When you think about Western colonialism, the large British, French, or Spanish empires are probably the first ones that come to your mind, but during the the so-called Age of Discovery many European states established or tried to establish colonies around the world. One of the smaller and less known of these states was the…
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My crazy Interrail journey – Chapter 5: Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Helsinki
I left Copenhagen and, after changing trains in Gothenburg, I arrived in Oslo at around 6 p.m.. During the trip, I had some great views on the Nordic countryside and coast, with many beautiful mountains and forests. My hostel in Oslo was the one I paid the most for per night, even though it was…
My crazy Interrail journey – Chapter 4: Copenhagen, Malmö, Lund
Next, I was heading north toward Denmark, but the journey did not start well. For this trip I had to book a reservation so I had an assigned seat, but the numbers of the coaches were all wrong, which caused at least twenty minutes of confusion among the passengers, me included, who could not find…
The geological history of Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in our Solar System, and it is one of the most studied celestial bodies. Observed since ancient times, it was the target of some of the earliest space exploration missions in the 1960s, and it has been reached by several uncrewed spacecrafts ever since. Today, thanks to…
My crazy Interrail journey – Chapter 3: Hamburg
Leaving Frankfurt was hard. After everything that happened in the previous two days, I was really sad that I had to already leave this city. A piece of my heart will stay in Frankfurt forever. However, it was time to move on to the next destination, Hamburg. Until that moment, the trip didn’t really feel…
My crazy Interrail journey – Chapter 2: Frankfurt
I left Murg in the morning and, after changing trains in Ziegelbrücke and Zurich, I arrived in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. To reach the hostel I took the metro, which in this case was included in my Interrail pass, and I walked a bit more to Sachsenhausen, the neighborhood south of the old town across…
How most writing systems in the world derive from the Egyptian hieroglyphs
There is a wide range of different writing systems all around the world, but a large majority of them share one common ancestor: the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. From the Latin alphabet to the Arabic script, from Ethiopian characters to Mongolian writing, and probably even the South Asian systems, they all derive from the hieroglyphs used…
My crazy Interrail journey – Chapter 1: Innsbruck, Vaduz, Walensee
After months of careful planning and countless hours spent looking at train times, hostel prices, monuments to see, and museums to visit, I was ready. I wrote a long note on my phone with everything I wanted to do and see and every train I had to take day by day for the entirety of…
I traveled solo around Europe for two months: my crazy Interrail journey
This is the story of the greatest adventure of my life. I spent two months traveling incessantly around Europe with an Interrail global pass that gave me almost unlimited access to most trains in the continent outside of Italy. That’s because an Interail ticket allows you to board any train you want just by saving…
News – Welcome to Cosmundus!
Cosmundus is now officially online! So, what is Cosmundus? First of all, the name comes from two words with a similar meaning: cosmos, a word of Greek origin for “universe”, and mundus, a Latin expression for “world” or “universe”. Here, I will post articles on history, travel, science, culture, and much more on the blog…