park travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

The aquapark is opened up to service in 1993 by Depark, is the very first water park of Turkey. Established on an area of 40.000 m². Adjacent to Dedeman Antalya is the Aquapark Dedeman where water slides and chutes which provide hours of fun for children and adults.

The park has lots of and slides ranging from gentle slopes for the toddlers in your group, to the vertigo-inducing, near-vertical.

You will enjoy the thrills and spills of the heart thumping adrenaline rush in the most fascinating sun-washed water park ever created. The park there are 23 slides, a 350 meter river with artificial waves, pools and restaurants.

Facilities: Multi Slide, Big Hole, Black Hole, Crazy River, Giant Slide, Twin – Twister Tube – Kamikaze – Spiro Tube – Hydro Tube Activity Pool, Wawe Pool, Jacuzzi.

This Linked Hybrid complex sited adjacent to the city of old city wall of Beijing. The Linked Hybrid is also called an ”open city within a city” project. The huge structure linked together 750 apartments, a public green space, commercial zones, a hotel, a cinema, a kinder garden, Montessori school and an underground parking. The buildings on the ground, under the ground and over the ground are fused together.

The ground level offers a number of open for all people (residents and visitors) to walk around. The space ensure some kind of micro-urbanisms of small scale. All public functions have connections with greenery.

From the 12th and18th floor, a multi-functional of skybridges with a swimming pool, a fitness room, a cafe, a gallery, auditorium and a minisalon connects the eight residential towers and the hotel tower and offer breathtaking view over the city.

The Twelve Apostles are giant rock formations lies along the majestic coastline of Port Campbell National Park, app.230km from Melbourne, Australia. It is Victoria’s second largest marine national park and covers 7,500 hectares including some of the most spectacular underwater scenery – incredible underwater arches, canyons and caves.

Millions of years of constant sea erosion and blasting winds have battered the soft limestone cliffs, creating grottoes and gorges, arches, caves and sea-sculptures. The caves eventually became arches and when they collapsed rock stacks up to 45 meters high were left isolated from the shore. The Twelve Apostles have been created by erosion that began 10–20 million years ago. The cliff top road gives occasional glimpses of the drama below – the Australia’s most famous rock attractions.

Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa, also emerged as Nyasaland. Behind the shores of lake Malawi known for boutique eco-resorts and rich international tourists is another Malawi with green hills, tea plantations, high mountains and game parks free of safari jeep traffic jams. The country covering about 400 miles in total and every traveler will find an extraordinary experience.

Despite of the fact the roads could sometimes be rough, in general the country provides an easy trip. The widly spoken language is English. The other language is Chichewa. The main point in Malawi is Blantyre. Blantyre is like Malawi’s New York. It’s a centre of finance and commerce and is the second largest city. During daytime in Blantyre you will bump into vendors hawk, avocados, bananas and cellphones card ending up to the window of your car; traffic police try to stop wild drivers.

As well as Blantyre boast several ”Out of Africa” restaurants, where you can sit on an open -air terrace and sip a late afternoon Malawi style gin and tonic.

Then from Blantyre, lies the Thyolo region about 25 miles southeast though winding road. Everywhere in Malawi is recommended to hire a car and driver (for about $30 a day). So Thyolo is a home to tea plantations, reminds very much of Sri Lanka. The roads there have winds and meanders up through rich green hills. Several of the plantations like Satemwa Tea Estate welcome overnight visitors offering them traditional planters’ bungalows.

But if you going north from Blantyre in a trip you will come across the biggest attraction of the country: the famous lake and Liwonde National Park. The park is very wild and animals have become almost conditioned to seeing tourists. If you are not on a paid safari tour, the best way to explore the park is to take a boat, provided by Mvuu Camp, the main lodge in the park, along the Shire River.

Just 80 miles north of Liwonde you will come to lake Malawi, which has the widest diversity of fish in the world and shore with its rocky outcroppings reminds of the Indian Ocean beach.

 Zurich is a city with no shortage of timekeepers. Zurich is also a city of landscape design, the Helvetica typeface and the Swiss Army Knife. Clocks are everywhere, over train and tram stations and from the facades of office buildings and church steeples. Time may rule this modern capital but also symbolizes the dynamic between the city’s history and modernity.

Zurich is the world’s most livable city, owing to its small size and population of fewer than 400, 000. It’s a place where bankers dance during summer evenings and where wealth attracts contemporary art.

Zurich is very exciting, attracting more young people and more foreigners. You have more galleries per person than any  other city in the world, after New York. Zurich offers spectacular museums, restaurants, boutiques and nature in every doorstep, which is very important. That’s why an Italian wants to compare his muscles, he does it with the German and the French.

On the west side of Zurich (also known as Kries 4), the industry is there and so its art. Everything is there. There are new apartments, lofts and cinemas in old factories. Schiffbau is a lovely theater with a good restaurant called LaSalle. It’s an aesthetic glass box.

Swiss people, in general plan the future too much, so they are not really alive. They know exactly what they will do at 60. and this is not sexy and attractive for me. There you can have the sexiness. They just want to do the best. You will see this in the benches or the design of bins- it’s too much. It’s too material.

Melbourne is a city of layers with ever changing skies and facades. Today I will represent you the real Melbourne, which is like its inhabitants and is less public and reveals itself unwilling. In the last decade, Melbourne has radically changed the urban and cultural landscape. Architecture have become adventurous within cutting-edge buildings. The contemporary art scene is dynamic and breathtaking festivals fill the atmosphere of the city. In every corner, basement and attic initiative spirits are creating hole-in-the-wall bars, multimedia galleries, design studious and other experiences.

Nowadays in Melbourne opportunities abound. They got great design schools and really everything they have is as good as anywhere in the world. People there live on the coast looking out the horizon and they know what’s behind them. The other feature about Australian creativity and architectural culture is that they are well traveled. And they choose to come back!

Melbourne has many geographical features to explore. The Yarra River is one of them but the city boasts more about its parks and gardens. The Carlton Gardens are home to the World Heritage and behind them is the Melbourne Museum. On the south side of the Yarra is the Tan – a 2.3-mile running track. There you can pass quickly seeing some great buildings.

What I think makes Melbourne unique is the ever-changing light. The city gets four seasons in one day, which can be a bit miserable in winter. Apart from being cold, it often rains and the clouds are low and makes flat light. But in the summer the light is very harsh and direct providing great contrast like lazer.

Tourists have to walk to really see Melbourne. In that way you will get glimpses of notable architecture and some Gothic revival, urban art projects and pull up at cafes, bars and restaurants in the Centre.

Houston, Texas is a place famous for its weird view of bigger is better. But today residents are starting to realize the environmental predicament that we need to change our actions in order to have a future in this world. Houston is a diverse city that attracts intellectuals from all over the world to industries such as energy and aerospace. Nowadays as I already mentioned the city offers a surprisingly large number of modern and international style architecture.

In this city of the biggest people, they are slowly learning the benefits of small. People are more aware of the environment and more concern about the future of our Planet Earth.

Houston is a place where people like to have their car: it’s a freedom, you know. Because it’s so hot and humid, you have the underground city where you can go from one building to another all through tunnels and without having to go the street level or outside. It’s all connected by walkways underground. There’s everything in the underground city: restaurants, business, laundry services and many more.

On ground level Houston itself  boasts with Discovery Green park. A spot with different activities like performances and concerts, great restaurants, pilates, yoga classes, a playground for kids, a manmade water pond for boats. It’s wonderful. It’s one of those things that make you think ”Houston is actually progressing”.

The food in Houston is fantastic. When it comes to food, it’s one of those places -discoverable. They have incredible seafood and barbecue traditions with a variety of flavors.But watch you eat – Houston’s the fattest city in the United States.

This restaurant is called Parque de la Florida in the Basque region of Spain. The interiors aren’t particularly remarkable but I admire the way the three sections of the structure sit in a line among the trees, with simple vertical wood framing and glass giving the place a low-profile that doesn’t detract from the park.

Integrated into large public parks or enclosures. The adequacy of these buildings to the site is linked to the idea of easy (or removal if necessary), speed of implementation and use of lightweight materials with specific technological solutions.
The scale of the place and the difficulties of site suggest splitting the program into three pavilions connected. The building is conceived as a set of parts prepared in the workshop and then assembled on site.

Except for the basement, two dominate the building materials: wood and glass. The detachable structure of the three bodies are made entirely in wood. Soil parameters and furnishings are of the same material. The glass surrounding the two bodies sealed transparent.

I really enjoy this place and while writing the article I found myself dreaming of garden parties, and the ongoing fantasy of finding just the right outdoor furniture to suit my vision.

Pearl of the Orient, Paris of the East. For a century and a half  Shanghai was the wildest, wealthiest, flashiest city in Asia—the rival of any world capital. Western visitors were captivated by the crowded, chaotic, yet thoroughly cosmopolitan city. Foreign powers carved out concession zones featuring their own cafes, clubs, police forces, and legions of prostitutes.

Everything seemed so different. China crowded it was, and so hot. There were lots of people everywhere, sleeping on the streets. Apartments were so small and basic. Everything was so dark, so dank.

But today the city is unlike any in the world. Travelers from around the globe poured in, creating a uniquely international place, with newspapers and performances in spectacular art deco theaters in a dozen languages. Splendid colonial architecture rose along a riverfront called the Bund that contrasted delightfully with traditional tile-roofed Chinese dwellings, creating a unique fusion of East and West. Food, fashion, and music blended in a similar spirit.

It’s got a great vibe and great music. Ten years ago, Shanghai was a completely different place and none of what you see now existed. The city used to be the only spark of creativity, with a basement that had the only alternative art and music in the city. The place has changed.

There’s a lot of great places to explore in Shanghai like very cool art districts and a lot of great designer boutiques, pottery shops, and other creative shops. I also like the Shanghai Art Museum, which has this fantastic setting along the old racing track, the former British Jockey Club. Green tea is the way to go—and a lot of wine.

Duisberg is a lovely German town, located on about 36 miles from Dusseldorf. Duisburg isn’t so famous, even in Europe. For those who have heard of it, it’s synonymous with the Ruhrgebiet—the former industrial heartland of Germany, now mainly remembered for the hard times of the 1980s, under the weight of ecological degradation, economic crisis, and soaring unemployment.

Today the city is known for its steel industry. There is still one coal mine in operation, but Duisburg has never been a coal-mining center to the same extent as other places in the Ruhr.

To give it a new role in the life of the city, there new inner water channels  were cut, which literally carry the water further into town, and a variety of public space was created on the waterfront. Duisburg Inner Harbor has retained between 30 and 40 percent of its old warehouses and mills, refurbished into offices, museums, and restaurants.

The whole idea was to bring the water back into Duisburg and nowadays this is reality. Lining the harbor are walkways, bike paths, lush green spaces, sculptures, a skateboard park, and cafe terraces. But the new paths are a mosaic of salvaged bricks and tiles, and while many old buildings were demolished to create these well-used public spaces, the Garden of Memories, for example, poignantly preserves certain segments of them.

The beautifully spare Movable Footbridge invites walkers to cross it, boats can moor at Steiger Schwanentor jetty, which rises and falls with the water level and a new dam has provided a more scenic stretch of water as the backdrop for the restaurant terraces, as well as a place to swim.

Duisburg has always had a lot going for it—the mentality is different from the rest of Germany, people are more open, friendlier, always ready to try new things.

Brussels is a surreal linguistic city between the Dutch-speaking Flemish and the French-speaking Walloons, many transactions occur in neither language. But people just speak English. Its modest character made Brussels the perfect compromise for postwar rivals choosing a headquarters for the European Union and NATO, while all the diplomats and a swirl 
of immigrants from North and Central Africa give it 
an intense international, cosmopolitan flavor rare for such a small city. The picture displays the Atomiumis, built in 1956 for the World’s Fair, an homage to the future. It recently reopened after a complete renovation.

The Atomium’s interior, which includes these atomlike seating pods.

The Belgian Center for Comic Strip Art was designed by Art Nouveau master Victor Horta.

The Grand Place—Brussels’s major tourist destination—was burned down by the French in 1695, but was rebuilt within five years. Brussels has parks and forests, of course, but one place I especially like is both outside and inside. The Galeries Saint-Hubert were the first glass-covered shopping arcades in Europe. There are cafes in the galleries where you can sit outside and watch people go by, but you’re not in the rain. One modern and peaceful world …

Casa no Geres is easy to love villa, located in Peneda-Geres National Park, along the Spanish border in northern Portugal, where the environment and its inviolability were crucial and the rules strict. The villa owns awesome beauty with its simple architecture, the openness of the views and the calm balance of the elements. The surrounding Nature has own way of being beautiful and this villa knows the secret.

At first glance the villa is quite unsuitable for its surroundings. From some angles the villa seems like an accident, some kind of disaster with transportation containers and building materials. One part of the villa is buried inside the hill, while another sticks out over the river.

Inside the villa is very spacious with huge windows, which makes 24/7 hours pure circulation of the air! The villa also has a cute kitchen overlooking the river, a stylish living room and two bedrooms, each with own suite bathroom. It’s prefect for families and friends vacations. The warmth and proper scale of the building become even clearer when the illuminated house is viewed at night. Casa no Geres is designed by Porto-based Correia/Ragazzi Aquitectos and it is a bold statement that hides nothing.

Spacebuster Pavilion is a mobile structure that serves as an entirely pavilion. The project is by Raumlabor, which will bring Spacebuster to the US for the first time this April and the structure will travel throughout New York for 10 consecutive evenings hosting various events.

The pavilion is consisted by an inflatable bubble as dome that emerges from its self-contained commpressor housing. The bubble expands and organically fits to its surroundings, be it in a field, a wooden park, or below a highway overpass. The bubble is made of a sturdy translucent plastic, giving opportunity the different events taking place inside the shelter – dance parties, lecture series or dinner exhibitions. The events are entirely visible from the outside environments and become the events’ backdrops.

Each event will be organized by a nonprofit organization, university or art organization. Events will feature artist talks, film screening, communal dinners and many other.

The creator of the bubble is Raumlabor, a group of architects and urban designers based in Berlin, Germany. Raumlabor began working on the issues of contemporary architecture and urbanism in 1999. Raumlabor’s work deals with urban design and planning, architectural design, landscape, buliding interactive environments, research and design of public space and art installations. Their public art installations have been shown in Vienna, Austria, numerous cities in Germany, as well as numerous biennials and exhibition spaces throughout Europe.

The Brochstein Pavilion is created as a landmark destination for Rice University’s campus. The garden at the Brochstein Pavilion gives a powerful spatial framework that has transformed an unstructured, underutilized quadrangle into the center of student activity on campus.

Founded in 1912, the Rice University campus is noted for its eclectic Mediterranean architecture, mature southern Live Oaks and a classical campus plan that emphasizes long, formal axes. The university is located in Houston, Texas, United States just near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center.

Inspired by the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, Houston architect Raymond Brochstein and his wife Susan provided a wonderful  donation that allowed the University to achieve this goal. The Brochstein Pavilion is capped by a steel and aluminum trellis structure which protects the building and extends in all directions to cover and shade the surrounding seating terrace. The trellis, consisting of an aluminum tubes, protects the building from the harsh Texas sun.

A series of wide double doors at the pavilion connect the interior seating areas with the surrounding terrace, opening the pavilion to the landscape and welcoming students and faculty. The landscape architect instead chose to address the interstitial space between the Fondren Library and the pavilion. A generous concrete walk connecting the library and the pavilion bisects into garden rooms whose perimeters are defined by plantings of African Iris.

Movable furniture and subtle site lighting allow impromptu gatherings of visitors to enjoy the oasis created by the dense shade and running water day or night. The university is spectacular and gives pleasure for every student to spent their school days in such an environmental Eco space.

The Okefenokee National Park spreads across 685 square miles in the southeastern corner of Georgia and northern Florida. During the winter the temperature rise up to 70 degrees and the dry air holds insects, making the months a perfect time for a canoe trip. The place is very special, due to its old and best preserved freshwater systems in America.

One lifetime is not enough to explore the Okefenokee park. There is so much to do and with almost 402,000 acres (that’s roughly 300,000 football fields in size) of cypress forest, marsh, lakes and islands. Filled with alligators, Sandhill cranes, red-cockaded woodpeckers and over 400 other species of animals, it is a wonderful place to learn about the wildlife of Georgia and Florida.

A flock of birds takes flight. The vast variety of lush greenery make up different habitats from dry upland forests to open wetlands. Golden sunsets and thundering storms gives one to experience this magical place at its most beautiful and most inspiring.

There are a lot of ways to explore the Okefenokee Swamp. Some boat tours taking tourists through cypress forests, historic canals and open prairies. Water trails and platforms allow people to canoe for the day or stay overnight deep within the 354,000 acre wilderness.

Rolling boardwalks and trails head through extraordinary habitats, to observation towers and viewing platforms. There are huge opportunities for nature and macro photography, hunting and fishing are readily available. Some can even drive a car or ride a bike to a restored homestead to discover how “swampers” once made their home here.

One of the very interesting features in this magical national park is the seven overnight campsites in the Okefenokee, including the campsite at Coffee Bay. Most of them are 600-square-foot wooden platforms, some suspended above the water.

Photography by: Stephen Morton