The fortress church pictured in our August 2016 mystery photo — the Church of St. Mary of Mercy (Sveta Marija) — is located in the town of Vrboska on the island of Hvar in Croatia. The original church was built over 550 years ago, but more than a century later, during the 1570s, eight years after a Turkish attack, it was rebuilt as a fortress.
Dear Globetrotter:
Welcome to the 488th issue of your monthly foreign-travel magazine.
In southeastern London, after more than 20 years of restoration work, a beautiful example of industrial architecture opened to visitors as a museum in April 2016. Originally built in 1865, the Crossness Pumping Station (The Old Works, Thames Water S.T.W., Bazalgette Way, Abbey Wood, London, SE2 9AQ, U.K.; phone +44 208 311 3711, www.crossness.org.uk) pumped sewage out of the city and into the Thames estuary until 1956.
A new, eye-catching, glass-facade concert hall, built on the Norderelbe River atop the 120-foot-tall, brick Kaispeicher — once the largest warehouse in Hamburg — is scheduled to open Jan. 11, 2017.
The Elbphilharmonie (Platz der Deutschen Einheit 1, 20457, Hamburg, Germany; phone +49 40 357 666 66, www.elbphilharmonie.de/en) houses two concert venues, a hotel, apartments and a restaurant. The lower Kaispeicher section, now containing parking, is also topped with a viewing platform.
The International Symposium on Birding & Aviation Conservation, organized by Holbrook Travel (Gainesville, FL; 800/451-7111, www.holbrooktravel.com), is taking place Jan. 5-7, 2017, at the Selva Verde Lodge & Rainforest Reserve (www.selvaverde.com), located in Sarapiquí, Costa Rica.
The town of Moneygall in County Offaly, Ireland, has commemorated its distinction of being the home of President Barack Obama’s maternal great-great-great-grandfather, Falmouth Kearny, with the Barack Obama Plaza (Junction 23 M7, Moneygall, Co. Offaly, E53 F342, Ireland; phone +353 505 45810, barackobamaplaza.ie).
On the West Pier on Brighton Beach in Brighton, England, the vertical-cable-car tower British Airways i360 (West Pier, Brighton, England, UK, www.british
airwaysi360.com) began operating on Aug. 4, giving it the world’s highest-rising observation deck.
Passengers enter a donut-shaped observation pod, capable of holding up to 200 people, which rises 450 feet to offer views of up to 26 miles in all directions. The pod docks in the i360 beach building, which contains restaurants.
With App in the Air, you can track your flights, receive real-time schedule and gate changes and access guides and maps to 9,000 airports worldwide. Quick links on the app assist you in hiring taxis and purchasing train tickets. (As of press time, train tickets are available only from London Heathrow Express and Moscow Aeroexpress.) The app also tracks miles flown for mileage programs.
Placed on buildings throughout Russia, there are bare metal plaques commemorating victims of Josef Stalin’s purges. Under the project name Posledny Adres (Last Address), each plaque records (in Russian Cyrillic) the name, date of birth, occupation, date of arrest and date of execution of a person who lived in that building. Some buildings bear multiple plaques.
The plaques were installed by volunteers, with assistance from Memorial (memo.ru/eng), a Russian organization dedicated to preserving the memories of victims of Soviet persecution.
Three-hour guided bicycle tours through Heidelberg, Germany, are offered Monday to Saturday, April through October, through Heidelberg Marketing (phone +49 6221 5840 223). Sites visited can include Old Town, Tiefburg Castle and the Old Bridge (customized routes on request).
In a group of up to 10 people, a tour costs €121 (near $135) per person with an English-speaking guide or €110, German-speaking. Bike and helmet rental, €18.