Marcello Mastroianni
Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni was an Italian film actor. His prominent films include: La Dolce Vita, his honours included British Film Academy Awards, Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival and two Golden Globe Awards. Mastroianni was born in Fontana Liri, a small village in the Apennines in the province of Frosinone and grew up in Turin and Rome, he was the son of Ida and Ottone Mastroianni, who ran a carpentry shop, the nephew of sculptor Umberto Mastroianni. During World War II, after the division into Axis and Allied Italy, he was interned in a loosely guarded German prison camp, from which he escaped to hide in Venice, his brother Ruggero Mastroianni was a film editor who edited a number of his brother's films, appeared alongside Marcello in Scipione detto anche l'Africano, a spoof of the once popular sword and sandal film genre released in 1971. Mastroianni made his screen debut as an uncredited extra in Marionette when he was fourteen, made intermittent minor film appearances until landing his first big role in Atto d'accusa.
Within a decade he became a major international celebrity. Mastroianni followed La Dolce Vita with another signature role, that of a film director who, amidst self-doubt and troubled love affairs, finds himself in a creative block while making a movie in Fellini's 8½, his other prominent films include Days of Love with Marina Vlady. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times: for Divorce Italian Style, A Special Day and Dark Eyes. Mastroianni, Dean Stockwell and Jack Lemmon are the only actors to have been twice awarded the Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. Mastroianni won it in 1970 in 1987 for Dark Eyes. Mastroianni starred alongside his daughter, Chiara Mastroianni, in Raúl Ruiz's Three Lives and Only One Death in 1996. For this performance he won the Silver Wave Award at the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival, his final film, Voyage to the Beginning of the World, was released posthumously. Mastroianni married Flora Carabella on 12 August 1950, they had one daughter together, but separated in 1970 because of his affairs with younger women.
Mastroianni's first serious relationship after the separation was with Faye Dunaway, his co-star in A Place for Lovers. Dunaway wanted to marry and have children, but Mastroianni, a Catholic, refused to divorce Carabella. In 1971, after three years of waiting for Mastroianni to change his mind, Dunaway left him. Decades Dunaway said: "I wish to this day it had worked out."Mastroianni had a daughter, Chiara Mastroianni, with French actress Catherine Deneuve, nearly 20 years his junior and lived with him for four years in the 1970s. During that time, the couple made four movies together: It Only Happens to Others, La cagna, A Slightly Pregnant Man and Don't Touch the White Woman!. After Mastroianni and Deneuve broke up, Carabella offered to adopt Chiara because her parents' work kept them away so often. Deneuve would have none of it. According to People magazine, Mastroianni's other lovers included actresses Anouk Aimee, Ursula Andress, Claudia Cardinale and Lauren Hutton. Around 1976, he became involved with an author and filmmaker.
They remained together until his death. He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1994. Mastroianni died of pancreatic cancer on 19 December 1996 at the age of 72. Both of his daughters, as well as Deneuve and Tatò, were at his bedside; the Trevi Fountain in Rome, associated with his role in Fellini's La Dolce Vita, was symbolically turned off and draped in black as a tribute. At the 1997 Venice Film Festival, Chiara and Deneuve tried to block the screening of Tatò's four-hour documentary, Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember; the festival refused and the movie was shown. The three women tried to do the same thing at Cannes. Tatò said. David di Donatello Best Actor 1964 Yesterday and Tomorrow 1965 Marriage Italian Style 1986 Ginger and Fred 1988 Dark Eyes 1995 Sostiene Pereira 1983 Carrer David 1995 Special David 1997 Carrer David (post
Porto
Porto is the second-largest city in Portugal after Lisbon and one of the major urban areas of the Iberian Peninsula. The city proper has a population of 287,591 and the metropolitan area of Porto, which extends beyond the administrative limits of the city, has a population of 2.3 million in an area of 2,395 km2, making it the second-largest urban area in Portugal. It is recognized as a gamma-level global city by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group, the only Portuguese city besides Lisbon to be recognised as a global city. Located along the Douro River estuary in northern Portugal, Porto is one of the oldest European centres, its historical core was proclaimed a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996; the western part of its urban area extends to the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean. Its settlement dates back many centuries, its combined Celtic-Latin name, Portus Cale, has been referred to as the origin of the name "Portugal", based on transliteration and oral evolution from Latin. In Portuguese, the name of the city includes a definite article: o Porto.
Its English name, evolved from a misinterpretation of the Portuguese pronunciation. Port wine, one of Portugal's most famous exports, is named after Porto, since the metropolitan area, in particular the cellars of Vila Nova de Gaia, were responsible for the packaging and export of fortified wine. In 2014 and 2017, Porto was elected The Best European Destination by the Best European Destinations Agency. Porto is on the Portuguese Way path of the Camino de Santiago; the history of Porto dates back to around 300 BC with Proto-Celtic and Celtic people being the first known inhabitants. Ruins of that period have been discovered in several areas. During the Roman occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, the city developed as an important commercial port in the trade between Olissipona and Bracara Augusta. Porto was important during the Suebian and Visigothic times, a centre for the expansion of Christianity during that period. Porto fell under the control of the Moors during the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 711.
In 868, Vímara Peres, an Asturian count from Gallaecia, a vassal of the King of Asturias, Léon and Galicia, Alfonso III, was sent to reconquer and secure the lands back into Christian hands. This included the area from the Minho to the Douro River: the settlement of Portus Cale and the area, known as Vila Nova de Gaia. Portus Cale referred to as Portucale, was the origin for the modern name of Portugal. In 868, Count Vímara Peres established the County of Portugal, or known as Condado Portucalense after reconquering the region north of Douro. In 1387, Porto was the site of the marriage of John I of Portugal and Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt; the Portuguese-English alliance is the world's oldest recorded military alliance. In the 14th and the 15th centuries, Porto's shipyards contributed to the development of Portuguese shipbuilding. From the port of Porto, in 1415, Prince Henry the Navigator embarked on the conquest of the Moorish port of Ceuta, in northern Morocco; this expedition by the king and his fleet, which counted among others, Prince Henry, was followed by navigation and exploration along the western coast of Africa, initiating the Portuguese Age of Discovery.
The nickname given to the people of Porto began in those days. Wine, produced in the Douro valley, was in the 13th century transported to Porto in barcos rabelos. In 1703, the Methuen Treaty established the trade relations between England. In 1717, a first English trading post was established in Porto; the production of port wine gradually passed into the hands of a few English firms. To counter this English dominance, Prime Minister Marquis of Pombal established a Portuguese firm receiving the monopoly of the wines from the Douro valley, he demarcated the region for production of port. The small winegrowers revolted against his strict policies on Shrove Tuesday, burning down the buildings of this firm; the revolt was called Revolta dos Borrachos. Between 1732 and 1763, Italian architect Nicolau Nasoni designed a baroque church with a tower that became its architectural and visual icon: the Torre dos Clérigos. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the city became an important industrial centre and had its size and population increase.
The invasion of the Napoleonic troops in Portugal under Marshal Soult brought war to the city of Porto. On 29 March 1809, as the population fled from the advancing French troops and tried to cross the river Douro over the Ponte das Barcas, the bridge collapsed under the weight; this event is still remembered by a plate at the Ponte D. Luis I; the French army was rooted out of Porto by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, when his Anglo-Portuguese Army crossed the Douro River from the Mosteiro da Serra do Pilar in a brilliant daylight coup de main, using wine barges to transport the troops, so outflanking the Fr
Vecchiano
Vecchiano is a comune in the Province of Pisa in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 70 kilometres west of Florence and about 8 km north of Pisa. It is home to a castle, known as Gaetani or Lanfranchi castle, or as the hermitage of Santa Maria in Castello, which overlooks the town and the nearby plan. Vecchiano borders the following municipalities: Lucca, San Giuliano Terme, Viareggio. Official website
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa known as Fernando Pessoa, was a Portuguese poet, literary critic, translator and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language. He wrote in and translated from English and French. Pessoa was a prolific writer, not only under his own name, for he dreamed up seventy-five others, he did not call them pseudonyms because he felt that did not capture their true independent intellectual life and instead called them heteronyms. These imaginary figures sometimes held extreme views. Pessoa was born in Lisbon on 13 June 1888; when Pessoa was five, his father, Joaquim de Seabra Pessôa, died of tuberculosis and the following year, on 2 January, his younger brother Jorge, aged one died. After the second marriage of his mother, Maria Magdalena Pinheiro Nogueira, proxy wedding to João Miguel dos Santos Rosa, Fernando sailed with his mother for South Africa in the beginning of 1896, to join his stepfather, a military officer appointed Portuguese consul in Durban, capital of the former British Colony of Natal.
On, in 1918, Pessoa wrote a letter in which refers: There is only one event in the past which has both the definiteness and the importance required for rectification by direction. My mother's second marriage is another date which I can give with preciseness and it is important for me, not in itself, but in one of its results – the circumstance that, my stepfather becoming Portuguese Consul in Durban, I was educated there, this English education being a factor of supreme importance in my life, whatever my fate be, indubitably shaping it; the dates of the voyages related to the above event are: 1st. Voyage to Africa – left Lisbon beginning January 1896. Return – left Durban in the afternoon of 1st. August 1901. 2nd. Voyage to Africa – left Lisbon about 20th. September 1902. Return – left Durban about 20th. August 1905; the young Pessoa received his early education at St. Joseph Convent School, a Catholic grammar school run by Irish and French nuns, he moved to the Durban High School in April 1899, becoming fluent in English and developing an appreciation for English literature.
During the Matriculation Examination, held at the time by the University of the Cape of Good Hope, in November 1903 he was awarded the created Queen Victoria Memorial Prize for best paper in English. While preparing to enter university, he attended the Durban Commercial High School during one year, in the evening shift. Meanwhile, Pessoa started writing short stories in English, some under the name of David Merrick, many of which he left unfinished. At the age of sixteen, The Natal Mercury published his poem "Hillier did first usurp the realms of rhyme...", under the name of C. R. Anon, along with a brief introductory text: "I read with great amusement...". In December, The Durban High School Magazine published his essay "Macaulay". From February to June 1905, in the section "The Man in the Moon", The Natal Mercury published at least four sonnets by Fernando Pessoa: "Joseph Chamberlain", "To England I", "To England II" and "Liberty", his poems carried humorous versions of Anon as the author's name.
Pessoa started using pen names quite young. The first one, still in his childhood, was Chevalier de Pas a French noble. In addition to Charles Robert Anon and David Merrick, the young writer signed up, among other pen names, as Horace James Faber, Alexander Search, other meaningful names. In the preface to The Book of Disquiet, Pessoa wrote about himself: Nothing had obliged him to do anything, he had spent his childhood alone. He never joined any group, he never pursued a course of study. He never belonged to a crowd; the circumstances of his life were marked by that strange but rather common phenomenon – in fact, it’s true for all lives – of being tailored to the image and likeness of his instincts, which tended towards inertia and withdrawal. The young Pessoa was described by a schoolfellow as follows: I cannot tell you how long I knew him, but the period during which I received most of my impressions of him was the whole of the year 1904 when we were at school together. How old he was at this time I don’t know, but judge him to have 15 or 16.
He was pale and thin and appeared physically to be imperfectly developed. He was inclined to stoop, he had a peculiar walk and some defect in his eyesight gave to his eyes a peculiar appearance, the lids seemed to drop over the eyes. He was regarded as a brilliant clever boy as, in spite of the fact that he had not spoken English in his early years, he had learned it so and so well that he had a splendid style in that language. Although younger than his schoolfellows of the same class he appeared to have no difficulty in keeping up with and surpassing them in work. For one of his age, he thought much and and in a letter to me once complained of "spiritual and material encumbrances of most especial adverseness", he took no part in athletic sports of any kind and I think his spare time was spent on reading. We considered that he worked far too much and that he would ruin his health by so doing. Ten years after his arrival, he sailed for Lisbon via the Suez Canal on board the "Herzog", leaving Durban for good at the age of seventeen.
This journey inspired the poems "Opiário" published
Felipe VI of Spain
Felipe VI is the King of Spain. He ascended the throne on 19 June 2014 upon the abdication of his father, King Juan Carlos I, his mother is Queen Sofía, he has two older sisters, Infanta Elena, Duchess of Lugo, Infanta Cristina. When Spanish dictator Francisco Franco chose Juan Carlos as his successor in 1969, Felipe became second in line to the Spanish throne. In 2004, Felipe married TV news journalist Letizia Ortiz with whom he has two daughters and Sofía. In accordance with the Spanish Constitution, as monarch, he is head of state and commander-in-chief of the Spanish Armed Forces, plays a role in promoting relations with Spanish America and the former Spanish East Indies, which are collectively called the "nations of its historical community". Felipe was born at Our Lady of Loreto Clinic in Madrid, the third child and only son of Infante Juan Carlos of Spain and Princess Sofía of Greece and Denmark, he was baptised on 8 February 1968 at the Palace of Zarzuela by the Archbishop of Madrid, Casimiro Morcillo, with water from the Jordan River.
His full baptismal name, Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos, consists of the names of the first Bourbon King of Spain, his grandfathers, his great-grandfather King Alfonso XIII of Spain, de Todos los Santos as is customary among the Bourbons. His godparents were his paternal grandfather Juan and his paternal great-grandmother, Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain. Shortly after his birth he was styled infante; the ruling dictator Generalísimo Francisco Franco died just more than two months before Felipe's eighth birthday, Felipe's father ascended the throne. In his first official appearance, Felipe attended his father's proclamation as king on 22 November 1975. In 1977, Felipe was formally proclaimed Prince of Asturias. In May, nine-year-old Felipe was made an honorary soldier of the 1st King's Immemorial Infantry Regiment; the occasion was marked on 28 May and was attended by the king, the prime minister and several other ministers in a ceremony at the infantry's barracks. On 1 November the same year, he was ceremoniously paid homage as Prince of Asturias in Covadonga.
In 1981 Felipe received the Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece from his father, the Chief and Sovereign of the Order. On his 18th birthday on 30 January 1986, Felipe swore allegiance to the Constitution and to the King in the Spanish Parliament as required by the constitution accepting his role as successor to the Crown. Felipe attended school at Santa María de los Rosales, which his daughters attend. Felipe attended high school at Lakefield College School in Ontario and studied at the Autonomous University of Madrid, where he graduated with a degree in Law, he completed his academic studies by obtaining a Master of Science in Foreign Service degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he was the roommate of his cousin, Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece. As the heir to the throne, a regulated and structured plan was laid out for Felipe's military training. In August 1985, a Royal Decree named Felipe as officer at the General Military Academy in Zaragoza, he began his military training there in September.
He completed the first phase of his formation in October. In July 1986, he was promoted to Cadet 2nd Lieutenant, he was named as Midshipman. On September 1986, he began his naval training at the Escuela Naval Militar in Pontevedra, joining the Third Brigade. In January 1987, he continued his naval training on board the training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano. In July, he was named as Student Ensign at the Academia General del Aire in Murcia. In September 1987, he began his air force training there. In 1989, he was promoted to lieutenant in the Army, ensign in the Navy, lieutenant in the Air Force. In 1992, he was promoted to captain in the Air Force. In 1993, he was promoted to captain in the Infantry of the Army. Further promotions in 2000 were commandant in the Army, corvette captain in the Navy, commandant in the Air Force. Promotions in 2009 were lieutenant colonel in the Army, frigate captain in the Navy, lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. Since 19 June 2014, after his ascension to the throne, he acquired the rank of Capitán General of all the Spanish armies.
Felipe undertook his constitutional duties assiduously as heir to the throne, hosting many official events in Spain and participating in all events of different sectors and aspects of Spanish public life as required. Since October 1995, Felipe has represented Spain on a series of official visits to the Spanish Autonomous Communities, starting with Valencia, during which he made contact with Spaniards from all walks of life. Felipe has held regular meetings with constitutional bodies and state institutions keeping up-to-date with their activities, he attends meetings of the various bodies of the Central Administration and of the Autonomous Communities as required by his national and international constitutional obligations. Felipe has welcomed as many public and private audiences as possible to maintain Crown interaction in national and international affairs. In particular, he has held meetings with people of his generation who have built successful careers in political, economic and media circles.
As part of his military training, Felipe trained as a military helicopter pilot. On occasions when King Juan Carlos was unable to attend, Felipe presided over the annual presentation of dispatches to officers and non-c
Pisa
Pisa is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the city of over 91,104 residents contains more than 20 other historic churches, several medieval palaces, various bridges across the Arno. Much of the city's architecture was financed from its history as one of the Italian maritime republics; the city is home of the University of Pisa, which has a history going back to the 12th century and has the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, founded by Napoleon in 1810, its offshoot, the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, as the best-sanctioned Superior Graduate Schools in Italy. The origin of the name, Pisa, is a mystery. While the origin of the city had remained unknown for centuries, the Pelasgi, the Greeks, the Etruscans, the Ligurians had variously been proposed as founders of the city. Archaeological remains from the fifth century BC confirmed the existence of a city at the sea, trading with Greeks and Gauls.
The presence of an Etruscan necropolis, discovered during excavations in the Arena Garibaldi in 1991, confirmed its Etruscan origins. Ancient Roman authors referred to Pisa as an old city. Strabo referred Pisa's origins to king of Pylos, after the fall of Troy. Virgil, in his Aeneid, states that Pisa was a great center by the times described; the Virgilian commentator Servius wrote that the Teuti, or Pelops, the king of the Pisaeans, founded the town 13 centuries before the start of the common era. The maritime role of Pisa should have been prominent if the ancient authorities ascribed to it the invention of the naval ram. Pisa took advantage of being the only port along the western coast between Ostia. Pisa served as a base for Roman naval expeditions against Ligurians and Carthaginians. In 180 BC, it became a Roman colony as Portus Pisanus. In 89 BC, Portus Pisanus became a municipium. Emperor Augustus fortified the colony into an important port and changed the name as Colonia Iulia obsequens.
Pisa was founded on the shore, but due to the alluvial sediments from the Arno and the Serchio, whose mouth lies about 11 km north of the Arno's, the shore moved west. Strabo states, it is located 9.7 km from the coast. However, it was a maritime city, with ships sailing up the Arno. In the 90s AD, a baths complex was built in the city. During the last years of the Western Roman Empire, Pisa did not decline as much as the other cities of Italy due to the complexity of its river system and its consequent ease of defence. In the seventh century, Pisa helped Pope Gregory I by supplying numerous ships in his military expedition against the Byzantines of Ravenna: Pisa was the sole Byzantine centre of Tuscia to fall peacefully in Lombard hands, through assimilation with the neighbouring region where their trading interests were prevalent. Pisa began in this way its rise to the role of main port of the Upper Tyrrhenian Sea and became the main trading centre between Tuscany and Corsica and the southern coasts of France and Spain.
After Charlemagne had defeated the Lombards under the command of Desiderius in 774, Pisa went through a crisis, but soon recovered. Politically, it became part of the duchy of Lucca. In 860, Pisa was captured by vikings led by Björn Ironside. In 930, Pisa became the county centre within the mark of Tuscia. Lucca was the capital but Pisa was the most important city, as in the middle of 10th century Liutprand of Cremona, bishop of Cremona, called Pisa Tusciae provinciae caput, a century the marquis of Tuscia was referred to as "marquis of Pisa". In 1003, Pisa was the protagonist of the first communal war in Italy, against Lucca. From the naval point of view, since the 9th century, the emergence of the Saracen pirates urged the city to expand its fleet. In 828, Pisan ships assaulted the coast of North Africa. In 871, they took part in the defence of Salerno from the Saracens. In 970, they gave strong support to Otto I's expedition, defeating a Byzantine fleet in front of Calabrese coasts; the power of Pisa as a maritime nation began to grow and reached its apex in the 11th century, when it acquired traditional fame as one of the four main historical maritime republics of Italy.
At that time, the city was a important commercial centre and controlled a significant Mediterranean merchant fleet and navy. It expanded its powers in 1005 through the sack of Reggio Calabria in the south of Italy. Pisa was in continuous conflict with the Saracens, who had their bases in Corsica, for control of the Mediterranean. In 1017, Sardinian Giudicati were militarily supported by Pisa, in alliance with Genoa, to defeat the Saracen King Mugahid, who had settled a logistic base in the north of Sardinia the year before; this victory gave Pisa supremacy in the Tyrrhenian Sea. When the Pisans subsequently ousted the Genoese from Sardinia, a new conflict and rivalry was born between these mighty marine republics. Between 1030 and 1035, Pisa went on to defeat several rival towns in Sicily and conquer Carthage in North Africa. In 1051–1052, the admiral Jacopo Ciurini conquered Corsica, p
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and largest city of the Grand Est region of France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located at the border with Germany in the historic region of Alsace, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin department. In 2016, the city proper had 279,284 inhabitants and both the Eurométropole de Strasbourg and the Arrondissement of Strasbourg had 491,409 inhabitants. Strasbourg's metropolitan area had a population of 785,839 in 2015, making it the ninth largest metro area in France and home to 13% of the Grand Est region's inhabitants; the transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 915,000 inhabitants in 2014. Strasbourg is one of the de facto capitals of the European Union, as it is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union; the city is the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights.
Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île, was classified a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a cultural bridge between France and Germany for centuries through the University of Strasbourg the second largest in France, the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture, it is home to the largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque. Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road and river transportation; the port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Germany. Before the 5th century, the city was known as Argantorati, a Celtic Gaulish name Latinized first as Argentorate, as Argentoratum; that Gaulish name is a compound of -rati, the Gaulish word for fortified enclosures, cognate to the Old Irish ráth, arganto-, the Gaulish word for silver, but any precious metal gold, suggesting either a fortified enclosure located by a river gold mining site, or hoarding gold mined in the nearby rivers.
After the 5th century, the city became known by a different name Gallicized as Strasbourg. That name is of Germanic origin and means "Town of roads"; the modern Stras- is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata, while -bourg is cognate to the German Burg and English borough, all of which are derived from Proto-Germanic *burgz. Gregory of Tours was the first to mention the name change: in the tenth book of his History of the Franks written shortly after 590 he said that Egidius, Bishop of Reims, accused of plotting against King Childebert II of Austrasia in favor of his uncle King Chilperic I of Neustria, was tried by a synod of Austrasian bishops in Metz in November 590, found guilty and removed from the priesthood taken "ad Argentoratensem urbem, quam nunc Strateburgum vocant", where he was exiled. Strasbourg is situated at the eastern border of France with Germany; this border is formed by the Rhine, which forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl.
The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the river Ill, which here flows parallel to, 4 kilometres from, the Rhine. The natural courses of the two rivers join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city; the city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres and 151 metres above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km to the west and the Black Forest 25 km to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north–south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks; the city is some 397 kilometres east of Paris. The mouth of the Rhine lies 450 kilometres to the north, or 650 kilometres as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel is some 100 kilometres to the south, or 150 kilometres by river. In spite of its position far inland, Strasbourg's climate is classified as oceanic, but a "semicontinental" climate with some degree of maritime influence in relation to the mild patterns of Western and Southern France.
The city has warm sunny summers and cool, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm annually. On average, snow falls 30 days per year; the highest temperature recorded was 38.5 °C in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature eve
