Mount Misen is the highest peak on Miyajima, a small semi-tropical island located a short ferry ride from Hiroshima. The island is sparsely populated, and deer roam freely through the forests and streets at lower altitudes. The particular latitude of the island gives it a unique biome in which coniferous trees coexist with lush jungle plants and wildlife, including monkeys and poisonous snakes.
THE U7 IN its current form was largely a product of Cold War-era West Berlin, and is arguably the most “West Berlin” of all U-Bahn lines. Despite being Berlin’s longest U-Bahn line (as well as one of the longest underground urban rail lines in all of Europe at 31.8 kilometers), every single one of its stations, from Rudow in the southeast to Rathaus Spandau in the northwest, falls within the borders of the former West Berlin.
THE SIEMENSBAHN WAS a short, “spur”-style urban railroad that served Berlin’s northwestern district of Siemsstadt from 1929 until 1980. Consisting of only three stations, it originated at Jungfernheide (a still-active station on the present-day Ringbahn), crossing the Spree and passing through the Wernerwerk and Siemensstadt stations before ending at Gartenfeld.
SIEMENS, MUCH LIKE AEG and Daimler, is a present-day German company with roots stretching back to the 19th century. Founded in an office on Kreuzberg’s Schöneberger Straße in 1847, by the time of founder Werner von Siemens’ death in 1892 the company had offices in 13 countries.
WHILE THE PRIMARY campus of Berlin’s Freie Universität is in Dahlem, just west of the Botanischer Garten and just south of the US embassy’s imposing Dahlem location, the university also includes other satellite campuses in the former West Berlin. One of these is the Benjamin Franklin campus, located several kilometers southeast of Dahlem on the Spree.
THE VILLAGE OF Rummu, in northern Estonia, is home to a geographical oddity: a lake with several offshore buildings that are partially or completely submerged, skirted by pale white hills that taper down to a gentle, beach-like incline. The lake is in fact a former limestone and marble quarry, now shut down and flooded. The site teems with plant and animal life, particularly in the summer, making it a striking blend of the idyllic and creepy – particularly given that one of the sunken buildings is a former prison that once housed the quarry’s involuntary labor source.
EACH SPRING, BERLIN emerges from the frozen temperatures of Central-European winter with an incredible show of color: thousands of cherry trees blooming all across the city.
BUILT BETWEEN 1908 and 1910, the former Schöneberg gas storage and supply tank – better known as the Gasometer – remained in active use for over 8 decades. Finally decommissioned in 1995, its skeletal frame still looms over central Schöneberg.
