台湾风景名胜介绍

之前跟众信的团去的台湾，景点什么的玩的不错，风景很棒那边!给大家推荐些值得去的景点！

? 故宫博物院

院内收藏有全世界最多的无价中华艺术宝藏，其藏品的年代几乎涵盖了整个五千年的中国历史，与美、英、法(罗浮宫)公认并列为世界四大博物馆，院中承袭清宫中自北宋以来，历代帝皇的收藏，超过六十五万件历史文物。台北故宫博物院因此拥有“中华文化宝库”的美名。

? 日月潭国家风景区

乘游船游览日月潭湖，日月潭四周群山环抱，潭水清澈晶莹，湖面辽阔 ，群峰倒映湖中，犹如画中的美景。中间有一个小岛，远看好像浮在水面上的一颗珠子，所以被叫做“珠子屿”，现在也叫拉鲁岛。以这个岛为界，湖的北半部分圆圆的像太阳，湖的南半部分弯弯的像月牙，这就是日月潭名字的来源。参观建于19xx年为纪念唐玄奘法师而兴建的玄光寺。建于民国44年，供奉玄奘灵骨，玄奘为唐朝高僧，受唐太宗之命前往印度取经，历十余年返国，得经书650余部，与其弟子共译75部，得1,335卷，对佛教在中国的发展贡献卓著。

? 阿里山风景区

乘阿里山高山小火车，有“不到阿里山﹑不知台湾的美丽”之说。处处都是特色奇观。阿里山的风光名不虚传、游人无不醉然,来此参观的游客络绎不绝，更显出阿里山的神秘迷人。

? 佛光山佛陀纪念馆

佛陀纪念馆是一座融和古今与中外、传统与现代的建筑，具有文化与教育、慧解与修持的功能。该馆的兴建，正是希望透过供奉代表佛陀威德、智慧的法身舍利，让人们在礼敬佛陀舍利的同时，能够开发自己清净的佛性，并为人间注入善美与真心，带来社会的安定与和谐。

? 垦丁

垦丁南湾垦丁南湾又称蓝湾，也就是垦丁游客最多的一片沙滩。每回经过这儿，总会忍不住被感染南湾强烈的休闲气息！彷佛置身于地中海，又像在黄金海岸，充满着浓浓的南国风味。猫鼻头为恒春半岛向巴士海峡延伸而出的突兀点，其外形状如蹲伏的猫，因而取其名，是台湾海峡和巴士海峡的分界点。

? 鹅銮鼻灯塔

鹅銮鼻南部海域夜航船只测定方位的重要坐标点。塔身全体白色圆形，内分4层，每层各有铁梯15级，塔高18米，塔底周长110米，像巨人般巍然屹立在海岸，是远东最大的海上灯塔，有“东亚之光”的美称。

? 台东森林公园

面积约280公顷，园内的自然景观与生态极为丰富，著名的三大湖：琵琶湖、活水湖及鹭鸶湖，各具迷人的风情面貌。随着环湖步道的开通与连接，并导入自然花木景观及复层次的造林概念，呈现出兼具自然美景、运动休闲及观光旅游的都市公园。单车是最适合这里的交通工具！全长约17公里的自行车步道，踏上单车，用轻松愉快的心情，漫游园内的森林浴道，展开一段曼妙旅程！

? 七星潭

是花莲县唯一的县级风景区，风景区范围从海边延伸到七星潭社区，邻近太鲁阁公园、东海岸和花东纵谷国家风景区，七星潭已成为花莲县内最佳的风景区；

? 太鲁阁

拥有雄伟壮丽、几近垂直的峡谷和高山景观，两岸全是大理石岩层，可见开发之维艰！

? 九份老街

九份，是昔日台湾的采金矿中心，环山面海，拥有变化多端的山海美景，为一座小小的山城，保有着

纯朴的旧日生活风貌，但在金矿产业渐渐没落之后，九份的辉煌时期便走向历史，由于观光产业的兴起，九份又恢复到以往的繁荣，在老街上处处是人声鼎沸，忙碌的都市人在这里找到一处可以放松心灵的地方。

第二篇：世界风景名胜英语介绍

a brief history of no_10 downing street 英国唐令街10号

The first domestic house known to have been built on the site of Number 10 was a large dwelling leased to Sir Thomas Knyvet, a Parliamentarian and Justice of the Peace. It was Knyvet who arrested Guy Fawkes for the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. After his death the house passed to his niece, Mrs. Hampden, the aunt of Oliver Cromwell. The front part of the house we see today, and the adjoining house at Number Eleven, were built by a Harvard graduate and property speculator called George Downing. He acquired rights to the site during the brief period of Parliamentary rule in the 17th Century. A portrait of the man, who was widely regarded as a profiteering rogue, now hangs in the Entrance Hall.

The very ordinary address and the modest terraced face are deceptive, giving little clue to the real size and grandeur within. Number Ten in fact consists of two houses. The house which faces Downing Street is a typical late 17th century town house. But it conceals a complicated building which was refronted in the 18th C and enlarged in the 20th C. A corridor joins this house to what was once a mansion in its own right, with a walled garden and a view across Horse Guards' Parade. The two houses were joined in 1732 when the property became an official government residence. Sir Robert Walpole moved in in 1735, replacing the last tenant, Mr Chicken.

At the time Walpole was First Lord of the Treasury and was informally seen as the first British Prime Minister. Walpole secured the property as a residence for all future First Lords of the Treasury. Today the Prime Minister still resides at Downing Street by right as First Lord of the Treasury, and accordingly his title adrorns the letter-box on the famous black front door.

The house has seen much restoration, alteration and tinkering over the years. It has changed to accommodate new functions for the building, the fashions of the times, the tastes of its occupants and sometimes even urgent need to shore up the very structure of the house itself.

Prime Ministers have overseen great changes both within and without the house. This has given the house a different atmosphere almost every generation. Viscount Goderich ordered the creation of a large dining room at No.10 in the 1820s. The houses on the South side of the street were pulled down in the 1860s to be replaced by the great buildings of state which now overshadow the modest terrace. Electricity replaced gas and candlelight in 1894, and telephones arrived soon after this. In the early 1960s major restructuring work was carried out in order to save the building from collapse and to create a better working environment for staff. In 1988-89 the architect Quinlan Terry was brought in to enrich the decoration of the drawing rooms. And in 1993-95 computer cabling, which has greatly changed the way No.10 staff perform their day-to-day duties, was installed.

Number 10 Downing Street stands close to the site of what was once the palace of Whitehall. This was an enormous rambling collection of buildings and gardens confiscated from Cardinal Wolsey by Henry VIII. It served as the official residence of the Monarch until it was destroyed by fire in 1698. The only part of the palace of Whitehall that remains is the Banqueting House, a spectacular building that can be visited and is almost opposite Downing Street on Whitehall.

arlington national cemetery 美国阿灵顿国家公墓

Across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia; closest Metro Arlington Cemetery. April¨CSept daily 8am¨C7pm; rest of year daily 8am¨C5pm.

A poignant contrast to the grand monuments of the capital is provided by the vast sea of identical white headstones on the hillsides of Arlington National Cemetery. The country's most honoured final resting place was first used during the Civil War, when the grand mansion at the top of the hill, and all the surrounding land, belonged to Confederate leader Robert E Lee. Nearly 200,000 US war dead lie here, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier remembers thousands more whose bodies were never recovered or identified. An eternal flame marks the grave of President John F Kennedy, near his brother Robert and, as of 1994, next to his widow, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Among other well-known names is Pierre L'Enfant, whose grave site offers a superb view over the Mall and the District he designed; while the new Women in Military Service Memorial, by the main gate, is just one of several high-profile memorials to celebrated personnel, like the doomed crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger.

Unless you have strong legs and lots of time, the best way to see the vast cemetery is by Tourmobile, which leaves from the visitor center at the entrance. You can also walk here from the Lincoln Memorial across the Arlington Bridge.

Buckingham Palace 英国白金汉宫

The graceless colossus of Buckingham Palace, popularly known as "Buck House", has served as the monarch's permanent London residence only since the accession of Victoria. Bought by George III in 1762, the building was overhauled by Nash in the late 1820s, and again by Aston Webb in time for George V's coronation in 1913, producing a palace

that's about as bland as it's possible to be.

For two months of the year, the hallowed portals are grudgingly nudged open; timed tickets are sold from the tent-like box office in Green Park at the western end of The Mall. The interior, however, is a bit of an anticlimax: of the palace's 660 rooms you're permitted to see just 18, and there's little sign of life, as the Queen decamps to Scotland every summer. For the other ten months of the year there's little to do here, since the palace is closed to visitors ¨C not that this deters the crowds who mill around the railings, and gather in some force to watch the Changing of the Guard, in which a detachment of the Queen's Foot Guards marches to appropriate martial music from St James's Palace (unless it rains, that is).

You can view a small selection of the Royal Collection ¨C which is more than three times larger than the National Gallery's ¨C at the Queen's Picture Gallery (daily 9.30am¨C4.30pm; ?ê4), round the south side of the palace on Buckingham Palace Road. The exhibitions usually include some works by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Vermeer, Rubens, Rembrandt and Canaletto, which make up the bulk of the collection. There's more pageantry on show at the Nash-built Royal Mews (April¨CSept Tues¨CThurs noon¨C4pm; Oct¨CDec Wed only; ?ê3.50), further along Buckingham Palace Road. The royal carriages, lined up under a glass canopy in the courtyard, are the main attraction, in particular the Gold Carriage, made for George III in 1762, smothered in 22-carat gilding and weighing four tons, its axles supporting four life-size figures.

Experiencing Scotland 感受美丽独特苏格兰

Scotland is a unique and austere place, laden with history, where you can find aristocratic palaces and castles, as well as the traditional parades in national costumes. It has some of the most beautiful cities in Europe, a living testimony of a proud and splendid past.

In order to see and discover the true soul of Scotland today, what forged the character of this splendid region, we have to go towards the northern regions, to the Grampian Mountains. Beautiful and unspoiled, it was

difficult to farm. The Scots subdued the environment with simple spades and strong arms.

The history of this ancient struggle, and its people's ancient love affair with the hard land, is enclosed within the walls of the Angus Folk Museum.

You are able to get a feel of the typical rural atmosphere of times past from the everyday artifacts displayed here.

From coastal Aberdeen in towards the interior of the Grampian Mountains there runs the Castle Trail, a road that touches on many fortresses, which are witnesses of continual revolts against the dominion of neighboring England in Scottish history.

Perhaps the most uplifting moment for Scottish autonomy is the one

experienced inside this ancient abbey of Arbroath, where, in 1320; the Declaration of Independence was celebrated, at the instigation of King Robert the Bruce. He carried out the plan for autonomy drawn up by the great popular hero William Wallace, to whom cinema has dedicated the

wonderful film Braveheart, the winner of five Oscars.( to be continued) 中文：

苏格兰是一个独特的地方，历史的厚重感随处可见。豪门望族的府第与城堡历历在目，以及穿着传统服装的仪仗队。这些全欧洲最美丽的城市，诉说着苏格兰昔日的荣耀与光芒。

想体验和发现真正今日的苏格兰，追寻这里民族精神的源泉，就得去北部的格兰扁山区。格兰扁山区景色怡人，决无污染，曾一度不适合耕作，苏格兰人硬是凭着简单的锄头、铁锹和他们的双手征服了生存环境。

苏格兰先民的艰苦劳作史以及他们自古对这片贫瘠土地的眷恋，在安格斯民俗博物馆里一览无余。从这里展出的平常物品中，你能够感受到那种典型的往日乡间气氛。

有一条古堡之路从沿海的阿伯丁一直蜿蜒到格兰扁山区深处。沿途很多昔日的要塞，都是苏格兰在历史上不断反抗英格兰统治的见证。

苏格兰争取自治的过程中最大快人心的时刻莫过于1320年，在古老的阿布罗斯修道院，在罗伯特·布鲁斯国王的鼓动下庆贺《独立宣言》的签订。布鲁斯采纳了传奇英雄威廉·华莱士所献的计策，完成了自治大业，这个故事后来被改编成精彩的电影《勇敢的心》，并获五项奥斯卡大奖。（待续）

Forbidden City (Zijincheng)

The Forbidden City is located at the center of the city of Beijing. First built in 1406 and completed in 1420, the city served as the royal palace in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. During the Ming and the Qing Dynasties, 24 emperors lived here. Apart from the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Complete Harmony, the Hall of Preserving Harmony, and the East and West Inner Palaces, tourists can also pay a visit to the Exhibition Hall of Historical Relics, the Hall of Treasure, the Hall of Paintings, the Hall of Arts and Crafts, the Hall of Ceramics, the Hall of Bronze Ware, and the Hall of Clocks.

Forbidden City , The Gugong, or Imperial Palace, is much better known by its unofficial title, the Forbidden City, a reference to its exclusivity.

Indeed, for the five centuries of its operation, through the reigns of 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, ordinary Chinese were forbidden from even approaching the walls of the palace.

Today the complex is open to visitors daily 8.30am¨C4.30pm, with last admission at 3.30pm (?¤55, students ?¤20). You have the freedom of most of the hundred-hectare site, though not all of the buildings, which are labelled in English. If you want detailed explanation of everything you see, you can tag on to one of the numerous tour groups or buy one of the many specialist books on sale. The audio tour (?¤25), available by the south gate, is also worth considering. You're provided with a cassette player and headphones and suavely talked through the complex by Roger Moore ¨C though if you do this, it's worth retracing your steps fterwards for an untutored view. Useful bus routes serving the Forbidden City are #5 from Qianmen, and #54 from Beijing Zhan, or you could use #1, which passes the complex on its journey along Chang'an Jie.

Golden Gate Bridge 旧金山金门大桥

Bridge ¨C probably the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed bridge in the world ¨C are visible from almost every point of elevation in San Francisco. The only cleft in Northern California's 600-mile continental wall, for years this mile-wide strait was considered unbridgeable. As much an architectural as an engineering feat, the Golden Gate took only 52 months to design and build, and was opened in 1937.

Designed by Joseph Strauss, it was the first really massive suspension bridge, with a span of 4200ft, and until 1959 ranked as the world's longest. It connects the city at its northwesterly point on the peninsula to Marin County and Northern California, rendering the hitherto essential ferry crossing redundant, and was designed to withstand winds of up to a hundred miles an hour and to swing as much as 27ft. Handsome on a clear day, the bridge takes on an eerie quality when the thick white fogs pour in and hide it almost completely. You can either drive or walk across. The drive is the more thrilling of the two options as you race under the bridge's towers, but the half-hour walk across it really gives you time to take in its enormous

size and absorb the views of the city behind you and the headlands of Northern California straight ahead. Pause at the midway point and consider the seven or so suicides a month who choose this spot, 260ft up, as their jumping-off spot. Monitors of such events speculate that victims always face the city before they leap. In 1995, when the suicide toll from the bridge had reached almost 1000, police kept the figures quiet to avoid a rush of would-be suicides going for the dubious distinction of being the thousandth person to leap.

Perhaps the best-loved symbol of San Francisco, in 1987 the Golden Gate proved an auspicious place for a sunrise party when crowds gathered to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. Some quarter of a million people turned up (a third of the city's entire population); the winds were strong and the huge numbers caused the bridge to buckle, but fortunately not to break.

Grand Canyon 科罗拉多大峡谷

Although three million people come to see the GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO every year, it remains beyond the grasp of the human imagination. No photograph, no set of statistics, can prepare you for such vastness. At more than one mile deep, it's an inconceivable abyss; at between four and eighteen miles wide it's an endless expanse of bewildering shapes and colors, glaring desert brightness and impenetrable shadow, stark promontories and soaring, never-to-be-climbed sandstone pinnacles. Somehow it's so impassive, so remote ¨C you could never call it a disappointment, but at the same time many visitors are left feeling peculiarly lat. In a sense, none of the available activities can quite live up to that first stunning sight of the chasm. The overlooks along the rim all offer views that shift and change unceasingly from dawn to sunset; you can hike down into the depths on foot or by mule, hover above in a helicopter or raft through the whitewater rapids of the river itself; you can spend a night at Phantom Ranch on the canyon floor, or swim in the waterfalls of the idyllic Havasupai Reservation. And yet that distance always remains ¨C the Grand Canyon stands apart.

Until the 1920s, the average visitor would stay for two or three weeks. These days it's more like two or three hours ¨C of which forty minutes are spent actually looking at the canyon. The vast majority come to the South Rim ¨C it's much easier to get to, there are far more facilities (mainly at Grand Canyon Village), and it's open all year round. There

is another lodge and campground at the North Rim, which by virtue of its isolation can be a lot more evocative, but at one thousand feet higher it is usually closed by snow from mid-October until May. Few people visit both rims; to get from one to the other demands either a two-day hike down one side of the canyon and up the other, or a 215-mile drive by road.

Finally, there's a definite risk that on the day you come the Grand Canyon will be invisible beneath a layer of fog, thanks to the 250 tons of sulphurous emissions pumped out every day by the Navajo Generating Station, seventy miles upriver at Page.

Admission to the park, valid for seven days on either rim, is $20 per vehicle or $10 for pedestrians and cyclists.

HARVARD 哈佛大学校园游

(Let a student show you Harvard . . .on a free walking tour) Take an engaging look at Harvard during an hour-long free tour. You and your family, school, or organization are invited to tour Harvard Yard with a student guide. You will see Harvard's rich sampling of

American history and architecture from the Colonial period to the present; buildings designed by Charles Bulfinch to Le Corbusier are represented. You will also learn about the University's libraries and diverse museums.

Schedule of Tours Tours leave the Harvard Events & Information Center in Holyoke Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge.

During the academic year, 45-minute tours are offered free of charge Monday through Friday at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and on Saturday at 2 p.m. From June through August, tours leave at 10 and 11:15 a.m., and at 2 and 3:15 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and at 1:30 and 3 p.m. on Sunday.

Tours are suspended during academic exam periods in addition to spring break. Please call ahead to confirm. Reservations for groups of 20 or more may be made by calling the Events & Information Center at (617) 495-1573.

Prospective students may take tours originating at the

Harvard/Radcliffe Admissions Office, Byerly Hall, 8 Garden St., Cambridge.

From April through August, the Admissions staff conducts an

information session at 10 a.m., followed by an 11 a.m. tour, Monday through Friday (and Saturday minus the information session); another session is held year round at 2 p.m., followed by a 3 p.m. tour. No tours are offered during winter recess.

Hawaii 夏威夷火山

The islands of HAWAII, with their volcanoes, palm-fringed beaches, verdant valleys, glorious rainbows and awesome cliffs, hold some of the most spectacularly beautiful scenery on earth. However, despite their isolation, two thousand miles out in the Pacific, they belong very definitely to the United States.

If you expect your South Seas idyll to be completely unspoiled, forget it; the fantasy of a dream holiday in Paradise remains firmly rooted in the creature comforts of home. With six million tourists per year, including honeymooners from all over the world, frequent fliers cashing in their mileage and more than a million Japanese, the islands can seem like a gigantic theme park. Worldwide recession, and the sobering impact of Hurricane Iniki on Kauai in September 1992, may have combined to slow resort evelopment, but you can't help but be aware of how much of what was unique has gone.

Honolulu, by far the largest city of the fiftieth state, and with its resort annex of Waikiki also the main tourist center, is on Oahu. The biggest island, Hawaii itself, is known as the Big Island in a vain attempt to avoid confusion. Maui and Kauai also attract mass tourism, while smaller Molokai remains far quieter.

The islands share a similar topography and climate. Ocean winds from the northeast shed their rain on the windward coast, keeping it wet and green; the southwest, leeward (or "Kona") coasts can be almost barren, and so make ideal locations for big resorts. Rainfall is heaviest from December to March, but temperatures remain consistent throughout the year at between 70??F and 85??F.

Christmas and midsummer are far more expensive times to visit than the "off-seasons" of September to December and April to May, with top-range hotels charging as much as fifty percent extra. A visit to Hawaii doesn't have to cost a fortune, however; there are plenty of budget facilities if you know where to look. The one major expense you really can't avoid, except possibly on Oahu, is car rental ¨C rates

are very reasonable, but gas is pricey.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

The Big Island's southernmost volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Kilauea, jointly constitute HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK, thirty miles from Hilo and eighty from Kailua. It's possibly the most dramatic of all the US national parks; as well as two active volcanoes, of which at least one is likely to be erupting, it includes desert, arctic tundra, and the Wao Kele O Puna rainforest (where a much-opposed project is attempting to tap geothermal energy).

Evidence is everywhere of the awesome power of the volcanoes to create and destroy; no map can keep up with the latest whims of the lava flow. Whole towns have been engulfed, and what were once prized beachfront properties lie buried hundreds of yards back from the sea. No one knows quite where they are ¨C there's nowhere for surveyors to get their bearings. There are no towns left on the southern coast. The Hawaiians abandoned their villages 150 years ago, after a succession of terrible tidal waves; now the Americans too have been driven out.

hollywood ??????

If a single place-name encapsulates the LA dream of glamor, money and overnight success, it's Hollywood. Millions of tourists arrive on pilgrimages; millions more flock here in pursuit of riches and glory. Hollywood is a weird combination of insatiable optimism and total despair. It really does blur the edges of fact and fiction, simply because so much seems possible ¨C and yet so little, for most people, actually is. Those who do strike it rich here get out as soon as they can, just as they always have; the big film companies, too, long ago relocated well away, leaving Hollywood in isolation, with prostitution, drug dealing and seedy bookstores as the reality behind the fantasy. Central Hollywood

The myths, magic, fable and fantasy splattered throughout the few short blocks of Central Hollywood would put a medieval fairytale to shame.

A rich sense of nostalgia pervades the area, giving it an appeal no measure of tourists or souvenir postcard stands can diminish. Although you're much more likely to find a porno theater than spot a real star,

the decline which blighted Hollywood from the early 1960s is fast receding.

Nevertheless the place still gets hairy after dark, with adolescents cruising Hollywood Boulevard in customized cars and occasional petty criminals on the prowl for the odd pocketbook.

The natural place to begin exploring Hollywood Boulevard is the junction of Hollywood and Vine ¨C the classic location for budding stars to be "spotted" by big-shot directors and whisked off to fame and fortune. At 6608 Hollywood Blvd, the purple and pink Frederick's of Hollywood has been (under-) clothing Hollywood's sex goddesses since 1947, as well as mortal bodies all over the world via mail order. Inside, the lingerie museum (free) displays some of the company's best corsets, bras and panties, donated by happy big-name wearers ranging from Lana Turner to Cher.

A little further on, the Egyptian Theater at no. 6708 was financed by impresario Sid Grauman, in a modest attempt to re-create the Temple of Thebes. The very first Hollywood premiere (Robin Hood) took place here in 1922. Now owned by the city, Grauman's Thebes is currently closed for renovations as part of a three-year plan to restore the fake mummies and hieroglyphics of this temple of cinema to their former glory and remake the theater into a center for film study. No Hollywood visitor will want to miss the mundane yet magical foot and hand prints in the concrete concourse of the 1927 Chinese Theatre at 6925 Hollywood Blvd. Actress Norma almadge (supposedly by accident) trod in wet cement while isiting the construction site, and the practice has continued ever since, tarting with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Sr, at the opening of King of Kings, and recently involving stars such as Al Pacino. Through the halcyon decades, this was the spot for movie first-nights. As for the building, it's an odd western version of a classical Chinese temple, replete with dodgy Chinese motifs and upturned dragon tail flanks.

The Roosevelt Hotel opposite was movieland's first luxury hotel, its Cinegrill restaurant hosting the likes of W C Fields and F Scott Fitzgerald, not to mention hangers-on like Ronald Reagan. In 1929 the first Oscars were presented here, beginning the long tradition of Hollywood rewarding itself in the absence of honors from elsewhere. Despite the beliefs of some of their loopiest fans, even the biggest Hollywood stars have been mortal; the many LA cemeteries that hold their tombs get at least as many visitors as the city's museums. In the southeast corner of the Hollywood Memorial Cemetery, near Santa Monica Boulevard and Gower Street, a mausoleum contains the resting

place of Rudolph Valentino, the celebrated screen lover who died aged just 31 in 1926. To this day on each anniversary of his passing (August

23), at least one "Lady in Black" ¨C as his posthumous devotees are known ¨C will likely be found mourning. The achingly ostentatious memorial to Douglas Fairbanks Sr, who with his wife Mary Pickford did much to introduce social snobbery among movie-making people, is just outside. Also on view are the graves of Hollywood's more recently deceased inhabitants: an increasingly large population of Russian and Armenian immigrants.

The gentle greenery and rugged mountain slopes that make up vast Griffith Park northeast of Hollywood (daily 5am¨C10.30pm, mountain roads close at dusk; free) are a welcome escape from the mind-numbing hubbub of the city.

The landmark Observatory (Tues¨CFri 2¨C10pm, Sat¨CSun 12.30¨C10pm; free) here has been seen in innumerable Hollywood films, most famously Rebel Without a Cause, and the surrounding acres add up to the largest municipal park in the country, one of the few places where LA's multitude of racial and social groups at least go through the motions of mixing together.

Above the landscaped flat sections, the hillsides are rough and wild, marked only by foot and bridle paths, leading into desolate but appealingly unspoiled terrain that gives great views over the LA basin and out to the ocean, provided the city smog isn't too thick. One way to explore is on a rented bike from Woody's Bicycle World, 3157 Los Feliz Blvd (213/661-6665), a short distance away. The park is safe enough by day, but its reputation for after-dark violence is well founded.

The views from the Hollywood Hills take in a bizarre assortment of opulent properties. Around these canyons and slopes, which run from Hollywood itself into Benedict Canyon above Beverly Hills, mansions are so commonplace that only the half-dozen fully blown castles (at least, Hollywood-style castles) really stand out. On Mulholland Drive are Rudolph Valentino's extravagant Falcon Lair and Errol Flynn's Mulholland House; down Benedict Canyon is the former home of actress Sharon Tate, one of the victims of the Manson Family. Guided tours can point out which is which, but for the most part you can't get close to the most elaborate dwellings.

anyway, and none is open to the public.

From more or less anywhere in Hollywood, you can see the Hollywood Sign, erected as a property advertisement in 1923 (when it spelt

"Hollywoodland"; the "land" was removed in 1949). The sign is also famous as a suicide spot, though few have followed the 1932 example of would-be movie star Peg Entwhistle. Hers was no mean feat, the sign being as hard to reach then as it is now: from the end of Beachwood Drive (a route that affords a fine view of the sign) she picked a path slowly upwards through the thick bush, to leap to her death from the 50ft "H". For the first time in its sixty-five-year existence, the sign is being insured against earthquake damage. Infra-red cameras and radar-activated zoom lenses have been installed to catch graffiti writers. Innocent tourists who can't resist a close look are also liable for the $103 fine.

Independence Hall National Park 费城独立厅国家公园

Any tour of Philadelphia should start with Independence National Historic Park, or INHP, "America's most historic square mile", which covers a mere four blocks just west of the Delaware River between Walnut and Arch, but can take more than a day to explore in full. The solid red-brick buildings here, not all of which are open to the public, epitomize the Georgian (and after the evolution, Federalist) obsession with balance and symmetry.

All INHP sites (unless otherwise specified) are open 365 days a year and admission is free; hours are usually 9am to 5pm, sometimes longer in summer. The visitor center at Third and Chestnut (daily 9am¨C5pm, open until 6pm July & Aug; 215/597-8974) has maps and shows a short, somewhat ghostly film, Independence, directed by John Huston. Free tours set off from the rear of the east wing of Independence Hall, the single most important site.

It's best to reach Independence Hall early, to avoid the hordes of tourists and school parties. Built in 1732 as the Pennsylvania State House, this was where the Declaration of Independence was prepared and signed and, after the pealing of the Liberty Bell, given its first public reading on July 8, 1776. Today, in the room in which Jefferson et al drafted and signed the United States Constitution, you can see George Washington's high-backed chair with the half-sun on the back ¨C Franklin, in optimistic spirit, called it "the rising sun".

The Liberty Bell itself hung in Independence Hall from 1753, ringing to herald vital announcements such as victories and defeats in the

Revolutionary War. Stories as to how it received its famous crack vary; one tells that it occurred while tolling the funeral of Chief Justice Marshall in 1835. Whatever the truth, it rang publicly for the very last time on George Washington's birthday in 1846.

Later in the century, the bell's inscription from Leviticus, advocating liberty "throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants", made it an anti-slavery symbol for the New England abolitionists ¨C the first to call it the Liberty Bell. After the Civil War the silent bell was adopted as a symbol of econciliation and embarked on a national rail tour. The well-traveled and somewhat lumpen icon now rests at eye level in a purpose-built concrete-and-glass pavilion on Market Street between Fifth and Sixth.

Next door to Independence Hall on Sixth and Chestnut, Congress Hall, built in 1787 as the Philadelphia county courthouse, is where members of the new United States Congress first took their places, and where all the patterns for today's government were established. The US Supreme Court sat from 1791 until 1800 in Old City Hall, on the other side of Independence Hall on Fifth and Chestnut.

In 1774, delegates of the first Continental Congress ¨C predecessor of the US Congress ¨C chose defiantly to meet at Carpenter's Hall, 320 Chestnut St, rather than the more commodious State House, to air their grievances against the English king. Today the building exhibits early tools and furniture (Tues¨CSun 10am¨C4pm). Directly north, Franklin Court, 313 Market St, is a tribute, on the site of his home, to Benjamin Franklin. The house no longer stands, but steel frames outline the original structure. An underground museum has dial-a-quote recordings of his pithy sayings and the musings of his contemporaries, and there's a working printshop. The B Free Franklin Post Office, 316 Market St, sells stamps and includes a small postal museum. Other buildings in the park include the Philosophical Hall, 104 S Fifth St, still used today by the nation's first philosophical debating society (founded by Franklin). The building is closed to the public, but features a statue of Ben in intellectual mode, garbed in a fetching toga. The original Free Quaker Meeting House, two blocks north of Market at Fifth and Arch, was built in 1783 by the small group of Quakers who actually fought in the Revolutionary War.