Odiorne Point State Park is a park in the town of Rye, New Hampshire. It sits along the 18-mile seacoast of the state, and has 135 acres of shoreline accompanied by beaches and some rocky areas. For such a small area the park has much to offer with bike paths, The Seacoast Science Center (a small aquarium), historic sites and views of a lighthouse.
Bike trails wind their way through the park
New Hampshire’s first settlement was located within the park boundaries
The Madeira Aquarium opened in 2005 in Porto Moniz, next to the harbour. It is housed in the São João Baptista Fort, which was built to protect Porto Moniz from raiding Moors. In 1998, the Porto Moniz Municipal Council bought its ruins, which were restored, keeping its original design but adapting its interior to be used as an aquarium. With about 90 different species of sea animals distributed in 12 tanks (the largest of which contains approximately 500,000 liters of salt water), this tourist attraction will give you a pretty good idea of the various habitats of the island’s marine world. Even if you do not go into the aquarium the outside grounds are beautiful with the facade of the old fort surrounded by the rocky shoreline.
Be sure to check out the post on the University of Coimbra here.
A wonderful (albeit very tiring) walk through the old town. Click on the links in the text for more pictures and in depth posts on each stop.
The Arch Almedina or Arco de Almedina is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Coimbra. Almedina Arch in the historic downtown of Coimbra is the remnant of the defensive wall that once surrounded the city. This ancient city wall dates back to the sixth century. The arch was built in the twelfth century. The Arco Almedina has an old bell that used to ring in the morning and evening to open and close the city gates, and sounded the alarm at disastrous events. Now the arch and the tower are national historic monuments.
The Great Wall of China is the collective name of a series of fortification systems generally built across the historical northern borders of China to protect and consolidate territories of Chinese states and empires against various nomadic groups of the steppe and their polities. Several walls were being built from as early as the 7th century BC by ancient Chinese states; selective stretches were later joined together by Qin Shi Huang (220–206 BC), the first emperor of China. Little of the Qin wall remains. Later on, many successive dynasties have built and maintained multiple stretches of border walls. The most well-known sections of the wall were built by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were enhanced by the construction of watch towers, troop barracks, garrison stations, signaling capabilities through the means of smoke or fire, and the fact that the path of the Great Wall also served as a transportation corridor.
Beijing is the best destination to admire the Great Wall of China. Most famous Beijing Great Wall sections are located in its suburban areas, including the well-preserved Badaling and Mutianyu, the renovated Juyonguan, Jinshanling and Simatai, and wild Jiankou and Gubeikou. They are all not far from downtown Beijing, 1-2 hours’ driving away.
Bring sturdy shoes, if you hike just a few hundred meters from the parking lot the majority of visitors will be left behind you will have a more uninterrupted view. One caution over the centuries the stairs and steps have become tremendously uneven. One step may be a six inch rise and the next nearly a foot! Not so bad going up but on the way back down it can be quite jarring.
