Even though Los Angeles lost its reputation as a paradise of wealth and low unemployment several decades ago, with its chaotic traffic jams stretching for miles and an almost daily smog spreading over the city, the megalopolis of around 17.5 million inhabitants continues to grow inland. As daunting as the incomprehensibility of the “City [...]
On June 30, 1864, Abraham Lincoln declared the area around Mariposa Grove the nation’s first State Park. Twenty-six years later, Yosemite became a National Park. Unfolding in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, it reveals a dreamy landscape consisting of waterfalls, rock formations, groves of mammoth-sized trees and mountain meadows. Hardly any other national [...]
California’s “Wine Country” was still at the center of the American Gold Rush 150 years ago. At that time, vineyards were tended only by missionaries residing in Sonoma and San Rafael. Today, Napa Valley is one of the most famous wine-growing regions for Californian table wine and wine tasting. Tours of vineyards are particularly popular [...]
This little town of 1,000 inhabitants was originally a lumbering settlement. In their search for seclusion and inspiration, painters, sculptors and writers discovered this tranquil refuge in the 1950s. The idyllic setting with its Victorian-style wooden houses and the surrounding lush forests has often served as a motif for painters.
Examples can be found at the [...]
