In the Ferrari Museum, Maranello, Italy.
Many years ago, when we had almost completed the reconstruction of our first apartment, Michael Schumacher won the race in Hungaroring (Hungarian Grand Prix 2001) and became the winner of FIA Formula One World Championship. A bottle of champagne “blew up” not only on the podium in Budapest, but also in our new kitchen. We had celebrated his victory, and then were forced to repaint the kitchen ceiling as a result.
A cascade in Linderhof, Bavaria, Germany.
Who has not tried to replicate Versailles, the famous palace of Louis XIV, the king of France? Just look at Sanssouci, Peterhof, or Schoenbrunn to name a few. The young king of Bavaria, Ludwig II, also didn’t remain uninvolved. When he ascended the throne in 1864, at the age of 18, he immediately started to build his fairy tale castles and palaces. One of them, Linderhof, was supposed to be a new Versailles in the Bavarian Alps near the Linder River.
When you are heading to the Vatican, you can’t avoid seeing an amazing ancient bridge (foot traffic only) decorated with angel sculptures, and a mighty, brown building of original architecture near it. The Castle of the Holy Angel in the center of Rome, Italy, started its history as a mausoleum of the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 139 AD. In 250 years, it became a castle when the young and rising power, the Christian Church, started to replace pagan Roman buildings with Christian ones.
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