A Virtual City Break Around the World

At 333 meters tall, this red tower is taller than the Eiffel Tower, its inspiration. It was the tallest structure in Tokyo from its completion in 1958 until a similar tower, the Tokyo Skyway, visible to the northwest, opened in 2012.

Tsukiji Market combines Tokyo’s refined modern business sense with its traditional culture. This is the world’s largest fish market, where a fine tuna specimen can sell for thousands of dollars. The market supplies fish to Tokyo’s finest restaurants.

Completed in 1931, the Empire State Building was the world’s first ultra-tall, modern skyscraper. Its eye-catching, art deco design has kept it in the public’s heart, even as newer buildings have grown taller.

In the 1850s, when Central Park was designed, the idea of an open, publicly accessible green space in the middle of a city was a radical one. Frederick Law Olmsted incorporated open fields, shade-dappled hollows, and walking paths in his design.

Bridges connect the island of Manhattan to the mainland to the east and west. Many of the bridges, including the Brooklyn Bridge and George Washington Bridge were major engineering achievements when they were erected. 

 This 750-foot tall suspension bridge, with its elegant design and distinctive orange color, crosses the “Golden Gate,” the narrow opening between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of visitors cross its span between San Francisco and the Marin Headlands.

This famous prison was considered escape-proof, mostly because of the cold, choppy waters of San Francisco Bay on all sides. Today, it is a museum, but it still provides a bit of outlaw, western flavor to the city.

San Francisco’s shipping history is visible at Pier 39, now converted into a bayside shopping center. Visitors to the pier can sample the city’s famous sourdough bread while observing the Bay Area’s noisiest residents—a sea lion colony.

Home to high finance since the days of the 1849 California Gold Rush, San Francisco and the Bay Area have more recently hosted the Internet-fueled tech boom. Technology companies often make their home here or in nearby Silicon Valley.

Once a palace of kings, the Louvre is today the world’s largest art museum, home to some of the most famous artworks on Earth. The nearby Musee d’Orsay, in a converted train station, houses many French artists’ most famous impressionist works. 

The 50-meter tall marble Arc de Triomphe commemorates French victories in war. It is aligned with the Louvre, at one end of the Champs-Elysees and with the modern Grande Arche de la Défense at the other. 

Possibly the most famous landmark in Paris, the Eiffel Tower was originally intended to be temporary—and it was initially hated by Parisians. But after its completion in 1889, visitors adored it, and the city soon came to love its landmark.

Paris was founded on the Île de la Cité, a small island in the Seine River, which divides Paris in half. Today the island is home to two of Paris’s most famous cathedrals: Notre Dame, and the stained-glass wonder of Saint Chapelle. 

The International Finance Center is the second tallest building in the city. It houses mostly offices, especially for financial companies. This reflects Hong Kong’s role as a center for banking and trade in China’s emerging industrial economy.

For nearly 100 years, Hong Kong was a British colony. Its capitalist, trade-based economy stood in sharp contrast to agricultural, and then communist, China. Hong Kong’s natural shipping port was the anchor of the British old town.

The city of Hong Kong lies on Hong Kong Island south of the Kowloon Peninsula. Due to limited space on Hong Kong Island, Kowloon is the fastest-growing sector of the city, with a new waterfront and mega-skyscrapers under construction.