It is Friday and that means I come bearing some exciting news about travel. Yes it is time to announce where we will be travelling for this month’s Flyaway Friday feature. So are you all ready? We will be travelling off to Netherlands.
So if you are still wondering what we are upto, let me give you a quick tour. Every month on Fridays, I take you all virtually to a different country, recommend books set in that country and the most exciting part of all, to have a blogger from that country to tell us more about living there and help us compare what we read or see in books or movies with the reality as they see.
Netherlands is located in the Northwestern part of Europe and shares border with Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. To be more clear I will attach a map, alright?
Credit:picturetomorrow.org
Some basic facts for y’all!
More trivia
Here are some fun facts about Netherlands for you
1) While most of us use the names interchangeably, Holland (consisting of North and South Holland) is just a part of the Kingdom of Netherlands. Next time catch yourself from making that mistake.
2) Netherlands has one of the healthiest diet in the world. In fact it is one of the leading countries in happiness and high per capita income in the world.
Credit: Flickr
3) It legalized same sex marriages in 2001 and was the first nation in the world to do so.
4) While Amsterdam is the capital of the country, the government of the Netherlands is seated in the Hague.
5) Orange is its national color and the monarchy is from the House of Orange.
6) Netherlands is the third largest agricultural exporter, despite their size.
7) The Dutch men and women are some of the tallest in the world with an average height of 182.5cm for adult males and 169 cm for female.
Have you ever visited Netherlands in person? Do you know any fun facts about the country? Do you have any questions for the Dutch guest blogger about their nation, habits, stereotypes etc? Let us talk.
It has been a while since we did some quizzes here right? So here we are to change things a bit.
I love doing anagrams as much as every other crossword junkie here. And I am here to mix two of my obsessions – books and rearranging letters. So let us find out if you can rearrange the letters to find out the book title hidden in there.
So shall we get started?
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Let us chat
Tell me how did you fare? Which was the hardest title to solve? Do you like doing these quizzes? Let us talk.
I was talking to someone last week about trivia contests and believe it or not, I have won a few. I used to be smarter I guess. And would not come as a surprise, that I used to do so well when it came to finding the name of the authors from their books.
That gave me the idea for today’s post. Let me know if you are any good at bookish quizzes.
Do you know that the “new shiny thing” is really a syndrome? I am positive that I might be afflicted by it. I am talking about the feature we started at the beginning of the year called Flyaway Friday. I know it has been a while since we visited France and Finland, so I guess it is time for another trip, don’t you think?
So pack your bags and get ready to spend your Fridays dreaming about Italy this month.
We will learn about the country, talk about books set in Italy and I am saving the best for the last, have an Italian blogger tell us more about the country and its people. Sounds exciting right?
So let us start with the basics about Italy, shall we?
Italy is one of the common country in the bucket list for many of us, thanks to all the books and the characters we fell for.
I am sure we know Italy is an European country, somewhere in the Mediterranean region but we need to know a bit more than that before we travel, don’t we?
1.Italy, or Repubblica Italiana, is surrounded by water on three front and shares its land border with a lot of countries viz France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, and Vatican City.
Italy map Credit: http://www.sos-usa.org/
2. The eternal city of Rome is one of the oldest city’s of the world and it is about 3000 years old.
3. Rome is the home to the famous Trevi fountain, which is 85 feet in height and 65 feet in width is one of those must see tourist place in Italy. Yes, it is the one where people make a wish by throwing in coins.
Trevi Fountain Credit: flickr/fotodispalle/
4. The major Italian cities you need to know are: Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan, Naples
5. Did I say almost 80% of Italy is hilly or has a mountainous terrain?
6. It may come as no surprise that the Italians brought many of the cheeses like Mozzarella, Parmesan, Ricotta to the world.
Credit:Wikipedia
7. The world’s first woman graduate and a Ph.D holder, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia was born in Venice, Italy.
8. The Vatican City and the Republic of San Marino are located with the Italian territory.
9. Europe’s three active volcanoes Etna, Vesuvius, and Stromboli are all in Italy.
10. Many of the leading brands like Lamborghini, Gucci, Prada, Aramani, Ferrari call Italy their home.
11. While Italians have a long life expectancy with one of highest number of centenarians, they also have the lowest birth rate in the western world.
Want to see some of the books I reviewed set in Italy? Try them here.
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Let us talk
So do you have any trivia about Italy to share? Do you have any questions to ask to the Italian blogger about Italy? Have you heard of any Italian stereotypes? Comment away!
