Germany
Germany the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north and the Czech Republic to the east and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to the west. Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,386 square kilometres, has a temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a decentralized country, its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport. Germany's largest urban area is the Ruhr, with its main centres of Essen; the country's other major cities are Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Bremen and Nuremberg. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity.
A region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the German Confederation was formed in 1815; the German revolutions of 1848–49 resulted in the Frankfurt Parliament establishing major democratic rights. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the revolution of 1918–19, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic; the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, the annexation of Austria, World War II, the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, Austria was re-established as an independent country and two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American and French occupation zones, East Germany, formed from the Soviet occupation zone.
Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990. Today, the sovereign state of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor, it is a great power with a strong economy. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods; as a developed country with a high standard of living, it upholds a social security and universal health care system, environmental protection, a tuition-free university education. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993, it is part of the Schengen Area and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, the OECD. Known for its rich cultural history, Germany has been continuously the home of influential and successful artists, musicians, film people, entrepreneurs, scientists and inventors.
Germany has a large number of World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world. The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine; the German term Deutschland diutisciu land is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "popular" used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "popular", derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons originates; the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a coal mine in Schöningen between 1994 and 1998 where eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins of 1.82 to 2.25 m length were unearthed. The Neander Valley was the location where the first non-modern human fossil was discovered.
The Neanderthal 1 fossils are known to be 40,000 years old. Evidence of modern humans dated, has been found in caves in the Swabian Jura near Ulm; the finds included 42,000-year-old bird bone and mammoth ivory flutes which are the oldest musical instruments found, the 40,000-year-old Ice Age Lion Man, the oldest uncontested figurative art discovered, the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels, the oldest uncontested human figurative art discovered. The Nebra sky disk is a bronze artefact created during the European Bronze Age attributed to a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, it is part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme. The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well
Tampere
Tampere is a city in Pirkanmaa, southern Finland. It is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. Tampere has a population of 235,615 with the urban area holding 334,112 people and the metropolitan area known as the Tampere sub-region, holding 385,301 inhabitants in an area of 4,970 km2. Tampere is the second-largest urban area and third most-populous individual municipality in Finland, after the cities of Helsinki and Espoo. It's the most populous Finnish city outside the Greater Helsinki area and a major urban and cultural hub for central Finland. Tampere is wedged between Näsijärvi and Pyhäjärvi. Since the two lakes differ in level by 18 metres, the rapids linking them, have been an important power source throughout history, most for generating electricity. Tampere is dubbed the "Manchester of Finland" for its industrial past as the former center of Finnish industry, this has given rise to its Finnish nickname "Manse" and terms such as "Manserock". Helsinki is 160 kilometres south of Tampere, can be reached in 1h 31m by Pendolino high-speed rail service and 2 hours by car.
The distance to Turku is the same. Tampere–Pirkkala Airport is Finland's eighth-busiest airport, with over 230,000 passengers in 2017. Although the name Tampere is derived from the Tammerkoski rapids, the origin of the Tammer- part of that name has been the subject of much debate. Ánte accepts the "straightforward" etymology of Rahkonen and Heikkilä in Proto-Samic *Tëmpël, *tëmpël meaning "deep, slow section of a stream" and *kōškë "rapids". Other theories include. Another suggestion links the name to the Swedish word Kvatemberdagar, or more colloquially Tamperdagar, meaning the Ember days of the Western Christian liturgical calendar; the Finnish word for oak, tammi features in the speculation, although Tampere is situated outside the natural distribution range of the European oak and the town was founded by Swedes, which makes this explanation less plausible. Tampere was founded as a market place on the banks of the Tammerkoski channel in 1775 by Gustav III of Sweden and four years 1 October 1779, Tampere was granted full city rights.
At this time, it was a rather small town, consisting of only a few square kilometres of land around the rapids. Tampere grew as industrial centre in the 19th century. Tampere was the centre of many important political events of Finland in the early 20th century. On 1 November 1905, during the general strike, the famous Red Declaration was proclaimed on Keskustori. In 1918, after Finland had gained independence, Tampere played a major role, being one of the strategically important sites during the Civil War in Finland. Tampere was a red stronghold during the war, with Hugo Salmela in command. White forces captured the town after the Battle of Tampere, seizing about 10,000 Red prisoners on 6 April 1918. Prevalent in Tampere's post-World War II municipal politics was the Brothers-in-Arms Axis. After World War II, Tampere was enlarged by joining some neighbouring areas. Messukylä was incorporated in 1947, Lielahti in 1950, Aitolahti in 1966 and Teisko in 1972. Tampere was known for its textile and metal industries, but these have been replaced by information technology and telecommunications during the 1990s.
The technology centre Hermia in Hervanta is home to many companies in these fields. Tampere is part of the Pirkanmaa region and is surrounded by the municipalities of Kangasala, Lempäälä, Orivesi, Ruovesi, Ylöjärvi. Tampere has an isolated humid continental climate in the downtown area due to heat island but the most remote neighborhoods or neighboring cities have a continental subarctic climate border as in the Tampere–Pirkkala Airport with only 3 months above 10 °C. Winters are cold and the average temperature from November to March is below 0 °C. Summers are cool to warm. On average, the snow season lasts 4–5 months from late November to early April. Considering it being at the subarctic threshold and inland, winters are on average quite mild for the classification, as is the annual mean temperature; the Tampere region, which includes outlying municipalities, has around 509,000 residents, 244,000 employed people, a turnover of 28 billion euros as of 2014. According to the Tampere International Business Office, the area is strong in mechanical engineering and automation and communication technologies, health and biotechnology, as well as pulp and paper industry education.
Unemployment rate was 14.8% in June 2017. There are four institutions of higher education in the Tampere area totaling 40,000 students: two universities and two polytechnic institutions; the universities are University of Tampere, which has more than 16,000 students and is located right next to the city center, Tampere University of Technology, which has more than 12,000 students and is located in Hervanta. The regional polytechnic institution is the Tampere University of Applied Sciences, which has about 10,000 students; the Police University College, the polytechnic institution serving all of Finland in its field of specialization, is located in Tampere. Three of these institutions, TUT, UTA, TAMK are merging into a new Tam
Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage Museum is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The second-largest art museum in the world, it was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired an impressive collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky; the museum celebrates the anniversary of its founding each year on 7 December, Saint Catherine's Day. It has been open to the public since 1852, its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items, including the largest collection of paintings in the world. The collections occupy a large complex of six historic buildings along Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace, a former residence of Russian emperors. Apart from them, the Menshikov Palace, Museum of Porcelain, Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya, the eastern wing of the General Staff Building are part of the museum; the museum has several exhibition centers abroad. The Hermitage is a federal state property.
Since July 1992, the director of the museum has been Mikhail Piotrovsky. Of the six buildings in the main museum complex, five—namely the Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage, New Hermitage, Hermitage Theatre—are open to the public; the entrance ticket for foreign tourists costs more than the fee paid by citizens of Russia and Belarus. However, entrance is free of charge the third Thursday of every month for all visitors, free daily for students and children; the museum is closed on Mondays. The entrance for individual visitors is located in the Winter Palace, accessible from the Courtyard. A hermitage is the dwelling of a recluse; the word derives from Old French hermit, ermit "hermit, recluse", from Late Latin eremita, from Greek eremites "people who live alone", in turn derived from ἐρημός, "desert". The building was given this name because of its exclusivity - in its early days, only few people were allowed to visit; the only building housing the collection was the "Small Hermitage".
Today, the Hermitage Museum encompasses many buildings on the Palace Embankment and its neighbourhoods. Apart from the Small Hermitage, the museum now includes the "Old Hermitage", the "New Hermitage", the "Hermitage Theatre", the "Winter Palace", the former main residence of the Russian tsars. In recent years, the Hermitage has expanded to the General Staff Building on the Palace Square facing the Winter Palace, the Menshikov Palace; the Western European Art collection includes European paintings and applied art from the 13th to the 20th centuries. It is displayed, on the first and second floor of the four main buildings. Drawings and prints are displayed in temporary exhibitions. Since 1940, the Egyptian collection, dating back to 1852 and including the former Castiglione Collection, has occupied a large hall on the ground floor in the eastern part of the Winter Palace, it serves as a passage to the exhibition of Classical Antiquities. A modest collection of the culture of Ancient Mesopotamia, including a number of Assyrian reliefs from Babylon, Dur-Sharrukin and Nimrud, is located in the same part of the building.
The collection of classical antiquities occupies most of the ground floor of the Old and New Hermitage buildings. The interiors of the ground floor were designed by German architect Leo von Klenze in the Greek revival style in the early 1850s, using painted polished stucco and columns of natural marble and granite. One of the largest and most notable interiors of the first floor is the Hall of Twenty Columns, divided into three parts by two rows of grey monolithic columns of Serdobol granite, intended for the display of Graeco-Etruscan vases, its floor is made of a modern marble mosaic imitating ancient tradition, while the stucco walls and ceiling are covered in painting. The Room of the Great Vase in the western wing features the 2.57 m high Kolyvan Vase, weighing 19 t, made of jasper in 1843 and installed before the walls were erected. While the western wing was designed for exhibitions, the rooms on the ground floor in the eastern wing of the New Hermitage, now hosting exhibitions, were intended for libraries.
The floor of the Athena Room in the south-eastern corner of the building, one of the original libraries, is decorated with an authentic 4th-century mosaic excavated in an early Christian basilica in Chersonesos in 1854. The collection of classical antiquities features Greek artifacts from the third millennium – fifth century BC, ancient Greek pottery, items from the Greek cities of the North Pontic Greek colonies, Hellenistic sculpture and jewellery, including engraved gems and cameos, such as the famous Gonzaga Cameo, Italic art from the 9th to second century BC, Roman marble and bronze sculpture and applied art from the first century BC - fourth century AD, including copies of Classical and Hellenistic Greek sculptures. One of the highlights of the collection is the Tauride Venus, according to latest research, is an original Hellenistic Greek sculpture rather than a Roman copy as it was thought before. There are, only a few pieces of authentic Classical Greek sculpture and sepulchral monuments.
On the ground floor in the western wing of the Winter Palace the collections of prehistoric artifacts and the culture and art of the Caucasus are located, as well as the second treasure gallery. The prehistoric artifacts date from the Paleolithic to the Iron Age and were excavated all over Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire. Among them is a renowned collection of the art and culture
Sweden
Sweden the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east, is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund, a strait at the Swedish-Danish border. At 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the third-largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe by area. Sweden has a total population of 10.2 million. It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre; the highest concentration is in the southern half of the country. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats and Swedes and constituting the sea peoples known as the Norsemen. Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is forested. Sweden is part of the geographical area of Fennoscandia; the climate is in general mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence, that in spite of this still retains warm continental summers.
Today, the sovereign state of Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state, like its neighbour Norway. The capital city is Stockholm, the most populous city in the country. Legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister. Sweden is a unitary state divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. An independent Swedish state emerged during the early 12th century. After the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century killed about a third of the Scandinavian population, the Hanseatic League threatened Scandinavia's culture and languages; this led to the forming of the Scandinavian Kalmar Union in 1397, which Sweden left in 1523. When Sweden became involved in the Thirty Years War on the Reformist side, an expansion of its territories began and the Swedish Empire was formed; this became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, ending with the annexation of present-day Finland by Russia in 1809.
The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since Sweden has been at peace, maintaining an official policy of neutrality in foreign affairs; the union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905. Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars and the Cold War, albeit Sweden has since 2009 moved towards cooperation with NATO. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995, but declined NATO membership, as well as Eurozone membership following a referendum, it is a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides universal health care and tertiary education for its citizens, it has the world's eleventh-highest per capita income and ranks in numerous metrics of national performance, including quality of life, education, protection of civil liberties, economic competitiveness, equality and human development.
The name Sweden was loaned from Dutch in the 17th century to refer to Sweden as an emerging great power. Before Sweden's imperial expansion, Early Modern English used Swedeland. Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod, which meant "people of the Swedes"; this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige means "realm of the Swedes", excluding the Geats in Götaland. Variations of the name Sweden are used in most languages, with the exception of Danish and Norwegian using Sverige, Faroese Svøríki, Icelandic Svíþjóð, the more notable exception of some Finnic languages where Ruotsi and Rootsi are used, names considered as referring to the people from the coastal areas of Roslagen, who were known as the Rus', through them etymologically related to the English name for Russia; the etymology of Swedes, thus Sweden, is not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning "one's own", referring to one's own Germanic tribe. Sweden's prehistory begins in the Allerød oscillation, a warm period around 12,000 BC, with Late Palaeolithic reindeer-hunting camps of the Bromme culture at the edge of the ice in what is now the country's southernmost province, Scania.
This period was characterised by small bands of hunter-gatherer-fishers using flint technology. Sweden is first described in a written source in Germania by Tacitus in 98 AD. In Germania 44 and 45 he mentions the Swedes as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow at each end. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a long line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC; as for literacy in Sweden itself, the runic script was in use among the south Scandinavian elite by at least the 2nd century AD, but all that has come down to the present from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions on artefacts of male names, demonstrating th
Health club
A health club is a place that houses exercise equipment for the purpose of physical exercise. Most health clubs have a main workout area, which consists of free weights including dumbbells and barbells and the stands and benches used with these items and exercise machines, which use gears and other mechanisms to guide the user's exercise; this area includes mirrors so that exercisers can monitor and maintain correct posture during their workout. A gym that predominantly or consists of free weights, as opposed to exercise machines, is sometimes referred to as a black-iron gym, after the traditional color of weight plates. A cardio theater or cardio area includes many types of cardiovascular training-related equipment such as rowing machines, stationary exercise bikes, elliptical trainers and treadmills; these areas include a number of audio-visual displays TVs in order to keep exercisers entertained during long cardio workout sessions. Some gyms provide newspapers and magazines for users of the cardio theatre to read while working out.
Most 2010-era health clubs offer group exercise classes that are conducted by certified fitness instructors or trainers. Many types of group exercise classes exist, but these include classes based on aerobics, boxing or martial arts, high intensity training, step yoga, regular yoga and hot yoga, muscle training and self-defense classes such as Krav Maga and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Health clubs with swimming pools offer aqua aerobics classes; the instructors must gain certification in order to teach these classes and ensure participant safety. Some health clubs offer sports facilities such as a swimming pools, squash courts, indoor running tracks, ice rinks, or boxing areas. In some cases, additional fees are charged for the use of these facilities. Most health clubs employ personal trainers who are accessible to members for training/fitness/nutrition/health advice and consultation. Personal trainers can devise a customized fitness routine, sometimes including a nutrition plan, to help clients achieve their goals.
They can monitor and train with members. More than not, access to personal trainers involves an additional hourly fee. Newer health clubs include health-shops selling equipment, snack bars, child-care facilities, member lounges and cafes; some clubs have a sauna, steam room, or swimming pool or alternative medicine wellness facilities or offices to be present. Health clubs charge a fee to allow visitors to use the equipment and other provided services. In the 2010s, some clubs have is eco-friendly health clubs which incorporate principles of "green living" in its fitness regimen, into the design of the centre or both. Health clubs offer many services and as a result, the monthly membership prices can vary greatly. A recent study of American clubs found that the monthly cost of membership ranged from US$15 per month at basic chain clubs that offer limited amenities to over US$200 per month at spa-oriented clubs that cater to families and to those seeking social activities in addition to a workout.
In addition, some clubs - such as many local YMCAs - offer per-use punchcards or one-time fees for those seeking to use the club on an as-needed basis. These one-time fees are referred to as day passes. Costs can vary through the purchase of a higher-level membership, such as a Founders or a Life membership; such memberships have a high up-front cost but a lower monthly rate, making them beneficial to those who use the club and hold their memberships for years. Health clubs in North America offer a number of facilities and services with different price points for different levels of services; some services have differently-priced levels or tiers, such as regular, pro and gold facilities or packages. Some of the health and fitness facilities use cardio equipment, fitness screening, resistance-building equipment, pro shops, artificial sun-beds, health spas and saunas; the membership plans vary from as low as $20 per month, for value-priced gyms to as high as $700 per month. These health clubs in the United States, are equipped with a range of facilities and provide personal trainer support.
An early public gymnasium started in Paris in 1847. However, the history of health clubs for the general public can be traced back to Santa Monica, California in 1947. Jack Lalanne created the first American fitness club 1936 in California. Country club Outdoor fitness Spa Sports centre Carroll, L. "Choosing a health club", MSNBC Health, December 19, 2003. Accessed February 23, 2008. Media related to Health clubs at Wikimedia Commons
Finland
Kangasala travel guide from Wikivoyage
