country

Switzerland
Switzerlands four highest mountains are the Dufourspitze 4,634m, the Dom 4,545m, the Weisshorn 4,506m and the Matterhorn 4,478m. Although Switzerland is renowned as a country full of mountains, the highest mountain in the Alps and western Europe is over the border in France - Mont Blanc, which stands at a height of 4809m. With the exception of the peaks in the Caucasus range, Mont Blanc is the highest summit in ...

Tough times reward smart thinking and sticking to a Plan
I have a strange affinity for remembering every recession this country has had since I could read. It probably wasn due to my quirky preoccupation with the news, but more so with how strongly each recession affected our family. So, as a kid I made a passionate pledge to ensure that in the future my own family wouldn suffer so stingingly from market turbulence. Theres something to be said for keeping past economies—and family financials—in mind when managing your money. Here are a few lessons from the rear-view mirror of history to keep you steady despite the markets Patagonia-like peaks and valleys: The markets gonna do what the markets gonna do. Its one thing to watch the Dow gyrate up and down every day, but why torture yourself by regularly sneaking peeks at your investment portfolio? Its like picking at a scab. Unless you e going to retire in less than five years, that tiny return or big loss you e looking at this year needs to become background noise, not cause for panic. ...

Garlic
Although garlic may not always bring good luck, protect against evil or ward off vampires, it is guaranteed to transform any meal into a bold, aromatic and healthy culinary experience. Fresh, dried and powdered garlic are available in markets throughout the year, however, fresh varieties from California are in season from June through December. Garlic is arranged in a head, called the bulb, averaging about 2 inches in height and diameter consisting of numerous small separate cloves. Both the cloves and the entire bulb are encased in paper-like sheathes that can be white, off-white or pinkish. Although garlic cloves have a firm texture, they can be easily cut or crushed. The taste of garlic is like no other-it hits the palate with a hot pungency that is shadowed by a very subtle background sweetness. While elephant garlic has larger cloves, it is more closely related to the leek and therefore does not offer the full health benefits of regular garlic. Food Chart This chart ...

Weddings & Honeymoons - Malta
With all-year-round sunshine and crystal waters, the Islands offer a distinctive location for a wedding or honeymoon. As it is in the Maltese culture to highly celebrate weddings, there is an enormous variety of products and services available, making the organisation of a wedding relatively stress free as well as great value for money. The celebration can take whatever form you wish – from a sit down dinner or cocktail party to a traditional lavish reception. Venues are in no way limited to hotels – a large variety of grand baroque palaces with gardens, converted farmhouses or more unconventional outdoor venues are available. The Islands have a wide selection of experienced, professional caterers who can offer any type of speciality food or even local fare. Most hotels have a food and banqueting team pleased to meet individual requirements and special requests. Weddings can be purely in civil form or combined with a church ceremony. In either case, the legal formalities are ...

Natural Escapes - Malta
Due to the undoubtedly great advantage of fair weather average rainfall of 578mm a year and average temperature of 30C/86F during the summer months, the Maltese Islands lend themselves to outdoor activities. Away from the hustle and bustle of village cores, the Maltese Islands offer various natural spots to be explored and admired, some left almost untouched by the 20th century. Much of the countryside is dotted with the worlds oldest free-standing structures in the world, so a stroll could prove to be most interesting. The first rains after the long, hot summer brings the landscape to life with an astonishing variety of wild flowers. From mid November until mid May the Islands are green and lush with fields full of vegetables and waysides carpeted with fennel, clover, wild iris and myrtle The Islands offer walkers some of the most stunning views anywhere in the Mediterranean. The first thing to do is to decide what sort of view you prefer – dramatic cliffs plunging into waves, ...

Fine Living: Premium Chocolates
The world of chocolate has its highs and lows, to be sure. And the solid milk-chocolate bunnies we all enjoyed as kids are fine for 7-year-olds, but your palate has evolved beyond swapping quality for quantity. While Ferrero Rocher and Godiva are fine for some, the true chocolate connoisseur knows that the best there is to offer cannot be found in any drugstore. Thankfully, gourmet chocolate is more abundant -- and more available -- in today’s market than ever before. After all, if Americans spend about $13 billion a year on chocolate, why shouldn’t we spend it on the good stuff? La Maison du Chocolat Country of origin: France Price: Truffles are around $80 per pound and boxes are as much as $200. As one of France’s finest manufacturers, there may be no other store that makes chocolate as luxurious as La Maison du Chocolat. The name says it all; it translates to The House of Chocolate. La Maison packages its chocolates in leather boxes that are fine enough for the best jewelry. ...

Cruise Holidays - Malta
For centuries, the port of Valletta has been regarded as one of the finest and safest natural havens in the Mediterranean. The imposing bastions surrounding this magnificent port enfold Malta’s rich heritage of archaeology, history, architecture, art and culture - all dating back to 6000 years ago. Today, they welcome through their gates cruise passengers who are eager to explore the palaces, churches and streets of the cities they guard, or to venture inland into the quaint villages and countryside to visit the numerous sites. Nowadays, the Grand Harbour has become an irresistible scene for over 250 cruise ships visiting every year, with more than 400,000 passengers, who disembark and enjoy the Islands for the day on their Mediterranean itineraries. Malta’s size also contributes to its cruise advantages. It’s easy for day visitors to get a good taste of what the Islands have to offer in a small quantity of time. Many are so impressed that within a few months they come back for a ...

Island Attractions - Malta
Malta has had such a rich history that the country is practically saturated with attractions and places of interest. The capital city of Valletta host to regular plays and concerts, as well as scores of exhibitions and street events. The Museum of Archaeology in Valletta houses an exceptionally rich collection of prehistoric artefacts. The War Museum at Fort St. Elmo is home to a Sunday military parade in period costumes re-enactment and the capital also possesses the impressive Grand Master’s Palace and St. John’s Co-cathedral. With 7,000 years of history, the sites to visit are endless – the Megalithic Temples including Ggantija, the oldest freestanding temple in the world, the underground St Paul’s and St. Agatha’s catacombs, The Knights of St. John’s significant sites, such as Fort St Angelo and Fort Rinella home to the world’s largest canon. WWII significant sites, such as the Mgarr war shelter, Mtarfa ex-British military buildings, The Armoury and the Maritime Museum in ...

Why We Fight DVD
More than three years after its first appearance at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury prize, documentarian Eugene Jarecki’s polemic against the American way of war at last makes it to DVD in this country. Jarecki’s film attempts to map the influence of big business on US foreign policy. It takes, as its starting point, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning, in his 1961 farewell address, about what he called “the military-industrial complex”: the alliance of military professionals, arms industry executives and politicians who together stand to benefit most from continued overseas military activity. This is a partisan history of the second half of the American century and the beginning of this one, but some facts are indisputable: since WWII, the US has lurched from one conflict to another. Our closest ally really is an exceptionally bellicose nation. To hear Jarecki and many of his interviewees tell it, this aggression is motivated by the greed and ...

Top 10: Exclusive Adventures
While sprawling on a beach for two weeks with a chilled margarita is certainly preferable to a hard-day’s slog in the office, more and more of us are looking for a side portion of something a little more challenging for our vacation time. That said, just because we’re up for a little adventure Indiana Jones style, it doesn’t mean we’re prepared to skimp on creature comforts; yes, we still expect world-class customer service and five-star accommodation while we’re trekking up the side of a mountain or exploring the coral reefs deep beneath the ocean’s surface. Indeed, more companies than ever are catering to the well-heeled adventurer like ourselves, and we’ve tracked down the top 10 exclusive adventures you can book for your next stint away from the burdens of office life. Number 10 Gorillas in the MistUganda, Africa - Credit: iStockPhoto.com Uganda, East Africa Home to over 300 birds and the greatest concentration of primates in East Africa, Uganda begs to be explored. If you don’t ...

Top 10: Tuner Models
You might be wondering what tuner models actually do. In short, they’re the hotties who grace the pages of auto magazines like Super Street and Import Tuner. They also appear in hot rod and dirt bike calendars, work as spokeswomen for auto part companies and can generally be seen prancing around in tiny outfits at big racing events. Unless you harbor a love of cars and their various parts, you may not have heard of some of these tuner models. Of course, some of them often cross over into other forms of modeling so there is a chance you may know them well from other areas. In any case these tuner models are the girls who we feel have made the biggest impact and turned the most heads in the tuner modeling biz. Ursula Mayes - Credit: Alexandra Wyman/WireImage.com Number 10 Ursula Mayes Ursula’s exotic look can be explained by the delicious mix of Korean, Native-American and German blood coursing through her body. In 2005, Ursula Mayes won the Miss Hot Import Nights title and since then ...

Culture & Heritage Malta
With 7,000 years of history, the Maltese Islands are steeped in culture and heritage. The Islands went through a golden Neolithic period, the remains of which are the mysterious megalithic temples dedicated to the goddess of fertility. Later on, the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Romans and the Byzantines, all left their traces on the Islands. In 60 A.D. St. Paul was shipwrecked on the island while on his way to Rome and brought Christianity to Malta. The Arabs conquered the islands in 870 A.D. and left an important mark on the language of the Maltese. Until 1530 Malta was an extension of Sicily, the Normans, the Aragonese and other conquerors who ruled over Sicily also governed the Maltese Islands. It was Charles V who bequeathed Malta to the Sovereign Military Order of St. John of Jerusalem who ruled over Malta from 1530 to 1798. The Knights took Malta through a new golden age making it a key player in the cultural arena of 17th and 18th century Europe. The artistic and ...

John Mellencamp
Quotes Its very rock roll. I just wanted to get back to the basics. - John Mellencamp, on his album Whenever We Wanted. Biography John Mellencamp was born on October 7, 1951, in Seymour, Indiana. Suffering from spina bifida as a child, he struggled growing up, and was quite the rebellious teenager. When he was 17 years old, just six months out of high school, his girlfriend got pregnant. The couple eloped and got married in 1969 and, in 1970, his daughter was born. The young family moved to New York City, with John Mellencamp having high hopes of launching a singing career. john mellencamp releases chestnut street incident In 1976, John Mellencamp caught his first big break and was signed on to record his debut album, Chestnut Street Incident. However, to John Mellencamps dismay, he realized his name had been changed by his manager to Johnny Cougar, something he wasn consulted on. Worse yet, the album had little exposure, and his deal was dropped by the label.Then, during the ...

DKNY JEANS
The New York brand opens a flagship store on Londons New Bond Street DKNY Jeans, one of the Big Apples best-loved fashion brands, is now available to buy in the Big Smoke with a new flagship store on New Bond Street. Proof if it were needed of Londons prominence on the international fashion map, the 4,400-square-foot retail space takes New Yorks gallery as its inspiration. Customers are greeted by striking black-and-white graphics with judicious read: widespread use of DKNY Jeans signature taxicab yellow, with hanging rails suspended from the ceilings to showcase the collection. With the flagship New Bond Street branch the latest in a veritable fleet of standalone stores around the country, including Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Londons Brompton Road, its practically an invasion albeit a very stylish one. ...

The 20 Unhealthiest Drinks in America
Americans have a drinking problem, and not the type you might think. As the authors of the best-selling book Eat This, Not That!, David Zinczenko and co-author Matt Goulding get e-mails all the time from readers who claim they eat carefully, they work out consistently, but they still can get the needle on the scale to budge. What gives? goes the collective, exasperated refrain from the stagnant dieter. What most people don know is that the biggest roadblock between you and the body you want isn found at the end of a fork, but at the bottom of a glass. As a country we take in 21 percent of our daily calories from beverages and, according to the FDA, the average American takes in 82 grams of added sugars every day. Thats 20 teaspoons, which contribute an empty 317 calories to our already calorie-saturated diets. Sure, some of that comes from soda, but even if youve traded regular Coke for diet, whole milk coffee drinks for low-fat lattes, and you barely touch the booze, you could ...