TRIVIA 11

Excellent Museum

There is an excellent Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck, Cape Breton Island, Canada. In 1892-93 Bell built a 37-room, 11-fireplace home he called Beinn Bhreagh on 450 wooded acres on a hillside overlooking Bras d’Or Lake. He spent the last 37 years of his life at Beinn Bhreagh and died there from complications of diabetes at age 75 in 1922.

An extensive museum sits below the hillside. There was so much I did not know about this very creative man.

A Nosy Goat

We were hiking down from Kleine Scheidegg in Switzerland when a black goat with white ankle socks decided to befriend me. He was sure I had something good in my jacket pocket, and he was quite determined to get it. He followed beside me with his nose in my pocket for some time before I could shake him off.

Temppeliaukio Rock Church

In 1969 in Helsinki, Finland two brothers won a competition to design this church that is blasted out of solid rock. Its 25-meter circular dome ceiling is covered with 13 miles of copper coil with a bull’s eye in the center. A glass skylight is between the dome and the wall. One enters directly from street level and doors are always open. The excellent acoustics are a plus for concerts.

From the outside, it looks like a bunker and indeed an air raid shelter under the building can accommodate 6000 people. It is a remarkable building.

Strictly Slovenian

Roofed hay-drying racks and intricately painted beehive panels are distinctly Slovenian. We saw the first often in the countryside and the panels are sought-after tourist items.

Delightful Serenades

In Bordeaux, France as I biked the narrow paved roads through the pine forest, frequent serenades by frogs in the drainage ditches along the side of the road were fun to hear. Cuckoos perched high in the treetops often joined the songfest. Otherwise, little else disturbed the quiet and solitude for the three days spent biking in the cool pine forest.

China's Summer Palace

 

Here we stopped in front of the unlucky rock. A long time ago the richest 


man in the country anted to move this rock to his home, but half way he 


ran out of money and abandoned     the rock along side the road. Later


 the emperor saw the rock and had it moved to the palace.But the palace 


was already built and the rock wouldn’t fit though the gate. So they had  

disassemble part of the palace to get the rock into the courtyard. It was big.

The three main religions in China are Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism

At the Temple of Heaven everything was in the shape of a square or 
a circle. The square represents the earth and the round circle represents 
heaven.

 

In Holland a polder is land reclaimed from the sea. Square towers are 


most  commonly seen in polders.