Histories and Curiosities

Longer reading about the cities and places our walks go through. Read it at home, or on the way.

• 🪨 Arches: What You Will FindOver two thousand stone arches, one on the licence plates of a whole state, and one that fell in August 2008 - five minutes of reading.5 min read
• 🇦🇹 Austria: a historyFrom a border district through the marriage bureau of half of Europe to an Alpine republic that had to learn to live without an empire - a thousand years in ten minutes' reading.11 min read
• 🌋 Azores: volcanoes, legends and historyIslands that grew on the seam of three continents, the legend of Atlantis, a horseman pointing west, cows that defeated a Spanish army, and a volcano that sent half an island to America – the Azores in a five-minute read.8 min read
• 🐻 Berlin: HistoryFrom a swamp through cabaret and rubble to a capital that is poor but sexy - eight hundred years of one city in five minutes.6 min read
• 🧡 Bryce Canyon: What You Will FindIt is not a canyon, it is walls of stone figures, more of them here than anywhere on Earth - and a sky on which seven and a half thousand stars are visible. Five minutes of reading.5 min read
• 🍑 Capitol Reef: what you will find thereA stone wave a hundred and sixty kilometres long, an orchard where you are allowed to eat, and a road that ran along the floor of a canyon for eighty years - five minutes' reading.5 min read
• 🏺 Cyprus: HistoryThe island where a goddess was born of the foam, which gave copper its name, and which is still divided - ten thousand years in twenty minutes of reading.11 min read
• 🐴 Dead Horse Point: What You Will FindA viewpoint six hundred metres above a bend in the Colorado, blue lakes that do not belong there, and the ending of a famous film - five minutes of reading.4 min read
• 🌡️ Death Valley: What You Will FindThe lowest, driest and hottest place in North America, stones that move by themselves, and a lake people kayaked on in 2024 - five minutes of reading.5 min read
• 🇩🇪 Germany: HistoryFrom legions lost in a forest through three hundred princedoms and two catastrophes to the largest economy in Europe - two thousand years in ten minutes.12 min read
• 🏜️ Island in the Sky: What You Will FindA mesa six hundred metres above its surroundings, an arch that lights up from below, and a crater argued over for a hundred years - five minutes of reading.5 min read
• 🇮🇹 Italy: HistoryFrom a she-wolf with twins to the country that gave the world the bank, the opera and the pizza - three thousand years in twenty minutes of reading.13 min read
• 🎰 Las Vegas: HistoryA meadow with a spring in the middle of the desert that became a city with more hotel rooms than anywhere in America - and a screen the size of a building. Ten minutes of reading.7 min read
• 🍕 Naples: a historyFrom a siren who gave up, through ten days of rule by a fish seller, to the four days when the city freed itself - two and a half thousand years in a six-minute read.6 min read
• 🗽 New York: HistoryFrom an island bought for sixty guilders to a city where eight hundred languages are spoken - four hundred years in twelve minutes of reading.12 min read
• 🌋 Pompeii: What You Will Find5 min read
• 🏰 Prague: HistoryFrom Libuše's Prophecy to the Velvet Revolution - Eleven Hundred Years of One City's Story in a Twenty-Minute Read.22 min read
• 🦌 Rocky Mountain: What You Will FindA road at an altitude where no tree grows, elk that bugle in town, and a hotel where a famous horror novel began - five minutes of reading.5 min read
• 🌉 San Francisco: HistoryA village of five hundred people that became a city in a year, a bridge whose colour came from a misunderstanding, and a fog with its own social media account - ten minutes of reading.10 min read
• 🦁 The Czech Lands: History19 min read
• 🦅 The USA: HistoryFrom Columbus's mistake to Silicon Valley - five hundred years in twenty minutes of reading.27 min read
• 🎻 Vienna: a historyFrom a Roman camp through the ransom for an English king and two Turkish sieges to a city that keeps coming first - two thousand years in five minutes' reading.5 min read
• 🧗 Yosemite: What You Will FindA nine-hundred-metre granite wall, a waterfall that does not run in August, and bears that picked cars by make - five minutes of reading.5 min read
• ⛰️ Zion: What You Will FindA canyon you may not drive into, a ridge with chains you reach through a lottery, and a trail that runs in the river itself - five minutes of reading.5 min read