ADF News

Modest Melbourne: Arts Heart of Australia

As so often in Australia’s history, Melbourne was founded through fraud when explorer John Batman, an Australian fluent in several aboriginal languages, made a “deal” with aborigines to lease land on behalf of speculators. While offering the Aborigines any compensation at all was progressive in a colonial culture that preferred to simply run them off [...]

Booming Taipei: Capital of ROC

After climbing 508 metres up the Taipei 101 tower, the highest structure in the world, it can be seen easily from anywhere in the city, one can look down on the genuine Taipei amidst all the modern buildings: temples, markets, the National Palace Museum and in between them, the many old streets and lanes where [...]

Interesting Vilnius: Architecture from the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical and Jugendstil periods

The Lithuanian city of Vilnius radiates southern charm under the northern sun. Positioned in the natural amphitheatre of the surrounding Lithuanian hills, Vilnilus has much to offer tourists besotted with historical buildings. Vilnius, which can look back on a thousand years of Lithuanian history, can boast one of the largest historical town centres in Eastern Europe. [...]

Unforgetable Vienna: History and Profile

Located in the centre of Europe, Vienna is both a bustling metropolis and a destination known for its cafes, historic areas, beautiful parks, elegant squares and romantic courtyards. Vienna means cafe culture, music and wine. Where else can one so contentedly spend all day sitting in a cafe, reading a magazine, sipping a Viennese coffee [...]

Piazza San Marco - One of Venice’s Most Elegant Squares

  One of the world’s most stunning squares, Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) is the heart of Venice, a vast open space bordered by an orderly procession of arcades marching toward the fairy tale cupolas and marble lacework of the Basilica di San Marco. Alwyas packed by day with people and fluttering pigeons, it can be [...]