Tag: France
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Select Beaches in Saint-Martin
Island of Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten (March 2011) There are more than twenty beaches on the island of St. Martin / Maarten, a space only a little larger than thirty square miles. Naturally that offers plenty of options. I’m not really a beach person and we remained almost entirely on the French side of the…
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Fort Louis
Marigot, Saint-Martin (March 2011) We saw a large hill along the shoreline as we drove down St. Martin’s western coastal road from Grand Case heading into Marigot. An old fortification graced the summit, the ruins of old Fort-Louis (map). We cut into Marigot proper and headed towards the marketplace on this Wednesday morning, arriving early…
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Select City Highpoints
I’m not much of a highpointer, and a begrudging one at best, although I maintain a kinship with those who follow this pursuit. I like the concept of highpointing more than the actual climbing of summits. That’s why I find myself occasionally visiting sites like peakbagger.com and examining things like its Peak Lists. I admit…
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Moron
Calling someone a moron would be offensive, maybe even fighting words. It derived from Greek for stupid or foolish, and later came down through Latin with a similar meaning, then finally passed along to modern languages. I knew it retained that meaning when it came to English, certainly more widely recognized than the colloquial use…
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Marking the Meridian
A random one-time reader landed on Twelve Mile Circle recently. That unknown visitor sought information about the Prime Meridian, and I’ll get to the specific request in a moment. I know I’ve discussed this meridian before. However, in searching my archives and after examining the Complete Index I discovered that I’d never actually marked the…
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Southernmost Bangladesh
Twelve Mile Circle explored the Ends of the Earth recently, including the southernmost tip of Bangladesh. However, more accurately, the article reached the end of mainland Bangladesh. In the course of my research I found a spot even farther removed in the Chittagong Division, a place called Saint Martin’s Island (map). I never knew it…
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By George, Part 2
With numerous places named for British Kings George I, II and III already examined and set-aside in the previous article, it was time to turn my attention to IV, V and VI. This would be more difficult. The first set of Georges ruled for a contiguous period of more than a century, from 1714 to…
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The Only One, Part 2
If it were Only One, how could there be a Part Two? I discarded that paradox and decided to plow forward anyway. The premise, to recap, was rather simple. I typed the exact phrase “The only one in [name of a country]” into various Internet search engines and observed the results. Part 2 focused on…
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Beaufort or Badminton
Two towns sharing the exact same name sat not too far from each other in the Carolinas. Colonial settlers arrived on various points along that swath of coastline at around the same time. So this increased the odds of a relationship between identical names. Indeed, that was the case albeit with a twist. The Beauforts…
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World’s Fair Towers
I suppose this is something of a Part 3 addendum to the recent Southern Swing articles although maybe it’s not truly the case. Perhaps it would be better to call it “inspired” by those earlier articles. We broke the return trip into a two-day event with an overnight stay in Knoxville, Tennessee. The hotel happened…