Croatia’s long-awaited Peljesac Bridge was opened yesterday by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. The stunning piece of engineering is a cable-stayed road bridge, supported by six pylons stretching 2.4km (1.5 mile) from the Croatian mainland to the Peljesac peninsula. The significance of the bridge is that it ends...
The answer is NO, but what’s interesting is that if she had made her ill-fated breakout into the Atlantic a year later, she might have been. By then, if the same ships had intercepted her they would have been carrying red (HMS Rodney) and yellow (HMS King...
The Norfolk Tank Museum is more like an enthusiastic private collection than a formal museum. It is also a work in progress… or at least many of the tanks are. That doesn’t matter because, while it might not be as big or formal as for example, the...
This giant cannon was cast by the Flemish master gunmaker Remy de Halut* at his foundry in Mechelen, in 1547. The Hercules cannon (El Cañón Hercules) is an extra long culverin – a ‘Royal or Double culverin’ – designed for long range destruction. Its 4.17m (13½ ft)...
With the upcoming Masters of the Air mini-series due for release soon****, the Memorial Museum for the USAAF 100th Bomb Group at their former base at Thorpe Abbotts in Norfolk, is likely to become the focus for a lot of attention. Masters of the Air is the...
The clock museum, or ‘Musée de l’Horlogerie’, in Saint-Nicolas-d’Aliermont presents a really interesting social and industrial account of the rise and partial decline of a town focused on a single technology. Back in the 1950/60s, Saint-Nicolas-d’Aliermont was renowned in France as a centre of light engineering, particularly...
If you’ve ever suffered from ‘range anxiety’ in an electric vehicle (EV), think what British adventurer Chris Ramsey is about to experience on this epic car journey. Next year, he plans to drive a Nissan Ariya e-4ORCE from the magnetic North Pole to the South Pole. I...
EcoClipper have published the 2022 sailing schedule for their first cargo & passenger sailing clipper, De Tukker. EcoClipper is a Dutch startup who believe that climate change has created a demand for emission-free shipping using traditional sail ships on regional and global routes. They plan to create...
“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...
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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