Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: MB Puzzles, Big Ben
Notes: Santorini (Greek: Σαντορίνη) is a volcanic island located in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km southeast from Greece’s mainland. A giant central lagoon, more or less rectangular, and measuring about 12 by 7 km, is surrounded by 300 m high steep cliffs on three sides. The island slopes downward from the cliffs to the surrounding Aegean Sea. On the fourth side, the lagoon is separated from the sea by another much smaller island called Therasia; the lagoon merges with the sea in two places, in the northwest and southwest. The water in the centre of the lagoon is nearly 400 m deep, thus making it a safe harbour for all kinds of shipping. The island’s harbours all lie in the lagoon and there are no ports on the outer perimeter of the island; the capital, Fira, clings to the top of the cliff looking down on the lagoon. [Wiki]
Tag: landscape
Photo: Charlottetown Marina, July 5, 2009
Puzzle: Plaza de España, Spain
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73cm x 48.6cm
Producer: Impressions, Sure-Lox
Notes: The Plaza de España is a building in Maria Luisa Park, in Seville, Spain built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. It is a landmark example of the Renaissance Revival style in Spanish architecture. The Plaza de España, designed by Aníbal González, was a principal building built on the Maria Luisa Park’s edge to showcase Spain’s industry and technology exhibits. González combined a mix of 1920s Art Deco and ‘mock Mudejar’, and Neo-Mudéjar styles. The Plaza de España complex is a huge half-circle with buildings continually running around the edge accessible over the moat by numerous beautiful bridges. In the centre is a large fountain. By the walls of the Plaza are many tiled alcoves, each representing a different province of Spain. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Tuscany, Italy
Size: 750 pieces
Dimensions: 39cm x 60cm
Producer: Impressions, Sure-lox
Notes: Winemaking, or vinification, is the production of wine, starting with selection of the grapes or other produce and ending with bottling the finished wine. Although most wine is made from grapes, it may also be made from other fruit or non-toxic plant material. Mead is a wine that is made with honey being the primary ingredient after water.
Winemaking can be divided into two general categories: still wine production (without carbonation) and sparkling wine production (with carbonation).
The science of wine and winemaking is known as oenology (in American English, enology) and the oldest known winemaking operation, estimated to be 6,100 years old, was discovered in a cave in Armenia. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Mooney Falls, Havasu Canyon, Arizona
Size: 500 pieces
Producer: Kodacolor
Notes: Mooney Falls is named after James Mooney, who died here while attempting to rescue an injured friend by climbing back to the top with his friend tied onto his back.
Mooney Falls is about 1 mile past Havasu Falls, just past the campground. It is a towering and breathtaking waterfall of about 200 ft. in height. There is a really nice view of the falls from the top, looking down on the enticing pool into which the waterfall drops. The fun part (and scary part) of this waterfall, though, is getting to its base. From the top of the falls, the trail continues down to a warning sign, indicating to proceed at your own risk, and not to try descending in inclement weather. From here, you have to squeeze through two narrow tunnels built into the cliff. When you emerge from the tunnels, you are looking straight down the cliff to the pool at the base of the falls, and wondering if you are crazy enough to proceed. It is a steep descent. [Waterfalls of Arizona]
Puzzle: Maroon Park, Colorado, USA
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: Big Ben, MB Puzzles
Notes: This is a very beautiful park above Aspen. The bell shaped mountains in the background glow a reddish colour in the sunlight & they are reflected on the lake, hence the mountains called Maroon Bells and the lake Maroon Lake. [TravelPod site]
Maroon is a dark red color. Maroon is derived from French marron (“chestnut”). The first recorded use of Maroon as a color name in English was in 1789. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Alabama Hills, California, USA
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: Big Ben, MB Puzzles
Notes: Alabama Hills are a “range of hills” and rock formations near the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the Owens Valley, west of Lone Pine in Inyo County, California.
Though geographically considered a range of hills, geologically they are a part of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The Alabama Hills were named for CSS Alabama. When news of the Confederate warship’s exploits reached prospectors in California sympathetic to the American Civil War Confederates, they named many mining claims after the ship, and then the name came to be applied to the entire range. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Machu Picchu, Peru
Size: 750 pieces
Dimensions: 86.36 cm x 30.48 cm
Producer: Panorific, Sure-Lox
Box: photo
Notes: Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian 15th-century Inca site located 2,430 metres above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 80 kilometres northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often referred to as “The Lost City of the Incas”, it is perhaps the most familiar icon of the Inca World.
The Incas started building the “estate” around AD 1400 but abandoned it as an official site for the Inca rulers a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Tropical Meditation Garden
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: MB Puzzles, Big Ben
Box: photo
Notes: A tropical garden features tropical plants and requires good rainfall or a decent irrigation or sprinkler system for watering. These gardens typically need fertilizer and heavy mulching.
Tropical gardens are no longer exclusive to tropical areas. Many gardeners in colder climates are adopting the tropical garden design, which is possible through careful choice of plants and flowers. Main features include plants with very large leaves, vegetation that builds in height towards the back of the garden, creating a dense garden. Large plants and small trees hang over the garden, leaving sunlight to hit the ground directly. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Hidden Cottage II by Thomas Kinkade
Size: 300 pieces
Dimensions: 46cm x 36cm
Producer: Ceaco
Artist: Thomas Kinkade (born January 19, 1958 in Sacramento, California) is an American painter of realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects. He is notable for the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and other licensed products via The Thomas Kinkade Company. He characterizes himself as “Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light” (a trademarked phrase), and as “America’s most-collected living artist”. Media Arts, the publicly-traded company that licenses and sells Kinkade’s products, claims that 1 in 20 homes in the U.S. feature some form of Thomas Kinkade’s art.
Kinkade has received criticism for the extent to which he has commercialized his art—for example, selling his prints on the QVC home shopping network. Others have written that his paintings are merely kitsch, without substance, and have described them as chocolate box art. [Wiki]
Painting: “I take a great deal of pleasure in finding out-of-the-way places, small wonders that sometimes seem to go unnoticed like the cottage behind the gate in Hidden Cottage II.” [Thomas Kinkade site]
Puzzle: Hour of Prayer by Thomas Kinkade
Size: 300 pieces (oversized)
Dimensions: 46cm x 61cm
Producer: Ceaco
Artist: Thomas Kinkade
Painting: “The Hour of Prayer anticipates the dawning of a Peaceful Kingdom when time will be no more and prayer will be a direct communion with the divine. Until then, we must content ourselves with such glimpses of immortality as can be found in the Garden of Prayer, which exists in the hearts of the faithful.” [Thomas Kinkade site]
Puzzle: Twilight in the Park by Rod Chase
Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 48.26cm x 35.56cm
Producer: The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox
Artist: Rod Chase, Photorealist
Painting: Twilight in Central Park
Notes: Rod Chase is known to his collectors for producing photo-realism at its finest. The talented artist says, “Being a photorealist, I am dependent on finding accurate reference material for each painting.” Chase works with acrylics on canvas, spending hundreds of hours on each painting with the ultimate goal of presenting a fresh, unique, and elegant approach to familiar subjects. The detail in each painting is remarkable, but the mood each is equally impressive. [Rod Chase site]
Puzzle: Aristide’s Garden
Size: 500 pieces
Notes: Aristides (530 BC – 468 BC) was an Athenian statesman, nicknamed “the Just”. Herodotus is practically our only trustworthy authority. Aristides is praised by Socrates, in Plato’s dialogue Gorgias 526a-b, as an exceptional instance of good leadership. [Wiki]
It is unknown to which gardens this puzzle is referring. A search reveals Aristide/Aristides/Aristidis gardens present in Greece, the States, and the United Kingdom. I also do not have a record of the artist who created the picture. A clarification is welcome – if you have any clue as to the location of these gardens and the author of the picture, I would much appreciate that information.
Puzzle: Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73cm x 48.5cm
Producer: Impressions, Sure-Lox
Notes: Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of 412 ha of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over 5 km long east to west, and about half a mile north to south. With 13 million visitors annually, Golden Gate is the third most visited city park in the United States after Central Park in New York City and Lincoln Park in Chicago.
The 2 ha Japanese Tea Garden is the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States. The garden was designed by Makoto Hagiwara for the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, including still-standing features such as the Drum Bridge and the tea house. Subsequent additions included a pagoda and Zen garden. It is the site of the introduction of the fortune cookie to America. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Tranquility
Size: 1000 pieces, 1 missing
Dimensions: 68cm x 48.1cm
Producer: Mega Brands, Click series
Notes: Tranquility is the quality or state of being tranquil; calmness; serenity. The word tranquility appears in numerous texts ranging from the religious writings of Buddhism, where the term passaddhi refers to tranquillity of the body, thoughts and consciousness on the path to enlightenment, to an assortment of policy and planning guidance documents, where interpretation of the word is typically linked to engagement with the natural environment.
Being in a tranquil or “restorative” environment allows individuals to take respite from the periods of sustained “directed attention” that characterise modern living. In developing their Attention Restoration Theory (ART), Kaplan and Kaplan proposed that recovery from cognitive overload could most effectively be achieved by engaging with natural restorative environments, that are away from daily distractions and have the extent and mystery that allows the imagination to wander, thereby enabling individuals to engage effortlessly with their surroundings.[Wiki]
Puzzle: The Old Town, Cracow, Poland
Size: 1000 pieces
Notes: Kraków Old Town is the historic central district of Kraków, Poland. It is one of the most famous old districts in Poland today and was the center of Poland’s political life until King Sigismund III Vasa relocated his court to Warsaw in 1596. Medieval Kraków was surrounded by a 3 km defensive wall complete with 46 towers and seven main entrances leading through them. The fortifications around the Old Town were erected over the course of two centuries. In the 19th century most of the Old Town fortifications were demolished. The moat encircling the walls was filled in and turned into a green belt known as Planty Park. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Pabellon Mudejar, Sevilla, Spain
Size: 750 pieces
Dimensions: 59.37cm x 39.4cm
Producer: Sure-Lox, Impressions series
Location: site
Notes: The Museum of Arts and Traditions of Sevilla is a museum in Seville, Andalusia, Spain, located in the María Luisa Park, across the Plaza de América from the Provincial Archeological Museum. The museum occupies the Mudéjar Pavilion (Pabellón Mudéjar) designed by Aníbal González and built in 1914. The exterior is ceramic over brick, and has three doors with archivolts adorned with glazed tiles (azulejos). [Wiki]
Puzzle: Connecticut River, U.S.A.
Size: 1000 pieces
Producer: MB Puzzle
Notes: The Connecticut River is the largest river in New England, flowing south from the Connecticut Lakes in northern New Hampshire, along the border between New Hampshire and Vermont, through western Massachusetts and central Connecticut discharging into Long Island Sound at Old Saybrook and Old Lyme, Connecticut.
The river’s name is the French corruption of the Algonquian word “quinetucket” and means long tidal river. The first European to see the river was the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block in 1614. As a result of this exploration, the Dutch named the Connecticut River the “Fresh River”, and it was the northeastern locus of the New Netherland colony. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Moonlight Calm by Anthony Casay
Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 35cm x 48cm
Artist: Anthony Casay has been described as one of the world’s most creative contemporary painters today. It has been said that the “ocean dances” at the tip of his brush, and that the sun pulsates from his canvas. Casay depicts the colors, fragrances and shapes of the sea; its waters in turmoil–providing a spectacle of rare excitement. Each Casay wave has a personality of its own as it crests, breaks and swirls into a flood of white foam. His paintings explore some of the choicest treasures of natures’ coastal ocean cliffs, rocky shorelines and stormy coves. [Bio at AEJV site]
Producer: Canada Games
Puzzle: The Dolomites, Italy
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: Hasbro, Milton Bradley puzzles, Big Ben
Notes: The Dolomites are a mountain range in the Alps. They are located for the most part in the province of Belluno, the rest in the provinces of Bolzano-Bozen and Trento (all in north-eastern Italy).
The name “Dolomites” is derived from the famous French mineralogist Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu who was the first to describe the rock, dolomite, a type of carbonate rock which is responsible for the characteristic shapes and colour of these mountains; previously they were called the “pale mountains,” and it was only in the early 19th century that the name was Gallicized. [Wiki]