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HISTORY OF BIG SUR COAST

  A new dawn:              Locals had long called for a road along the coast to aid shipwreck victims and improve access to isolated communities.  Construction started in 1919, and 18 years, 32 tonnes of dynamite and 33 bridges later, the Big Sur stretch of California Highway One was complete.               The implausible route, with its myriad twists and turns and dramatic drop-offs, became an instant classic.  The author and painter Henry Miller fled to Big Sur in 1944 and stayed for nearly two decades.  Photographer Edward Weston and Beat Generation bard Jack Kerouac fell under its spell.  By the late 1960’s San Francisco’s counterculture revolution had swept down to Big Sur, and the likes of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell performed on the cliff tops.              ...
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Still growing ASTANA

 Where on earth?

                 Astana is in north – central Kazakhstan.  It is served by a new airport and is on a rail junction connecting with the main cities of the country and the wider region, including Urumqi in western China.  As expected of a national capital, Astana has a range of high-class hotels.

Still growing:

Astana


                 Government buildings and apartment blocks have been similarly designed in inventive shapes and colours – such as a set of three wavy, blue-green skyscrapers entitled the Northern Lights.  Boulevards and green spaces are adorned with formal gardens, clipped hedges, and artificial trees that light up a night. 

                Most of this new city is to the south of the Ishim River.  The old Soviet-style town to the north is gradually being replaced as the population swells towards 800,000.  Capital cities ‘built from zero’, such as Canberra in Australia and Abuja in Nigeria, can take a while to gain the patina that lends character.  A capital only since 1997, Astana is too young for that, but its citizens appear to like it.  It is new, spacious and visually stunning.  But you might have to wrap up well to enjoy it.
Location: Nur-Sultan 020000, Kazakhstan

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