“Do many English people know where Nelson lost his arm?” asked my guide, Darío. My kneejerk response was almost ‘Of course! Everyone knows it was here on Tenerife!’ But then it occurred to me… actually, hardly anyone knows it was at the battle of Santa Cruz de...
Ducati is preparing to welcome its fans again at its Borgo Panigale motorcycle factory and museum outside Bologna, Italy. Visits to the museum and tours of the factory will start on 21st April. During the pandemic, tours and museum visits have been limited. Now, the Ducati Museum...
These so-called Strandbeesten, ‘Beach Animals’, are the work of artist Theo Jansen from The Hague in the Netherlands. They are extraordinary ‘animals’ built out of electrical tubing and cloth… with a few squillion cable ties holding things together! They can regularly be seen walking on one of...
The Norfolk Southern Corporation is donating its complete collection of historical documents and archives from predecessor company Norfolk and Western Railway to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture (VMHC). The collection dates from the 1840s and includes thousands of photographs and glass plate negatives, as well...
Lotus is reopening its Hethel production facility to the public. Factory tours at the ‘home of Lotus’ will start on Monday 4th April 2022. Lotus has been making performance cars at Hethel, just outside Norwich in Norfolk, since 1966. In November 2017 they suspended their factory tours...
The Cukrownia Żnin (“Znin Sugar Factory”) in Poland is an industrial heritage project, repurposing an old sugar factory and preserving its magnificent 19th century buildings. Up until 2004, it produced sugar from beets. Now it is a hotel complex. If you like industrial design and architecture, this...
It’s a serious piece of engineering, can you guess what Blue X is? Blue X is a wave machine, designed by Mocean Energy to generate green energy from the movement of the waves. Essentially, it pivots in the middle, and that’s where the generator is. This 10-kW...
The Morgan Motor Company has just today, unveiled its latest model – The Super 3, a 3-wheeled sports car with 21st century design & tech. Morgan, now 113 years old, was famous from the outset for its range of three-wheeled sports cars, which they continued to make...
The fifth and latest Disney Cruise Line ship, Disney Wish, was floated out of the massive Meyer Werft construction hall in Papenberg, Germany, last week, and she is the first new ship for Disney to be fuelled by low-emission Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). Many ferries & commercial...
The long-awaited new sea lock at IJmuiden opens on Weds (26 Jan). This massive marine engineering project at the gateway to the North Sea Canal (Noordzeekanaal) which leads to Amsterdam, got underway back in 2016. Now, finally* the new lock, which replaces the old North Lock (Noordersluis)**...
I-124 was a WWII Japanese submarine that was sunk with all hands (80 crew) by Allied forces on 20 Jan 1942 while on a mine-laying mission in the Beagle Gulf, Australia. She lies in 46 metres (150 ft) of water, 84 kilometres north-west of Darwin, NT. In...
Next time you go to Bletchley Park, you might want to take a look beforehand at this really clear and simple explanation of how the WW2 German Enigma machine worked. It’s the latest video in Jared Owen’s series of 3D animations explaining how things work, and it...
The luxury hotel brand Kempinski is to open a floating hotel in Dubai in 2023. The Kempinski Floating Palace will be anchored next to one of the most exclusive beach stretches in Dubai on Jumeirah Beach Road. The main hotel building will be surrounded by 12 floating...
The city of Erie in Pennsylvania on the east bank of Lake Erie, is considering the creation of a new ship museum using a Cold War era, Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate. The connection is Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the 19th century American naval commander, who...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
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