Category: Reveal

By Tim Adams – Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link

The current cathedral here was built starting in the 1600s on the sight of 2 previous houses of worship, one which was converted to a mosque before the reconquista in the mid 700s, then another one built to replace that one in approximately 1100.

The church includes the widest Gothic nave in the world and is home to the Tapestry of Creation.

Game of Thrones fans may recognize the cathedral and it’s steps as the Great Sept house of worship, destroyed in the an episode in Season 6.

Those who found it before the hint:

• hhgygy
• Martin de Bock
• Glenmorren
• Paul Voestermans
• Phil Ower
• Eloy Cano
• Garfield
• Bas van Limpt
• Lighthouse
• Graham Hedley
• Angie CF

And after the hint:

• bernd
• LRey

These 150 steps lead from the Grassmarket district with it’s tourist feel, bars, etc to Brown’s place, with an outstanding view of Edinburgh castle. The staircase was known as the “Vennel Steps” (referring to an old French word “venelle” meaning alley or passageway) until a decision was made to recognize in 2018 that it was featured in the 1961 book and 1969 moview “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”.

Before the hint:

• Paul Voestermans
• Graham Hedley
• Martin de Bock
• Garfield
• Angie CF
• hhgygy
• Eloy Cano
• Phil Ower
• Lighthouse
• LRey
• Bas van Limpt

After the hint:

• Ashwini Agrawal

The 1973 horror classic movie “The Exorcist” has it’s climax here, where Father Karras throws his possessed self out the window and perishes tumbling down these stairs.

The building and steps were added to the US National Register of HIstoric Places, though not for the movie reference, but because the of the significance of how the building was planned to accomodate four private lines as a transfer and terminal point.

Those who were not cursed and found the steps before the hint:

• Graham Hedley
• Lighthouse
• hhgygy
• Phil Ower
• Martin de Bock
• Turriant
• Garfield
• Eloy Cano
• Paul Voestermans
• Bas van Limpt
• Angie CF

And after the hint:

• LawnBoy
• Ashwini Agrawal
• LRey

The legend of this place goes like this: Vila Franca do Campo was the original capital of São Miguel. The hillsides above the city have been the home to many shepherds, and one day in the 16th century, one of the shepherds took refuge from a storm in a cave. In that cave, he found an image of The Virgin Mary. He took that image to the parish priest, but the next day, the image was found in the same cave. This kept happening until the people there decided that she wanted a church built there. The construction plans were for the church to be built in a sheltered spot away from the winds just below the cave (at the bottom of the stairs), and the construction materials were gathered there, but she had other plans, and the workers found the materials moved to the cave where the images were found.

The original chapel was destroyed by an earthquake (that also decimated Vila Franco do Campo, which is why Ponta Delagdo is the capital now) and a new one was built in 1764.

Those who climbed before the hint:

• Paul Voestermans
• Martin de Bock
• Phil Ower
• hhgygy
• Garfield
• Ann K.
• Eloy Cano
• Ashwini Agrawal
• Graham Hedley
• Lighthouse
• Turriant
• Angie CF
• Felix Bossert
• Bas van Limpt

And after the hint:

Like a surprising number of city’s extreme staircases, the reason for building this 375 step staircase seems to be related to a city’s red-light district.

Seems that the path between the Liège’s citadel, where the solders were stationed, and the city center ran through a section of town where a young soldier could easily get, shall we say, distracted. To provide a more direct way to the center, this staircase was built to allow the soldiers a quick, though exhausting, route.

Today, it’s a tourist attraction for the town. The Huffington Post rated it #1 in an article on the most extreme staircases in the world.

As the hint intimated, in July 2020, as the Covid-19 Pandemic raged all over the world, a Belgian adventurer named Louis-Philippe Loncke ascended the staircase 135 times, climbing a total of 9000m, or roughly the height of Mt. Everest. He did so to demonstrate that adventure could be found even close to home.

Those who found it before the hint:

• hhgygy
• Martin de Bock
• Paul Voestermans
• Garfield
• Eloy Cano
• Lighthouse
• Phil Ower
• Turriant
• Graham Hedley
• Bas van Limpt
• Angie CF

And after the hint:

• LRey
• bernd

There used to be a small gauge railway that climbed up from Manitou Springs to the top of Rocky Mountain, just east of Pike’s Peak. In 1990, a rock slide ended the run of that train and massively damaged the tracks. In it’s place, the local residents created a hiking/climbing path to the top of the mountain in the clearing where the tracks had been. There are nearly 2800 steps to this stairway, some of the inclines reach 68%, making it a challenge for most hikers.

Those who climbed up before the hint:

• Eloy Cano
• hhgygy
• Martin de Bock
• Paul Voestermans
• Lighthouse
• Graham Hedley
• Phil Ower
• Turriant
• Bas van Limpt
• Garfield
• Angie CF

And after the hint:

• Robin
• bernd
• Kent Pearson

Faial is one of the 9 islands in the Azores chain. It sits about 1700 KM from Lisbon and about 2400 KM from New York City. The main city on the island, Horta, has a protected harbor which, together with its location, makes it a great stopover for vessals making a transatlantic crossing.

Mariners are known for being a superstitious lot, and there is a strongly held superstition that if you stop in Horta, you need to leave behind some art on the dock to assure safe passage the rest of the way. There’s the story of the “Ariadne”, a ship which wintered in Horta in 1967 but neither captain nor crew left any art behind. After they left harbor to continue their journey west, they were never heard from again.

Those who left art, all before the hint, were:

• hhgygy
• Graham Hedley
• Paul Voestermans
• Martin de Bock
• Kent Pearson
• Ashwini Agrawal
• Turriant
• Garfield
• Eloy Cano
• Angie CF
• bernd
• Phil Ower
• Lighthouse
• Bas van Limpt

This concludes the 880s! I guess Andrew and I made it too easy, because we have 7 players with perfect scores: hhgygy, Paul Voestermans, Martin de Bock, Garfield, Eloy Cano, Angie CF, Phil Ower, and Lighthouse. Congrats!

Travelling south on Interstate 35 in Oklahoma a short distance from the Texas border, you’ll find yourself blinded by the massive electronic signage announcing this place. The largest casino by gaming floor space in the world, it is run by the indigenous Chickasaw nation under compacts with the Oklahoma state government primarily for the benefit of the tribe.

This space started out as a little bingo hall just over the border. Because all gambling was illegal in Texas, the site attracted visitors from Dallas, Fort Worth and other north Texas communities, which led to quick and impressive growth.

Those who hit a jackpot before the hint:

• Kent Pearson
• Garfield
• Paul Voestermans
• Martin de Bock
• Phil Ower
• Eloy Cano
• Angie CF
• Lighthouse
• hhgygy

and after the hint:

• Ashwini Agrawal
• Graham Hedley

Take 2 very popular games (World of Warcraft and StarCraft), throw in some Disney characters, make a really bad copy of Universal Islands of Adventure, then add in a total lack of any concern for international property rights and a complete lack of respect for the legal teams behind Activision, Blizzard, Disney, or a whole host of other companies, and you have this place a couple of hours outside Shanghai.

Those who found this place before the hint:

• Paul Voestermans
• Martin de Bock
• hhgygy
• Turriant
• Garfield
• Phil Ower
• Lighthouse
• Eloy Cano
• Kent Pearson
• Graham Hedley
• Bas van Limpt
• Angie CF

By Levi Clancy – Own work, CC0, Link

In the 8th century BCE, The Assyrian King Sennacherib had a problem. He had all these gardens in Ninevah (near the modern city of Mosul) (some would refer to them as the “Hanging Gardens of Babylon”, one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World), but water was scarce there. To fix his problem, he had an aqueduct created to bring water from the mountains near Dohuk, 75 km away. Considering that this aqueduct predates any such Roman construction by 500 years, many consider this to be the site to be the oldest aqueduct in the world.

Those who moved the water to find it before the hint:

• Martin de Bock
• Paul Voestermans
• hhgygy
• Garfield
• Lighthouse
• Eloy Cano
• Kent Pearson
• Phil Ower
• Graham Hedley
• Angie CF
• Turriant
• Bas van Limpt
• Glenmorren

And after the hint:

• bernd