concentrate and focus the mind while white is very harsh; it
reflects everything back at you and is hard to live with. Smurf
blue is close to sky blue and humans are instinctively lifted by the
colour of the sky.”
When Dulux Paints ran a global survey to discover the world’s
favourite colour, blue emerged as the runaway winner. It’s cool
and soothing, intelligent and logical, trustworthy and efficient.
A survey by the Logo Factor blog revealed that one third of the
world’s top brand logos are blue, including a particularly high
number of banks (Barclays, Nordea), IT companies (Dell, HP) and
car manufacturers (Ford, Volvo).
Of course, for some towns, one colour just isn’t enough. A
visually striking rainbow of buildings awaits visitors to Burano, an
island in the Venetian lagoon that was once predominantly home
to fishermen, but is today a haven for artists. It’s believed that the
homes here were originally brightly painted so that fishermen
returning to their properties in the winter fog could tell their place
apart from their neighbour’s – and, by local government decree, no
adjacent buildings are of the same colour.
»
Santorini,
Greece
In recent years,
Santorini has been
crowned the “world’s
best island” by both
Travel & Leisure
magazine and the
BBC (UK). The island’s
semicircular shape was
created by a massive
volcanic explosion
nearly 4,000 years
ago and you can still
visit steam vents. The
capital, Fira, and Oia
boast some of the
best views, while its
beaches are colourful,
too – head for the
black ones at Kamari
and Perissa, or the red
beach at Akrotiri.
Also famous for:
Akrotiri’s ancient
Minoan town,
preserved in ash
like Pompeii.
Norwegian flies to
Santorini from Oslo,
Copenhagen and
Stockholm
Longyearbyen, Norway
Named after John Munroe Longyear, whose
Arctic Coal Company set up operations here in
1906,
Longyearbyen, on the Svalbard archipelago,
is the world’s most northern town. Almost
completely destroyed in a wartime attack on
8
August 1943, it was rebuilt after the war.
Since mining moved in the 1990s, the town’s
2,700-
strong population has seen a growth in
tourism and research expeditions.
Also famous for:
Walruses, Svalbard reindeer and
polar bears, which outnumber people.
Norwegian flies from Oslo to Longyearbyen
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