The Fehmarnbelt Tunnel is a major European civil engineering project to lay an 18 km (11.2 mile) road and rail tunnel under the Baltic Sea between Germany and Denmark. (See The Fehmarnbelt Tunnel for overview.) Earlier this week, the first of its 89 pre-fabricated concrete tunnel sections...
The Fehmarnbelt Tunnel is a major European civil engineering project to lay an 18 km (11.2 mile) road and rail tunnel under the Baltic Sea between Germany and Denmark. You notice I said “lay” and not “dig”. This amazing tunnel will be laid in sections in a...
The London Museum Docklands is a ‘must-see’ museum that tells the history of the River Thames and the growth of London’s huge port system from the first Roman settlements to the modern-day regeneration of the Canary Wharf area. It is housed, appropriately, right at the heart of...
The Chimney Lift at London’s Battersea Power Station (BPS) has reopened with a new interactive experience area designed to engage and inform visitors about the huge and historic former electricity generating plant. What is the Chimney Lift? It’s a glass enclosed lift that rises up through one...
The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge towers 625 metres over the Beipan River in China’s Guizhou province, which is known for its dramatic mountains. After three years of construction, the massive 2,890-meter-long* suspension bridge was finally opened to traffic on Sunday (28 Sep), dramatically cutting the 2 hours...
The London Canal Museum (LCM) is housed in an historic canal warehouse, just north of King’s Cross. It has displays and artefacts on two floors, telling the story of canals, and London’s canals in particular, from their construction, the goods and industries that relied on them for...
The truth is, all of Britain’s canals are ‘industrial heritage’ in their own right, but they all have some unique pieces of engineering & architecture that stand out. The Union Canal, running between Falkirk and Edinburgh, is no exception. I took a narrowboat on a short trip...
The Fontinettes Boat Lift (Ascenseur à bateaux des Fontinettes) in Arques, Pas-de-Calais. is a magnificent piece of 19th century engineering and architecture. It was built in the late 19th century at Fontinettes* to replace a set of five locks on the Neuffossé canal which linked/s the canalised...
The Musée des Arts et Métiers (Museum of Arts and Crafts) in Paris is almost the French equivalent of the Science Museum in London, and it is absolutely packed with the most fascinating historic, scientific, mechanical, experimental and industrial exhibits. Be prepared to allocate plenty of time...
Love this! It reminds me of a ‘Bee Hotel’! The Pingtan Book House in China’s Hunan province* is designed to provide space for children to read and play. The design, by Hong Kong based Condition_Lab, has just been awarded ‘highly commended’ in the Cultural Building of the...
The Freedom Museum in Groesbeek, the Netherlands, has been awarded the Architecture MasterPrize for 2022 in the ‘Cultural Architecture’ category. The museum covers a wide range of WW2 experiences and stories, such as the famine endured by Dutch civilians in 1944/5, but the focus is on the...
The EOL Centre éolien – Offshore Wind Farm Visitor Centre in Saint-Nazaire is the first and only such centre in France. It opened in 2017 and is designed very much with family and school groups in mind. The centre explains how wind turbines and wind farms work...
The Écomusée in the old port area of Saint-Nazaire focuses on the port’s historic, industrial and maritime heritage. Who knew!? Most Anglophones, me included, think the “Éco Museum” is something to do with the environment, and probably linked to the EOL-Wind Turbine experience nearby. I wouldn’t have...
The Dutch Mining Museum (Nederlands Mijnmuseum) re-opened in May this year (2022) in the old Kneepkens department store in Heerlen, south Netherlands. Heerlen is in that panhandle that extends south to Maastricht along the Meuse between Belgium and Germany, and includes the Limburg region, famous for its...
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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