Northern lights in moonlight.
RR: 10 Countries RR (20)
DateFeb 27
Diergaarde Blijdorp
A beautiful giraffe from Diergaarde Blijdorp. The zoo takes part in the European population management programme for reticulated giraffes. It is currently home to 10 giraffes.
Tag: Zoo tag
Date: Feb 25
Mount Emei
Mount Emei is an area of striking scenic beauty. It is also of great spiritual and cultural importance because of its role in the introduction of Buddhism into China. The conscious siting of so many of the cultural monuments, particularly of traditional architecture, within the natural environment makes it a cultural landscape of very high order. Mount Emei is the place where Buddhism first became established on Chinese territory and from where it spread widely through the East. The first Buddhist temple in China was built on the summit of Mount Emei in the 1st century CE. It became the Guangxiang Temple, receiving its present royal name of Huazang in 1614.
Unesco: Mount Emei Scenic Area, including Leshan Giant Buddha Scenic Area
RR: Monthly favourite surprise RR - January 2026
Date: Jan 25
Pairi Daiza Conservation
This card was included in a hero box I bought to support the Pairi Daiza foundation.
Date: Feb 27
Kakadu National Park
Burrunggui and Anbangbang Billabong, Kakadu National Park.
Anbangbang Billabong lies in the shadow of Burrunggui (Nourlangie Rock) within Kakadu National Park and is a good place to view a wide range of wildlife. Large numbers of waterfowl and wading birds inhabit the billabong and many wallabies can be found grazing around the water's edge.
Kakadu National Park is a living cultural landscape with exceptional natural and cultural values. Kakadu has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, and many of the park’s extensive rock art sites date back thousands of years. The largest national park in Australia and one of the largest in the world’s tropics, Kakadu preserves the greatest variety of ecosystems on the Australian continent including extensive areas of savanna woodlands, open forest, floodplains, mangroves, tidal mudflats, coastal areas and monsoon forests. The park also has a huge diversity of flora and is one of the least impacted areas of the northern part of the Australian continent. Its spectacular scenery includes landscapes of arresting beauty, with escarpments up to 330 metres high extending in a jagged and unbroken line for hundreds of kilometres.
Unesco: Kakadu National Park
Many thanks Marnie!
Date: Feb 20
Durham
Durham is a city in northeast England, south of Newcastle upon Tyne. The River Wear loops around the Romanesque Durham Cathedral and Norman Durham Castle. Durham Cathedral was built in the late 11th and early 12th centuries to house the relics of St Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede. It attests to the importance of the early Benedictine monastic community and is the largest and finest example of Norman architecture in England. The innovative audacity of its vaulting foreshadowed Gothic architecture. Behind the cathedral stands the castle, an ancient Norman fortress which was the residence of the prince-bishops of Durham.
Unesco: Durham Castle and Cathedral
RR: Unesco RR
Date: March 12
Kazan Kremlin
Built on an ancient site, the Kazan Kremlin dates from the Muslim period of the Golden Horde and the Kazan Khanate. It was conquered by Ivan the Terrible in 1552 and became the Christian See of the Volga Land. The only surviving Tatar fortress in Russia and an important place of pilgrimage, the Kazan Kremlin consists of an outstanding group of historic buildings dating from the 16th to 19th centuries, integrating remains of earlier structures of the 10th to 16th centuries.
Unesco: Historic and Architectural Complex of the Kazan Kremlin
RR: Monthly favourite surprise RR - January 2026
Date: Jan 25
Ġgantija
Ġgantija is a megalithic temple complex from the Neolithic era, on the Mediterranean island of Gozo in Malta. The Ġgantija temples are the earliest of the Megalithic Temples of Malta and are older than the pyramids of Egypt. Their makers erected the two Ġgantija temples during the Neolithic, which makes these temples more than 5,500 years old and the world's second-oldest existing manmade religious structures after Göbekli Tepe in present-day Turkey. Together with other similar structures, these have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Megalithic Temples of Malta. The Ġgantija temples stand at the edge of the Xagħra plateau, facing toward the south-east. The temples are built in the typical clover-leaf shape, with inner-facing blocks marking the shape.
Unesco: Megalithic Temples of Malta
RR: Vacation RR
Date: March 3
Matterhorn
The Matterhorn is a mountain of the European Alps, straddling the main watershed and border between Switzerland and Italy. It is a large, near-symmetric pyramidal peak in the extended Monte Rosa area of the Pennine Alps, whose summit is 4,478 metres above sea level, making it one of the highest summits in the Alps and Europe. Sometimes referred to as the Mountain of Mountains, it has become an indelible emblem of the Alps and is claimed to be the most photographed mountain in the world.
RR: 10 Countries RR (20)
Date: Feb 15
Palacio de Cristal
The Palacio de Cristal is a 19th-century conservatory located in the Buen Retiro Park in Madrid. It is currently used for art exhibitions. The Palacio de Cristal, in the shape of a Greek cross, is made almost entirely of glass set in an iron framework on a brick base, which is decorated with ceramics. Its cupola makes the structure over 22 metres high.
Thank you Beatriz!
Date: Feb 23
Taipa Houses Museum
The Taipa Houses Museum is housed in a set of old houses in Taipa. The museum complex consists of five houses, of which four display various artefacts and exhibits on life during Macau's colonial era while another serves as an event venue. The houses were built in 1921. These colonial residences were restored to recreate houses of well-off Portuguese families living in Macau during the first half of the 20th century. The last house was restored in 1999. The Taipa Houses–Museum opened on 5 December 1999 and is administered by the Cultural Affairs Bureau. The houses used to look out over the sea, but due to land reclamation of the Cotai area between Taipa and Coloane. This body of water is now a small wetland. Every autumn, the Cultural Affairs Bureau organises the Lusofonia Festival at the open space outside the museums.
RR: Vacation RR
Date: Feb 1
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