Faneuil Hall Marketplace

Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, US

Built as a marketplace and meeting hall in 1742, Faneuil Hall is a popular tourist attraction in Boston. The building was mostly burnt down in a fire in 1761, but it was rebuilt the following year, and later expanded in 1805. Today, Faneuil Hall consists of three buildings: North Market, Quincy Market, and South Market, which feature a variety of shops and restaurants. While sometimes criticized as a tourist trap, the Quincy Marketplace Colonnade offers stalls full of merchants selling locally produced food and goods, homemade treats, coffee, and more.

The site, sometimes known as the “Cradle of Liberty,” is operated as a Boston National Historic Park. It was the site of several historic speeches and is just one stop along the Freedom Trail.

In addition to the shops and restaurants, live entertainment is commonly seen throughout the year, and includes jugglers and mimes, acrobats, magicians and musicians, as well as many festivals.

Space Center Houston

Johnson Space Center, Huston

Space Center Houston is the visitor center of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, which is NASA’s center for spaceflight activities. The Space Center is open to the public, displaying many artifacts and exhibits that educate visitors about the history and accomplishments of NASA. The Space Center is one of Houston’s biggest attractions, and was designed with the assistance of Disney Imagineers, helping make it an interactive and educational center for people of all ages.
Some of the important space artifacts housed at Space Center Houston include the Mercury 9 and Gemini 5 capsules, Apollo 17, and the Lunar Rover. Soon the space shuttle Explorer mockup will join these other artifacts at the Houston Space Center.
Other attractions in the Space Center include theaters that show films about spaceflight adventures and shuttle launches, and exhibits with displays of famous astronaut spacesuits, artifacts from spaceflights, and spaceship hardware.

The NASA Tram Tour takes visitors on a tour of the actual working Johnson Space Center for a behind-the-scenes look at the technology and equipment development facilities as well as astronaut training facilities. The Kids Space Place is a space-themed play area with interactive exhibits that let visitors explore space, including a demonstration of how it feels to be in space.

Mesa Verde National Park in US

Mesa Verde National Park at Colorado , US

Mesa Verde National Park is a UNESCO Heritage Site and a US National Park. What makes this special? Spread over more than 52,000 acres in the Montezuma County in southern Colorado in the US, the park preserves the cliff dwellings of the ancestral Puebloan people known as the Anasazi.

Mesa Verde in Spanish translates into “green table”. The cliff dwellings constitute some of the best preserved archeological sites in the country. The Anasazi lived in the Mesa Verde region between 450 CE and 1300 CE. Over 600 of these dwellings are recorded in the national park including the famous Balcony House, Square Tower House, and Cliff House. In all the national park protects over 5,000 archeological sites and others are continually being discovered. The south-west Colorado plateau on which the Mesa Verde National Park is located is at an altitude of about 8,500 feet and over 572,000 visitors head to the national park each year.

The Mesa Verde villages were initially discovered in 1874. The rock-cut dwellings were soon pillaged by collectors and treasure hunters. By 1889, much of the artifacts in the region were sold – in 1889 collectors held a large pottery sale. At about this time, archeologists started to study and excavate the remains. By 1906, the site come under the protection of the Federal Antiquities Act and has been well-preserved ever since.