There are many concrete places we have visited; all spectacular locales and views. But as poets/writers we tend to rely on our imaginations at times and go to even more  fabulous destinations. Pick a place: Oz, Neverland, Narnia, someplace of fiction and write of your visit.

Victoria Peak is a mountain in the western half of Hong Kong Island. It is also known as Mount Austin, and locally as The Peak. With an altitude of 552 m (1,811 ft), it is the highest mountain on Hong Kong island, ranked 31 in terms of altitude in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Tai Mo Shan is the highest point in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region with an altitude of 957 m).

The summit is occupied by a radio telecommunications facility and is closed to the public. However, the surrounding area of public parks and high-value residential land is the area that is normally meant by the name The Peak. It is a major tourist attraction that offers views over Central, Victoria Harbour, Lamma Island and the surrounding islands.

With some seven million visitors every year, the Peak is a major tourist attraction of Hong Kong. It offers spectacular views of the city and its harbours. The viewing deck also has coin operated telescopes that the visitors can use to enjoy the cityscape. The number of visitors led to the construction of two major leisure and shopping centres, the Peak Tower and the Peak Galleria, situated adjacent to each other.

Think of a place with a spectacular view and write from that perspective. Compare how this view is different from ground level; what does perspective add/subtract from it? Are you affected adversely by high places? Write of that. Use your height to your advantage, and write what you view!

The Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed (commonly known as Saint Basil’s Cathedral), is a church in Red Square in Moscow, Russia. The building, now a museum, is officially known as the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat or Pokrovsky Cathedral. It was built from 1555–61 on orders from Ivan the Terrible and commemorates the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan. A world famous landmark it was the city’s tallest building until the completion of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower in 1600.

Many times historic buildings are repurposed or transformed into something else (as was St. Basil’s) Think of another structure or landmark that remains in tribute to its past. Use it as your inspiration, or think of a new use of another existing  point of interest other that what it was meant to be. Be creative!

Ellis Island is an island that is located in Upper New York Bay in the Port of New York and New Jersey, United States. It was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States as the nation’s busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, and has hosted a museum of immigration since 1990. Long considered part of New York, a 1998 United States Supreme Court decision found that most of the island is in New Jersey. The south side of the island, home to the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, is closed to the general public and the object of restoration efforts spearheaded by Save Ellis Island.

For many, Ellis Island was the beginning of our plight in America. The “Land of Opportunity” beckoned and immigrants (our ancestors) came to her teeming shores. There are many directions you can go with this: A beginning poem, an arrival poem, a poem from the perspective of an immigrants coming to this new (for them) land. You can write an “ancestor” poem, a genealogy poem… even a deportation poem!

The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, internationally known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos along its route. The Strip is approximately 4.2 miles long, located immediately south of the Las Vegas city limits in the unincorporated towns of Paradise and Winchester (however, the Strip is often referred to as being “in Las Vegas”). Most of the Strip has been designated an All-American Road, and is considered a scenic route at night. Many of the largest hotel, casino, and resort properties in the world are located on the Las Vegas Strip. Fifteen of the world’s 25 largest hotels by room count are on the Strip, with a total of over 62,000 rooms.

One of the most visible aspects of Las Vegas’ cityscape is its use of dramatic architecture. The rapidly evolving skyline and constant modernization of hotels, casinos, restaurants, residential high-rises, and entertainment offerings on the Strip, have established it as one of the most popular destinations for tourists in the United States, and the world.

There’s a plethora of inspirations in this magic place, from the legends, the performers (Sinatra and the Rat Pack, Wayne Newton, Celine Dionne…), the games and the heartbreak, to drive your poem home. Find one, and let it ride!

The Eiffel Tower is an iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It was named after the engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World’s Fair, it was initially criticized by some of France’s leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world; 6.98 million people ascended it in 2011. The tower received its 250 millionth visitor in 2010.

The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second. The third level observatory’s upper platform is 276 m (906 ft) above the ground, the highest accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift (elevator) to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the walk from the first to the second level. Although there are stairs to the third and highest level, these are usually closed to the public and it is generally only accessible by lift.

With this location, we bid au revoir to France. So write a goodbye poem extolling the beauty you are about to leave behind!

The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional football in the United States with an emphasis on the National Football League (NFL). The hall opened in Canton, Ohio, on September 7, 1963, with 17 charter enshrinees.^[3] As of 2014, there are a total of 287 members of the Hall of Fame.^[4]

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 25 Main Street in Cooperstown, New York, and operated by private interests. It serves as the central point for the study of the history of baseball in the United States and beyond, displays baseball-related artifacts and exhibits, and honors those who have excelled in playing, managing, and serving the sport. The Hall’s motto is “Preserving History, Honoring Excellence, Connecting Generations.”

The word Cooperstown is often used as shorthand (or a metonym) for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as the sport’s most complete library, in addition to promoting and preserving the history of basketball. Dedicated to Canadian-American doctor and inventor of the sport James Naismith, it was opened in, and inducted its first class in 1959.

The Hockey Hall of Fame is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dedicated to the history of ice hockey, it is both a museum and a hall of fame. It holds exhibits about players, teams, National Hockey League (NHL) records, memorabilia and NHL trophies, including the Stanley Cup. Originally founded in Kingston, Ontario, the Hockey Hall of Fame was first established in 1943 under the leadership of James T. Sutherland. In 1993, the Hall was relocated to a former Bank of Montreal building in Downtown Toronto, where it is now located.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame is unique among North American major league sports halls of fame in that officials have generally been excluded from the Hall; only one, 1966 inductee Hugh “Shorty” Ray, has been enshrined. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and Hockey Hall of Fame have each inducted game officials as members. In part to rectify the lack of officials and other off-field contributors, the Hall of Fame added a “Contributors” committee beginning with the class of 2015, which will nominate officials, general managers, owners and other positions that have historically been overlooked by the committee at large.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way, influenced the music industry. It is part of the city’s redeveloped North Coast Harbor.

A few summers back, we took our two daughters on a road trip to visit the the Halls of Fame (with the exception of the Naismith Museum). They were enthralled by the Rock Museum, and both are avid Hockey fans; they also got a “kick” out of the football hall.

Any player/contributor/artist can add to your poetic pursuits. Any discipline will also qualify. Is there a “Hall of Fame” you’ve visited? Tell us about it. Let your wonderful poems celebrate greatness today!

The Walt Disney World Resort, informally known as Walt Disney World or simply Disney World or shortly WDW, is an entertainment complex in Bay Lake, Florida (mailing address is Lake Buena Vista, Florida), near Kissimmee, Florida and is the flagship of Disney’s worldwide theme park empire. The resort opened on October 1, 1971 and, is the most visited vacation resort in the world, with an attendance of over 52 million annually.

Designed to supplement Disneyland in Anaheim, California, which had opened in 1955, the complex was developed by Walt Disney in the 1960s. “The Florida Project”, as he called it, was originally to be built in hopes of differential in design and scheme from Disneyland with its own diverse set of rides. Walt Disney’s original plans also called for the inclusion of an “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” (EPCOT), a planned community that would serve as a test bed for new innovations for city living. After extensive lobbying, the Government of Florida created the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a special government district that essentially gave The Walt Disney Company the standard powers and autonomy of an incorporated city. However, Disney died on December 15, 1966, before construction began. Without the mind of Disney spearheading the construction of Walt Disney World, the Disney Company instead created the resort very similar to Disneyland, just on a much larger scale, along with abandoning his concept of an experimental planned community.

Coincidentally, Disneyland is in Orange County in California and Walt Disney World is in Orange County in Florida.

 

I suspect there aren’t many in the world who are unfamiliar with the Disney footprint with the scope of parks, characters, and movie franchises. So from Disneyland to a galaxy far, far away (STAR WARS); from Donald Duck to Miss Piggy, delve into the world that began with a whistling mouse!

Notre-Dame de Paris, also known as Notre-Dame Cathedral or simply Notre-Dame, is a historic Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement (district) of Paris, France. The cathedral is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture, and it is among the largest and most well-known church buildings in the world. The naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture.

Notre-Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress (arched exterior supports). Many small individually crafted statues were placed around the outside to serve as column supports and water spouts. Among these are the famous gargoyles, designed for water run-off, and chimeras. The statues were originally colored as was most of the exterior. The paint has worn off, but the gray stone was once covered with vivid colors.

We return to Paris to visit another iconic location. Let the muse use this location as its inspiration. The architecture, the location, the gargoyles, even the bell towers (Yes, Quasimodo Lives!) are fair game.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a memorial and museum in Oświęcim (German: Auschwitz), Poland, which includes the German concentration camps Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. It is devoted to the memory of the murders in both camps during World War II. The museum performs several tasks, among them research into the Holocaust.

From 1955 to 1990 the museum was directed by one of its founders and former inmates, Kazimierz Smoleń.

The areas of remembrance are Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the train ramp between Auschwitz and Birkenau, which was used as a “debarkation-stop” between 1942–1944. The three kilometres between Auschwitz and Birkenau are within walking distance. The museum is situated in several original buildings.

This location tells us that there is more than amusement in our worldwide trek. There is education and memorialization on some of our stops. No clearer message than here in Poland and the Museum in Oświęcim. Write a memorial, an elegy, a depiction of the past atrocities or the current state of a reformed area.