Soon, you can explore Europe’s most impressive castles and cathedrals without leaving home. This will be made possible through Europeana – a search engine that gives you access to the cultural collections of Europe.

The recently launched CARARE project will provide access to to 2 million images, maps, plans and even 3D models of Europe’s most important archaeological and architectural sites through Europeana.

The items are mainly created by national heritage agencies from 20 European countries and aim to add a new dimension of knowledge about Europe’s monuments to the material already on Europeana — images, texts, films and historical archives.

The monuments will be listed with information about:

• the name of the structure,
• the period it dates from,
• details about its history,
• current condition,
• and sometimes aerial photographs or surveyor’s plans of the footprint of a site and the surrounding area.

There will also be 3D objects, so you can explore virtual reconstructions of UNESCO World Heritage sites such as the 4th century AD theatre in the city of Paphos on Cyprus and the megalithic temple at Ta Hagrat on Malta.

Another unique feature of CARARE is its goal of including map coordinates with each item, allowing users to pinpoint where a monument, building or ancient ruin is located – a feature that would be especially useful for tourism.

The first data from CARARE is expected to be available on Europeana in 2011.

photo credit: Verity Cridland