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This wonderful reflection in the River Lee of South Gate Bridge and Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork, Ireland, was taken by Firehorsey.
Want to be featured as Photo of the Week? Join the EF Tours group on Flickr, and add your travel photos. We pick a new one each Thursday.
Photo: Firehorsey via Flickr (EF Tours pool)
There was once a time when the arrangement of atoms inside iron crystal was kept pretty low-key.
Then along came the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (Expo '58) and its signature structure: a 335-foot-tall rendering of a pattern of iron atoms, called The Atomium. It's 165 billion times bigger than a real set of iron atoms, so you can't miss it.
There are nine spheres in total, each one representing an atom. Six of the nine are open to visitors—inside them, there's exhibit halls, panoramic views and the like.
Legend has it that the church atop Mont Saint-Michel was founded by Saint Aubert, bishop of Avranches, after repeated visions from the Archangel Michael 1,300 years ago.
"I thought this picture was pretty cool because of the seagulls in the front of it," nal1320 wrote in Flickr. "I liked this picture so much I blew it up and framed it in my room."
Want to be featured as Photo of the Week? Join the EF Tours group on Flickr, and add your travel photos. We pick a new one each Thursday.
Photo: nal1320 via Flickr (EF Tours pool)
Have you ever done the wave inside the Colosseum? At the top of the Eiffel Tower? On the Great Wall? Or in a Costa Rican rainforest?
Now's your chance, because you can be a part of the largest human wave ever: The Wave Around the World.
The Wave Around the World is looking for travelers—students, teachers, adults, anyone—to videotape themselves and their friends doing the wave in destinations across the globe. It's a perfect group activity for students traveling on educational tours this summer.
About halfway up Great Britain, in the upper reaches of England and just before the border with Scotland, lies the Lake District.
It is a stunningly beautiful landscape of lakes and "fells" (mountains), old stone walls and rolling green countryside. It's a rural paradise, like Switzerland with lower mountains and (charmingly) lower levels of perfectionism.
William Wordsworth, one of the premier poets of the English language, is a product of the Lake District. This is one of his most famous poems. Wordsworth's residences—Dove Cottage in the village of Grasmere (his home from 1799 to 1808) and the nearby Rydal Mount (1813-1850)—are both open to visitors.
EF's Global Citizens become world travelers next week.
Ten inspiring U.S. high school students were selected to receive tour scholarships through EF's annual Global Citizens essay contest. These outstanding Global Citizens depart this weekend on an incredible educational tour to Berlin, Prague, Munich and Lucerne.
The best part is that you can follow along on Twitter. Each day on
tour, a different Global Citizen will tweet about their experiences. You can follow them at twitter.com/efglobalcitizen.
EF Tour Director Alex Luther—a Germany native and good friend of Following the Equator—may occasionally be tweeting during the tour, as well. You can follow Alex at twitter.com/AlexLuther.
Here's a new perspective on the nearly 600-year-old Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence—better known simply as the Duomo.
Want to be featured as Photo of the Week? Join the EF Tours group on Flickr, and add your travel photos. We pick a new one each Thursday.
Photo: tiffluu via Flickr (EF Tours pool)
A tour bus heading to or heading out of Venice will likely take the path across the top of the Italian boot and find itself right in Verona's path.
Verona is a great stopover for a long lunch. Aside from lots of lunch options under piazza awnings, there are two outstanding sights to see:
The Arena di Verona was the Roman Empire's third largest amphitheater, behind this one in Rome and this one in Capua. But if it's only No. 3 in size, it's No. 1 in its state of preservation and by far the tops in its longevity as a "living" structure: Opera-goers worldwide flock to the Arena every summer for big-name performances under the bright lights.
The other big Verona attraction is the Casa di Guilietta. In Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the heroine (Juliet Capulet) lives in Verona. In the first part of the 1900s, the city identified an old 13th century house in the city center that belonged to a family by the name of dell Capello (tantalizingly close to "Capulet" and conceivably Shakespeare's inspiration), and it was rebranded "Juliet's House" (Casa di Guilietta).
The mysterious origins of Stonehenge give it an aura that has marveled visitors for millenniums. That aura gives nearly all photos of the legendary stone structure a magical, mystical quality.
This photo of Stonehenge—taken by Running_Machina, who submitted it to the EF Tours group on Flickr—is no different.
If you have your own travel photos, please add them to the EF Tours pool on Flickr. We select a new Photo of the Week every Thursday.
Photo: Running_Machina via Flickr (EF Tours pool)
Immigration tends to be a zero-sum affair: One place gains citizens while another places loses them.
Back a hundred years ago, Ellis Island was the big winner, and Cobh, Ireland, was the big loser. From 1850 to 1950, more than 2.5 million Irish left Ireland from the port of Cobh, then called Queenstown, meaning that nearly half of all Irish immigrants left from Cobh on their way to America.
In fact, the very first immigrant processed at Ellis Island upon its opening on January 1, 1892, was Cobh departee Annie Moore. There are statues of her in Cobh and on Ellis Island, and considerable confusion (only recently cleared up) about what happened to her once she got to the United States, but that's another story.
Cobh was also the last port of call for the Titanic, which stopped in Cobh on April 11, 1912. It sunk three days later. (Incidentally, just yesterday, the last survivor of the Titanic died at the age of 97).
Cobh—and specifically the Queenstown Story Museum—are stops for groups traveling on certain EF Educational Tours itineraries in Ireland.
Photo: jmenard48 via Flickr (CC license)
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