Travel Trivia: 29 Fun Facts About The World

Azamara voyages are for those who love travel. And people who love travel love travel trivia, too! Enjoy these 29 fascinating facts about the world.

1. The Panama Canal is hailed as one of humankind’s greatest achievements of the 20th Century. The building of the canal allowed ships traveling from New York to California to shave close to 8,000 miles off the journey.  

1. The Vatican’s Swiss Guard still wears a uniform inspired by the Renaissance painter Raphael.  

1. The official, full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit.  

1. The tallest stream of the Seven Sisters Waterfall in Norway measures 250 meters.  

1. The Vietnamese language has six different tones, and a change in tone changes the meaning of a word.  

1. The Great Barrier Reef is the only living structure that can be spotted from outer space.  

1. Citizens of Monaco cannot legally gamble – the famous Grand Casino de Monte Carlo is only for tourists.  

1. The Port of Miami holds the title for the busiest cruise port in the world. In 2013, more than four million cruise passengers traveled through its facilities.  

1. Dubrovnik, Croatia is a filming location for the HBO hit Game of Thrones, serving as the mythical capital city King’s Landing.  

1. Olives have been cultivated in the Mediterranean since around 4,000 B.C. It’s believed that the Greeks introduced the crop to Italians around 600 B.C.  

1. The Komodo Dragon is the largest living lizard. The largest verified Komodo Dragon grew to 10.3 feet long and weighed 366 pounds!  

1. Bordeaux is famous for producing red wine. However, until the 1970s the region produced more white wine than red.  

1. The crown of Myanmar’s Shwedagon Pagoda is covered with 5,448 diamonds and 2,317 rubies. The very top, the diamond bud, is tipped with a 76-carat diamond.  

1. The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896, and returned in 2004.  

1. The East Side Gallery is a 1.3-kilometer section of the Berlin Wall that’s been painted with 101 images from artists all over the world, making it the longest open-air gallery in the world.  

1. Back in the 1980s, New Zealand was home to more than 70 million sheep. Today that number is closer to 40 million, or ten sheep to every one person.  

1. Lisbon’s 25 de Abril Bridge has the longest central span of any suspension bridge in Europe, and is even longer than San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.  

1.  In Mumbai, dabbawallahs deliver over 200,000 lunch boxes every day.  

1. St. Petersburg’s St. Isaac’s Cathedral rests on 10,000 tree trunks, sunken into the marshy ground below.    

1. The name Meteora means “suspended in air”. Monasteries were built on Meteora’s rocks centuries ago, but today only six remain.  

1. 115 tropical islands comprise the Republic of Seychelles, and almost half the country’s landmass is devoted to national parks and nature reserves.  

1. The Torres de Collserola telecommunications tower is the tallest structure in Barcelona, at 945 feet.  

1. Once every seven years, the Eiffel Tower gets a fresh paint job. It takes more than 60 metric tons of brown paint.   

1. When the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia erupted in 1883, the resulting debris caused vibrant red sunsets around the world for up to three years afterward.  

1. Denmark has twice the number of bicycles as cars.  

1. Pouring a pint of Guinness is a skill, which can be perfected at Dublin’s Guinness Academy. The “perfect pour” should be done at an angle of 45 degrees, and take 119.5 seconds.  

1. There are 417 bridges in Venice, and 72 of them are private.  

1. London’s Metropolitan Railway was the world’s first subway. Ride the Circle Line from Paddington to Covent Garden to retrace part of the original route.  

1.  Australia has approximately 23 million people and around 60 million kangaroos.