Mount Etna Tourism Places

About Dolomites Tourist Place  

The Dolomites, a mountain group in the North Italian Alps, close to the Austrain border are famous for their magnificent sunrises and sunsets. The mountains get their name from the Dolomite rock of magnesium limestone. The highest peak is Marmoladaand rises to 10958 feet and seventeen more peaks rise to 9842 feet or more. 

It has two valleys, 'Val Garden' and 'Val Badia'. About 16,000 ladini live in it. They are the descendants of the Roman soldiers who settled down there after the wars. 

The valley of 'Cortina d'Ampezzo', or the sunny valley is surrounded by five towering Dolomite peaks.
Each of these is unique and beautiful. 'Sorapis' is tongue like with its subsidiary ridges, 'Cristallis' is cathedral shaped, 'Clinque Torri' like a tower with battlements, 'Pelmo and Civetta' like soldiers standing to attention. 

In the setting sun they glow red, mauve and purple against the darkening sky. 

Matterhorn Tourist Place

At 14770 feet, Mt. Matterhorn is not the tallest peak of Europe, but is the most impressive. It inspired many painters, poets and writers with its majesty.  It is half in Italy and half in Switzerland in the Peninine Alps. The mountain tapers like a rough amethyst as if carved out of quartz by some gigantic axe. From the Italian side, with its imposing terraced walls, it is a considerably great challenge. From the Swiss side it tooks like an isolated peak but it is actually the butt end of a ridge and easier for climbing. 

John Ruskin, the famous writer lavishly describes it as "An alpine tower hewn by the axe of God". He
"paid tribute and further said" in those firm grey bastions of the cervin, which he said was thrust up into the great wall of firmament above all inviolable.

Mount Etna Tourist Place 

Mt Etna looms over the eastern part of the Island of Sicily and is visible for great distances in every direction. It is an active volcano and its unpredictable nature has caused men both to fear it and admire it. 

The Greek regarded Mt. Etna as a forge of their fire God, Hephaistos. Today it stands at a height of 12598 feet, but this keeps increasing beacuse of the deposits after an eruption and decreases because of wind and rain. 135 eruptions have been recorded so far. A continuous stream of smoke and a red glow in the sky a top the mountain, remind people that it is alive and only resting.

A road 86 miles long encircles the volcano. Mini buses take the tourists right upto the crater. the view into the crater is awesone and scary with red hot lava shooting out, loud rumblings, rocks around cracking. It covers 500 square miles and is one of the most impressive natural wonder of the world.

Kilimanjaro Tourism Places

About Mt Everest Tourist Place

At 29,028 feet Mt. Everest is the world's highest peak. It stands between Nepal and India.  In Nepalese it called 'Sagarmatha' and 'Chomo lungma' in Tibetan which means 'The Goddess of the wind'. It is named after Sir George Everest. Surveyor General of India
from 1830-43. 

According to the geologists about fifty million years ago, the collision of the vast tectonic plates beneath the earths crust, pushed up the Himalayas. The Himalayas are covered with snow and ice, forming glaciers. These are the sources of the mighty rivers like River Indus, River Brahmaputra and River Sutlej. 

On 29 May 1953, sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first men to stand on top of the worlds highest mountain also called as, "The roof of the world". Mt. Everest remains a challenge to mountaineers all over the world. 

Mountain Fuji Tourist Place 

Japan's Mt. Fuji is a volcanic mountain of breath taking beauty. Though it is a very high mountain (12388ft). It is impressive because of its proportions. the base is three times as wide as it is high, so the mountain appears to rise gradually. Three fourths of the mountain remains capped in snow for 8-9 months. At the foot of Mt. Fuji is the Lake Hakone or the lake of the reeds. The peak is reflected upside of the reeds. The peak is reflected upside down, forming the famous, "double Fuji". 

Fuji is a dormant volcano. It is sacred to the Japanese and worshipped. A primeval forest called, 'the sea of trees' has grown on the lava flow of its last eruptions in 1707 and 1717. 

Mt Kilimanjaro Tourist Place 

Mt. Kilimanjaro is Africa's highest mountain, in northern Tanzania touching the border of Kenya. It stands majestically tall at 19340 feet. It is a volcanic massif and stretches east to west - for 50 miles. It includes three main volcanoes, now extinct. The youngest and tallest Kibo is joined by a seven mile joint (or saddle) to Mawenzi. The third volcano Shira is a ridge shaped remnant of an earlier crater. 

Kibo is a snow capped mountain and has a vast (1 mile across) crater which is 984 feet deep. On the rim of the crater is the 'Uhuru point' or 'Summit of all Africa'. The crater has an ash cone showing signs of residual volcanic activity. Mawenzi is jagged and eroded.  

The slopes of Kilimanjaro are fertile and farmed by the chagga people.

Rocky Mountain Tourism Place

About Rocky Mountain Tourist Place

The Rocky mountains North Americas highest range, popularly called the 'Rockies' stretch for 3200 miles down the Western side of the continent from Alaska to New Mexico.  They are also a part of the Mountian ranges and high plateaux, that form the great highland barrier shown as the 'North American Cordillera'. 

Thousands of visitors visit the rockies to see the breathtaking beauty they offer.  

For convenience the rockes are divided into four main sections from North to South. In the far north are the Arctic Rockes in the Northern Alaska and north Western Canada. Here the highest peak is the Mount Sir James MacBrien (9040 feet). 

The Northern, Rockies continue into Idaho and Montana. This region has great natural beauty and is filled with dazzling icefields, pluning valleys and sparkling lakes. 

To the south are the Grand Tetons, a majestic block of mountains. The highest is Gannet Peak a 13785 foot mountain. 

The southern rockes, which extend from Southern Wyoming into Utah and through Colarado into New Mexico contain the Highest peaks in the rocky mountains system highest is Mount Elbert 14331 feet high. 

The Rockes have rich wealth of forest and wildlife. Mining is a major industry beacuse of the large quantities of copper, iron, gold, silver lead zinc, coal, oil, petroleum and uranium deposits in various places. Tourism is also eer increasing here. 

Famous Barrier Reef Tourism Places

Ayers Rock Tourist Place

Ayer's Rock is the largest monolith in the world and is an over whelming sight from near. It changes
colour with the sun's movement and appears red at times, brown or even black. From far it looks purple. 

This extraordinary natural wonder lies in the south West of Australia's Northern Territory. It is roughly oval in shape and is about two miles long and one mile wide and 2851 feet high above sea level. 

Ayers rock is made of hard Felspar sandstone called 'arhore'. At the bottom of the rock are caves decorated with aboriginal paintings and carvings made by an aboriginal people called "Uluhru" Ayer's Rock is now a national park of Australia. 

Barrier Reef Tourist Place

The Great barrier reef is an organic, living self renewing entity - the work of countless millions of coral polyps. The reefs are formed from the skeletal remains of generation after generation of polyps as they continually build towards the surface of the water. 

The Great barrier reef has been famous as a natural wonder since a long time. It stretches for more than 1243 miles along the eastern coast of Australia, from the Torres strait at the continent's northern tip to just South of the Tropic of Capricorn. It reaches into the sea for upto 200 miles like a shelf and then plummets into the depts of the Pacific Ocean.  It is separated from the mainland by a long lagoon channel. 

The constantly growing coral reefs, provide an environment for rich and diverse marine life : Anemones, sponges, starfish, crabs, worms, sea urchins, shrimps, mussles, oysters, clams and multitude of fishes of all shapes and colours. The ecological network is so complex that marine biologists continue to wonder and admire it. 

Easter Island Statues Tourist Place

The mysterious stone statues of the Easter Island are a puzzle to today's archaeology. 

Easter island is a small volcanic island in the East Pacific Ocean, West of Chile and East of equally less known Pit cairn Island. It is Just a 45 square mile area, named after the day it was discovered by a Dutch Admiral in 1722. There are only about 1000 Eastern Islanders whose descent is not known and is a mystery. 

There are more than six hundred stone statues ranging from life size to giant size scattered around on the island. A few are erect and stand on a stone platform called 'Ahu'. These great Ahu figures have no parallel anywhere else in the world. 

Tradition holds, that once there were two different groups living on the Island, Polynesian or short ears and non polynesian or long ears. Most statues have long ears and hence it is said that the long ears built the statues and were later over thrown by the short earns or polynesians.