top places to visit in the world::For hundreds of years the city was hidden in the jungle top places to visit in the world

top places to visit in the world::For hundreds of years the city was hidden in the jungle.
Then, in 1911, hiram bingham led a university expedition to the peruvian andes.
Machu picchu spans a mountain saddle between green jungle peaks.
The settlement has only 200 residences, suggesting a population of about 1,000 people.
The city contains a large number of religious buildings that were constructed with great care.
One of them, the temple of the sun functioned as an observatory focused on the heavens.
A mark cut on a rock at the center of the tower lines up, through a window, with the exact spot where the sun rises on the june solstice.
Another small cave at machu picchu served as an observatory for tracing the december solstice.
Ritual religious bathing may have been done at the fountains, a series of 16 small waterfall baths where the sacred focus may have been water.
No one knows for certain how the stone was used.
Near the settlement lie other intriguing sites.
The intipunku, or sun gate, is a notch cut in a mountain ridge that frames the rising sun during fixed periods on the calendar.
The famous inca bridge is located along an evernarrowing mountain trail that, at some places, is cut into a sheer cliff.
The builders cleverly left a gap in a buttressed section of the trail that they could bridge with two logs.
As needed, the logs could be removed to make the road impassable to outsiders.
Perhaps it is no wonder that this nearly inaccessible mountain city remained hidden and unknown to outsiders for centuries after the incas abandoned machu picchu.
The golden pavilion, japan the pavilion is probably the most recognizable temple in japan as it is entirely covered in gold.
Shining in the light, the golden pavilion, or kinkakuji, looks like beautiful jewel box.
In 1950, a disturbed buddhist temple novice burned the 14thcentury pavilion to its foundations.
Within five years, however, the golden pavilion rose again.
On the new roof, appropriately, perches a phoenix.
The pavilion was originally built as a retirement villa for the shogun ashikaga yoshimitsu, who, after withdrawing from public life, exercised power in the background by installing his tenyearold son as shogun.
When he died, his retirement villa was converted into a temple, in accordance with his wishes.
The muchadmired pavilion rises in three stories, each having a different architectural style and reflecting a different aspect of the shogun who built it.
Set on pillars, the golden pavilion extends over the pond, a popular design of the shinden style during the heian period of japanese history.
A person approaching sees two pavilions, as the water reflects the image.
On the exterior of the graceful building, a layer of shimmering gold leaf creates an unforgettable picture.