zutphen split, and only when the Rhine's flow was changed in 1530 was located on the river. In the 19th century, it was a genteel resort town famous for its picturesque beauty, being known as The Little Hague of the East. To those passionate about the history of the WWII Arnhem is known due to the Operation Market Garden, about which I wrote a little here and here.

0654 GERMANY (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) - Zeesenboot on Bodden

A bodden is a special realm, split between sea and land, without really belong to any of them. Isn't a lake, because has connections with the open sea. Isn't a bay, because is almost completely enclosed by peninsulae, spits and islands. Isn't neither a lagoon in the true sense of the word, because freshwater inflow from the mainland and saltwater inflow from the open sea varies continuously, depending on many factors, resulting a fluctuating salt gradient and a distinctive ecosystem. Located along the southwestern shores of the Baltic Sea, primarily in Germany's state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, especially around the island of Rügen, Usedom and the Fischland-Darss-Zingst peninsula, are traditionally good fishing areas.

0651 POLAND (Pomerania) - Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork (UNESCO WHS)

This castle (Ordensburg Marienburg in German, that means Mary's Castle), built by the Teutonic Knights after the conquest of Old Prussia on the southeastern bank of the river Nogat, is the largest castle in the world by surface area, and the largest brick building in Europe. The Teutonic Order (on its full name Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem) had been created in Acre (present-day Israel), but when this stronghold fell to Arabs, it moved its headquarters to Venice, and then in Poland. The construction of the castle lasted until around 1300, and it became more important in the aftermath of the conquest of Gdańsk (Danzig) and Pomerania (1308), becoming the Order's administrative centre.