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Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. Kelly McEvers: This episode is for the DIY nation. The people who see something they like and say, “I can make that.” People like Marcia and Dave Johnson. Their farm in Windsor, Illinois, is filled with DIY projects. The house… Marcia Johnson: The house is modeled after one in Williamsburg, Virginia. We found the house plan at the back of a magazine. Kelly: The gate… Marcia: The gate that you enter is a copy of King George VI’s gate in England. Kelly: The musical stones in the garden… Marcia: They are like an outdoor xylophone, but they’re made out of granite, and they actually can be played. You take a little marimba stick out there, and it makes a different sound depending on which one. Kelly: And this one feature that has actually become a tourist attraction. Marcia: When you come up the driveway, you don’t see it. And so then I bring people around this very large oak tree, and they see it for the first time, and they’re amazed because it’s much bigger than they expected, I think. Kelly: This big thing she’s talking about is a tower, almost like a fairy-tale tower, tall and spindly with a pointy roof. There’s this ramp thing that winds its way around the tower all the way up to the top. Marcia: And so the very first thing I do is have them sit on a little bench with the tower in the background under a sign that says Bienvenue, meaning “welcome.” Kelly: The sign is in French, not for the visitors, but for the goats. I’m Kelly McEvers and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous places. And today’s episode is brought to you in partnership with Enjoy Illinois. And today, Dave and Marcia Johnson are going to introduce us to their goat tower, the Tower of Baa-Goat, which is inhabited by a flock of goats who speak French—Swiss French to be exact. We’ll talk about 19th-century architectural follies and why goats like to climb and how sometimes household projects take on a life of their own. That’s after this. This is an edited transcript of the Atlas Obscura Podcast: a celebration of the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous places. Find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. Kelly: When Dave and Marcia Johnson were building their house, the one inspired by a building in Colonial Williamsburg, they happened to have some bricks left over. And for them, a pile of unused bricks is an opportunity, the start of a new potential project. One day, when Dave was reading a magazine… Marcia: Decanter magazine, which is a wine magazine out of the UK, did a feature article on Charles Back at the Fairview Winery in South Africa, and so that’s where my husband saw the picture of the goat tower. Kelly: This, of course, is Marcia Johnson. She’s a retired school teacher. Dave is a retired crop insurance salesman. The Fairview Winery goat tower in the magazine looked like a tower from a fairy tale. Or maybe if you live on a farm in central Illinois, a grain silo with a big ramp that spirals up around the outside of it. Charles Back had built this tower on his vineyard in South Africa because he also had a herd of goats for making cheese, and the tower was meant as a jungle gym for them. Marcia: These are Saanen goats that live in the tower, and Saanen goats originate from the Saanen region of Switzerland. I think that might be why they like to climb. They’re just automatic climbers. They see the tower, they go up it. Kelly: These Saanen goats from the Alps had been domesticated for milk production. Marcia: They’re actually called “Queen of the Milkers” because they give such prolific milk and such delicious milk. Kelly: The Fairview winery in South Africa was inspired by an even older goat tower from the 1800s at a winery in Portugal. That one was built as a kind of architectural folly. Or an interesting building with no real purpose other than just to be interesting. Or, as the family behind that vineyard put it, an artistic daydream with no functional explanation. In any case, Dave was smitten. Marcia: He was intrigued by it, and he, I think, he was just always thinking about different unique things that could be done. So, yeah, he was the idea guy, and then I’m the maintenance person. Kelly: I should point out that the Johnsons did not actually have any goats at this time—like at all. Still, Dave pushed ahead. This was back in the late ’90s. Marcia: And he saw the picture of the Fairview Winery, and he showed it to the bricklayer, and the bricklayer said, “Oh yeah, I could do that.” He was a master bricklayer who had come out of retirement just to do this, because I guess he was intrigued by it. In fact, he said to Dave, “You’re the craziest guy I’ve ever known.” So anyway, it was in the works before I knew anything about it. I was off, working. And they got this all planned out and got it started. The only thing I got to say was where to put it, which was outside my kitchen window. So I measured 50 feet outside my kitchen window, and that’s where they built the tower. Kelly: But unlike the design of their house, which had plans they got from a magazine, there were no plans for the goat tower. So Dave improvised. He and the bricklayer used the photograph from the magazine and worked backwards. They designed a tower that essentially had floors with little compartments on each floor that the goats could hang out in. But the actual measurements required a lot of guesswork, because, again, they were working off a photograph. Marcia: Well, they got the scale wrong. The diameter is about a foot bigger, and by the time they got to the four compartments that the Fairview winery has, it was out of proportion. It was too squat looking, so they had to do one more complete wrap, making it the world’s largest goat tower by mistake. Kelly: We’re talking now about a tower that’s 31 feet tall with a diameter of 7.5 feet. So this is like the height of a two- or three-story building. Marcia: And then they had to order another load of brick ’cause they ran out of brick, and the whole point was to use up the brick that was left over. So, they ordered another load of brick, and that was no small thing because those are handmade brick in North Carolina. So they got another shipment, finished the tower, they got the whole thing done in three months. Kelly: Now that Marcia and Dave had a goat tower. The next thing they needed was goats. They chose Saanen goats from Switzerland, naturally, just like the Fairview winery. And when the goats got there, they went straight for the tower. Marcia: They were in it just about instantly, and we had quite a few babies born on the place. We’ve had over 100 goats over the years, and one of the little boys, two days old, climbed all the way to the top of the tower, and then he got up there and he cried because it was easy to go up, but it’s hard to come down. So Dave went out and he went up the tower. It was funny because the mother was standing below the tower, kind of like, Well, what are you gonna do now that you’re up there? So Dave went and he carried him down, and then the next day the little guy did the same thing, went way up, and then cried because, again, he didn’t want to come down. So Dave went up and made him walk in front of him, and then he got it, and then he couldn’t keep the little guy down. So sometimes the goats will be up in their compartments, or sometimes they’ll just plunk themselves down on the stairs that go over the end of the spiral stairs that go around it. So yeah, they like to be out looking from above, I think. Kelly: Word got around about this goat tower on the Johnson’s farm. It started with some local newspaper articles, then it was picked up in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Their farm in central Illinois is about a two-hour drive from St. Louis. And from there, it just kept spreading. Marcia: We even ended up on the local phone book, which was ironic because it was a phone book for Findlay, and we’re actually in Windsor, but they put our goat tower on the Findlay phone book. So yeah, it got around and it’s been since the ’90s. Kelly: Soon, the goat tower became a full-on attraction. Marcia: It’s just a way or something that people can spend about 40 minutes out of their day to come and see something different, very un–central Illinois, as I would say. Kelly: And according to Dave and Marcia, the goats seem to enjoy the attention. Marcia: They love visitors. Sometimes it takes them a little bit to decide that they’re going to come out of the tower, but once they come down, then they love to be petted and made over, and yes, they’re, they’re friendly goats. They are friendly goats. Kelly: If you would like to visit the Tower of Baa-Goat, head over to their website, goattowerfarm.com, and drop Marcia a line to get a full tour. We will post a link in the episode description. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. Our podcast is a co-production of Atlas Obscura and Sirius XM podcasts. This episode was produced by Amanda McGowan. The production team for this episode includes Dylan Thuras, Doug Baldinger, Kameel Stanley, Johanna Mayer, Manolo Morales, Jerome Campbell, Amanda McGowan, Alexa Lim, Casey Holford, and Luz Fleming. Our theme music is by Sam Tyndall.
In Southwest Louisiana, culture isn’t something tucked away in museums; it spills out of dance halls, crawfish pots, and marshes. In this region, accordion music echoes through restaurants, migratory birds fill coastal skies, and recipes passed down for generations still define local identity. As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, Southwest Louisiana offers a chance to experience a place where important parts of American culture took shape. From Cajun and Creole cuisine to zydeco music, many of the traditions that feel quintessentially American today were made in Southwest Louisiana. Whether you’re chasing chickens on a Mardi Gras courir or cruising a wildlife-rich coastal byway, here are seven ways to enjoy the unique character of the region. 1. Run the Courir de Mardi Gras Long before beads and Bourbon Street became synonymous with Fat Tuesday, Cajun communities across Southwest Louisiana celebrated with the Courir de Mardi Gras, or the “Mardi Gras Run.” Like many great American traditions, the courir is the result of immigrant communities preserving their heritage while also creating something entirely new. Rooted in rural French traditions brought to Louisiana by Acadian settlers, every courir begins with masked riders and revelers traveling from house to house gathering ingredients for a communal gumbo. In between stops, they often sing, dance, and imbibe more than a drink or two. At the end of the day, the collected ingredients become a gumbo shared by everyone. While the entire procession is delightful, the most famous part of the ritual is the chicken chase. Participants dressed in colorful costumes scramble and dive in pursuit of live chickens as the birds run around a field. The result is chaotic, exciting, and distinctly Southwest Louisiana. Visitors looking to experience the tradition firsthand can check out the annual Iowa Chicken Run near Lake Charles. 2. Listen to Live Zydeco Music If Southwest Louisiana has a soundtrack, it’s zydeco. Developed within the region’s Creole communities, zydeco blends French Creole music with blues, gospel, and Afro-Caribbean influences. Anchored by accordion and the washboard-like frottoir, zydeco stands as one of America’s great homegrown musical traditions, its sound shaped by the same cultural exchanges that have long defined the nation. Lake Charles sits in the heart of zydeco country. Whether at festivals, casinos, or restaurants, local options for hearing the style abound. Among the region’s most beloved contemporary performers is Rusty Metoyer and his band, the Zydeco Krush, whose energetic performances carry forward a uniquely American art form that continues to inspire new generations. 3. Go Birdwatching Southwest Louisiana’s vast marshes, prairies, and coastlines form one of North America’s most important migratory bird corridors. Located along the Mississippi Flyway, the region serves as a critical stopover for millions of birds traveling between North, Central, and South America. For centuries, these waterways and wetlands have connected people as well as wildlife, supporting Indigenous communities, fishermen, farmers, and travelers. Today, they remain an essential part of the natural heritage that helps define America’s Gulf Coast. With hundreds of species constantly passing through, the area feels like an endless outdoor aviary. Between seasonal visitors and lifelong residents, you can spot roseate spoonbills, white and brown pelicans, black-necked stilts, reddish egrets, blue-headed vireos, hooded warblers, and more. Grab your binoculars and checklist, and head to top-notch birdwatching spots—like the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge, Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge, and the wetlands surrounding Lacassine—to see color and majesty take flight. 4. Eat a Crawfish Boil Few meals capture the spirit of Southwest Louisiana better than a crawfish boil. At its simplest, the boil consists of fresh crawfish cooked in heavily seasoned water with potatoes, corn, sausage, mushrooms, and other accompaniments. It’s as much a social event as a meal, a time when family and friends gather around newspaper-covered tables and spend hours peeling, eating, and telling stories. The region’s incredible seafood owes a lot to its unique geography. Southwest Louisiana’s network of marshes, estuaries, rice fields, and Gulf waters creates ideal conditions for crawfish, shrimp, crabs, and fish. The same fertile wetlands that support the abundant bird populations also help produce some of the state’s best seafood. But it’s not just about the food. More than a meal, the crawfish boil embodies the hospitality and resourcefulness that have long defined Southwest Louisiana. What began as a practical way to feed large gatherings evolved into one of America’s great communal dining traditions. During crawfish season, which typically runs from January through the end of June, you can find boils everywhere from backyard gatherings to restaurants and festivals. For especially fresh varieties, look for seafood markets and seasonal crawfish specialists that sell by the pound. 5. Attend the Mardi Gras Royal Gala While Southwest Louisiana’s Mardi Gras season is famous for its parades and courirs, its most beautiful and spectacular tradition is the Royal Gala. Held on a single evening during Carnival season, the Gala is the grand coronation and presentation of a Mardi Gras “court.” The event consists of a procession of kings, queens, dukes, maids, and pages dressed in colorful costumes adorned with intricate beadwork, embroidery, sequins, and feathers. Many of the outfits take months to create and are inspired by annual themes that range from history to fantasy. The Gala also reflects how American communities preserve old traditions while continually reinventing them. Rooted in European Carnival customs but shaped by generations of Southwest Louisianans, the elaborate pageantry, costumes, and rituals of Mardi Gras have evolved into something distinctly American. Visitors can trace that evolution at the Mardi Gras Museum of Imperial Calcasieu, home to one of the world’s largest collections of Mardi Gras costumes. 6. Follow the Boudin Trail Along with seafood, few foods capture the heart of Southwest Louisiana like boudin. The beloved sausage packs pork, rice, onions, and seasonings into a casing, resulting in a dish that reflects the region’s Cajun and Creole roots. Every butcher, smokehouse, and restaurant seems to have its own recipe, sparking intense debates about which version reigns supreme. If you want to sample as many varieties as possible, why not take a culinary road trip through the area’s best producers? The Southwest Louisiana Boudin Trail guides travelers around the region through a staggering array of boudins that are coarse and peppery, smoky and rich, studded with cracklins, and more. Along the way, you’ll discover how a humble sausage became one of Southwest Louisiana’s most enduring culinary icons. 7. Drive the Creole Nature Trail Known as “Louisiana’s Outback,” the Creole Nature Trail is one of the most remarkable scenic drives in the Gulf South. Stretching through marshes, prairies, beaches, and wildlife refuges, the route showcases an astonishing range of ecosystems within a relatively short distance. Equal parts road trip and safari, the trail supports an extraordinary variety of wildlife. Alligators bask in roadside canals, river otters swim through marsh waterways, and bottlenose dolphins can even be spotted swimming offshore. And, of course, migration season makes for a grandiose show for birdwatchers. The scenery is equally awe-inspiring. As you drive, a changing lavish landscape unfurls before you, changing from marsh grasses to wildflower-lined coasts to oak-covered cheniers. It all makes for the perfect introduction to the natural side of Southwest Louisiana, which has earned fans across the country. From the nature trail to the Royal Gala, all of these experiences reveal why Southwest Louisiana plays such an important role in the American story. Whether you’re dancing to zydeco, peeling crawfish, or exploring coastal marshes, you’ll encounter traditions that were made in Southwest Louisiana and built into America’s cultural identity. To plan a trip, read more at Visit Lake Charles.
Whilst heritage railways are fairly frequent entries in Atlas Obscura rail lines that are still operating commercially are much rarer but not unknown. This, Iberian standard gauge, line is actually the the northern section, through the Cantabrian Mountains, in Spain, of a line which actually runs south as far as Palencia , which is northwest of Madrid. It is remarkable for its spectacular scenery, its marvellous railroad engineering and its historic value. Starting in the north, the line runs from Santander rail station, in Cantabria, quickly running out through the suburbs then is very soon into the mountains. The impressive mountain scenery (and much of the engineering difficulty) changes to much less interesting surroundings about 84 miles of track later as it enters the Meseta Central plains around Alar del Rey. It was constructed in the mid 19th century, with the section between Santander and Alar del Rey being opened in 1866. . Travelling south on this, now fully electrified, line through some remarkable scenery one soon reaches the famous Rampe de Bárcena section of track. This is one of the most remarkable feats of railway engineering on any adhesion line in the world. Between Bárcena de Pie de Concha and Reinosa the line rises 560 metres over a distance of 21km but the Pesquera–Bárcena section has a height difference of 319 meters over only 7 km . The route is considered to be a, very rare, "triple horseshoe" and just looking at the plan on a map is very impressive. The convoluted route, involving three long and seriously curved tunnels was designed by English engineer Alfred S Gee as an alternative to the proposal of using wire hauled inclines on the steepest parts of the route by his Spanish competitor, Juan Rafo. Gee proposed maximum gradients requiring more powerful locomotives than originally intended. Of these some 14 2-4-0 steam locomotives were produced by Isaac Dodds and Son (of Rotherham, England) and , famously, were never paid for. In thinking about the Rampe we need to remember that the main aim was to take full waggons of wheat to the port, essentially a down hill trip, and the documents of the time often refer to the Rampe as a "descent". Presumably hauling empty waggons back up was considered less of a problem. In any event electrification of the line in 1951 provided all the power needed. The scenery around the "Rampe" is magnificent and alighting at stations along the line deposit you in the heart of the magnificent Cantabrian mountains. You will also cross over the stunning Viaducto de Celada Marlantes, at the time of building, the largest viaduct in Spain and still beautiful, if less impressive in a modern context. If road viaducts are your thing the line passes close to the highest road viaduct in Spain at Montabliz. Passing onwards south between Aguilar de Campoo and Mave the line passes through the natural grandeur of the Cañjón dela Hoadada with its massive cliffs reaching up to the, archaeologically important, Las Loras and Las Tuerces mountains to the left and right. It is worth a stop off at Mave here to see the magnificent church attached to the Convento de Santa Maria just 50 feet from the station. South from Mave to Alar del Rey the scenery changes as mountains give way to the wide open arable land of the northern part of the Meseta Central. At Alar del Rey, of greatest historic interest, is the Canal de Castilla which originates in the town. The southward route of the railway and canal are very close. It was the building of this railway which terminated all ambitions to continue the canal north to the port of Santander and eventually caused the demise of the canal as a commercial navigation leaving it to serve as an important water supply channel and now very much a tourist attraction. Overall a magnificent rail journey taking in both natural grandeur and some of the most significant civil engineering feats of the time. There may only be a few more years to experience it as the spectre of a new, high speed , line is looming.
What do you do when the family of famous and locally loved horror director George Romero offers to donate 100 boxes of manuscripts, letters, marketing and other rare materials to your university? First, obviously, you say yes, and then you set about creating the world's first and only center for the academic study of the horror genre. Romero was no stranger to Pittsburgh - he shot nearly a dozen films in the area including his zombie classics including Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985). But the archival material his family donated (from these and other films), was just the beginning. To the nascent collection was added The Blair Witch Project Archive which includes original production records, memorabilia, and ephemera donated directly by the film's creators, the Stanley Waiter Collection of over 80 boxes of papers and hundreds of cassettes of audio interviews by the acclaimed Bram Stoker Award-winning author, and other gems such as scripts from Wes Craven and John Carpenter, manuscripts from horror writers, vintage pulp magazines, and first-edition works by Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, and Bram Stoker. In September of 2019 Pitt launched its Horror Studies Center, with Adam Lowenstein as Director, Benjamin Rubin as Coordinator, and the archives serving as the dark heart of the endeavor. In less than a decade since having opened, the center has already achieved national and global recognition, and will no doubt continue to animate (and perhaps reanimate) students and researchers in the thriving field of horror.
Georgians call it "Karugdebeli" -- literally, "Door-thrown-off". For as long as anyone can remember, no building on this holy mountain has been able to survive with its doors intact, so all its shrines remain open to the public 24 hours a day. The first shrine dedicated to St. George is said to have been built here in the 7th or 8th century C.E. - although, as is often the case in the Caucasus, a pagan holy place may have existed here long before. According to legend, when that shrine was built, the villagers tried to put doors on it a number of times, but each time, they returned to find the doors fallen on the ground. Over time, the shrine was rebuilt several times, but each time, no one was able to enclose it with doors. The area became an important place for festivals dedicated to St. George. In the early 20th century, the Communist government tried to close the shrine, in accordance with the official atheistic policies of the Soviet Union. However, their attempts to block the entrance of the shrine were repeatedly thwarted; the walls and barriers were found as piles of rubble every St. George's Day. The frustrated Communists subsequently demolished the shrine entirely to discourage locals from making pilgrimages there. The power of the Gogni shrine was never forgotten, however, and during the 1980s, as the authoritarian restrictions of the Soviet Union were relaxed, the people of the Terjola and Tkibuli regions rebuilt the shrine - without any doors, of course. After Georgia regained its independence, the St. George's Day festivals in May and November began once again to be conducted at the Gogni shrine. Due to the huge number of pilgrims, the locals of Terjola and Tkibuli decided in 2010 to build a large new church nearby the shrine, at the peak of the mountain, which would be visible from the entire region. No expense was spared for its decorative stone carvings, and the finest woodworker in the province was engaged to carve its main doors. The woodworker immediately began to notice strange things happening. The wood he ordered mysteriously warped overnight in his workshop - not just once but twice. The third time he tried to start work, he was suddenly stricken with a neurological affliction in his hands, making him physically unable to hold a tool. Terrified, he informed the sponsors of the project that he would have nothing more to do with making doors in Gogni, and it was decided that the new church would also be completed without doors. Twice a year, on the two celebrations of St. George's Day (May 6th and November 23rd), tens of thousands of people come from both the local area and all over Georgia to walk up the steep mountain which the Karugdebeli shrine is situated on - many of them barefoot. It is said that anyone who walks around the shrine three times, especially on St. George's Day, will have their wishes fulfilled.
This building is in the village of Santa Maria de Mave , The village takes name from the church and convento at its centre and is close to the larger settlement of Mave close to the border of Cantabria and Castile y Leòn . In Spain the term Convento is used to distinguish the institution as housing a group of religious members of an order which is active in the community in which it is based as opposed to a contemplative, isolated order in which case the building would be termed a monestery. To a certain extent the terms are interchangeable and the term "convent" certainly does not imply that the residents were nuns. In this case the occupants were male friars. The term Monastario is often applied nowadays to the church building directly attached to the Convento with the Romanesque church being in its original religious form (with with a triple apse and three naves, a bell wall, currently with resident white storks, and a tall dome over the transept). The Convento has been converted from the cloister (rebuilt in the 18th century) to a boutique hotel with a restaurant and a bar/cafeteria. The conversion has been done sympathetically with many original feature retained but the architect clearly has a love for the modern. Some of the bedrooms are actually in the monk's cells. The origins of the Convento and the associated church date as far back as the second half of the 9th century. The abbey was founded by King Alphonse III . In 1033, Mave and its possessions became part of the important Benedictine monastery of San Salvador de Oña, in Burgos. Nothing remains of the ancient Pre-Romanesque structure.
Situated in the middle of the bustling strip is an adorable oasis. Unlike its equally cute sister locations, this Hello Kitty cafe is located inside a lush green park, boasting plenty of seating for the perfect picnic outside. The park is already a great opportunity to hide away amid the city's limited greenery, so having the cafe is just a bonus on top of an already great space. The cafe itself is not a typical cafe, as it operates out of a bright pink, container-like structure. The unique structure does nothing to hinder the quality of the items available for sale. From limited-time merchandise to Las Vegas exclusives and licensed-character food, this cafe is perfect for those who need a break from the mundane (as if such a thing truly exists in Vegas). This experience is wonderful for families, as it caters to children and adults alike.
If you visit this small (about 10% of size of Central Park NY), triangular shaped park in the heart of the city of Valladolid the tranquil and nature-rich environment surrounded by major urban thoroughfares belies two important facts. Firstly the park used to be just outside the city, having now been surrounded by the urban sprawl and , secondly , in the 16th century, the park was both the site of the city's gallows and the place where the Spanish Inquisition held a series of Autos de Fe in response to the development of the popularity of Lutheranism in the Valladolid area. It was possibly used earlier in response to the inquisition's activity against Muslims and Jews. The Autos de Fe were essentially the public sentencing phase of a "trial" by the inquisition (where convictions were often obtained by torture). It involved public humiliation of the convicted and revealing to them their fate in front of the baying crowd. Normally those sentenced to death, usually by burning, would be executed at a different site by civil rather than church authorities but the calling of part of the site "el brasero" (the brazier) during the early 16th century and the known presence of the gallows may indicate that in Valladolid this was not the case. In the anti-Lutheran campaigns of the later 16th century several English residents were targeted and later burned at the stake and it has been said that this was an act of revenge for the execution of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots. Campo translates from the Spanish as "field" and initially it was known as the Field of Truth, possibly in response to the use for Autos de Fe. It was Later called Campo de Marte or Field of Mars, possibly to do with the "warfare" involved in duels between "caballeros" which were held regularly in the field. The field was also used for military exercises and reviews with one recorded as early as 1394 when King Henry III held a general review of his troops on the site. The name Campo Grande became established in the mid 17th century by which time it had become established as a public open space for recreation. In the 17th century King Charles II approved a plan by the local authority to plant up the park with numerous trees and he favoured a plan presented by Francisco Antonio Valzanía, a neoclassical architect. Many mature elm trees were lost in an epidemic of Dutch Elm Disease in the 1960s but many trees remain in this tranquil area of artificial woodland interspersed by more formal garden sections. A notable feature of the park is the diverse bird population, both wild and introduced. Within the park is an aviary which seems to be dominated by Canaries and there is a loft belonging to the Castilla Pigeon Club. There is a pheasant breeding area and peacocks are known to breed in the park along with loads of water birds. Also of note is the population of Red Squirrels. For anyone in the UK to see red squirrels in an urban setting is remarkable. There is also a great collection of fountains and sculptural works in the park from many eras and in many artistic genres.
In 1973 as part of Project Plowshare the US Department of Energy detonated a set of three nuclear bombs down a natural gas well at this site north of Rifle, Colorado. The project was intended to demonstrate peaceful uses of nuclear weapons by producing natural gas, but was generally regarded as a failure. Surface monitoring in the decades since the experiment have found no elevated radiation. Each 33-kiloton bomb was less than 8 inches wide to fit down a standard well, but over 30 feet long and were placed 5,838, 6,230, and 6,689 feet below ground (below sea level).
The original basilica was long ago destroyed (7-8th century) but the foundation remains as do amazingly well-preserved floor mosaics. There are different designs - animals, religious, but they are only uncovered one at a time in rotation to prevent damage from the sun. The remaining mosaics remain covered with heavy plastic and sand and you can also see a cistern and catacomb. The gate to the area is locked and although it sounds like there used to be a sign with the caretaker’s phone number, that is now gone. A visitor asked someone in town and they called the caretaker directly and he arrived within five minutes and showed the mosaic that was available at the time. The area is under consideration for UNESCO recognition.
On the shore of Lake Rautjärvi in South Karelia, within the Saimaa lake district, two octagonal smoke saunas stand among the pines — hand-built by a local farmer and entrepreneur using traditional techniques, and now among the most authentic smoke sauna experiences available to visitors anywhere in Finland. From the door of the Hiisi sauna, the Hiidenniemi peninsula stretches across the lake. The saunas are called Horna and Hiisi — both names drawn from Finnish mythology, referring to the underworld and the spirits of wild places. The property operates under the name Hugo's — a tribute to the current owner's grandfather, Hugo, whose memory is kept alive in the name of the place. A smoke sauna is not a modern wellness facility. It is one of the oldest known forms of bathing in human history, and the tradition was inscribed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020. Unlike a conventional sauna, a smoke sauna has no chimney running from the stove. Instead, a fire is lit inside the sauna room itself, and the smoke fills the space entirely during the heating process — which takes four to six hours. The smoke blackens the walls and ceiling over years of use, creating a surface that retains heat with remarkable efficiency. Once the fire dies down and the smoke clears, the sauna reaches a gentle, enveloping heat quite unlike anything a modern electric sauna can produce. In South Karelia, the ventilation opening above the stove — which helps draw smoke during heating — is called a lakeinen, a regional term that speaks to how locally rooted this tradition remains. The saunas at Hugo's are heated every Friday by a group of local men for whom this is a weekly ritual — not a performance for tourists, but a living continuation of a practice that has defined Finnish life for centuries. Visitors are welcome to join. The property itself carries additional layers of history. Hugo's was formerly the Upper Vicarage of Rautjärvi parish. During the Continuation War in 1941, the building served first as the base of Intelligence Unit Vehniäinen and later as the headquarters of Infantry Regiment 27, whose troops came from the Tampere region. The root cellar on the property was built in 1942. Trenches dug for soldiers' accommodation tents in the summer of 1941 are still visible in the grounds. The saunas sit within the Saimaa UNESCO Global Geopark — a landscape shaped by the last ice age, encompassing one of the largest lake systems in Europe. Rautjärvi lost more soldiers per capita than any other Finnish municipality in the Winter War of 1939–40. The men of Rautjärvi fought at Kollaa — a battleground that now lies on the Russian side of the border.
The Vardar, the river that flows through Skopje, is not navigable—and never has been. With a depth of merely 0.5 to 1.5 meters, even the bravest captain of an air mattress would hardly manage to drift downstream without risking their life. The health risks from chemical and biological pollutants, as well as the unpredictable currents of the watercourse—fed by meltwater from the Šar Mountains—are considerable. Tourists rub their eyes in disbelief when they approach the banks or cross one of the numerous bridges. In the knee-deep water, galleys rise 15 to 20 meters into the air—and not just one, but three magnificent ships, each about 200 meters apart. Anyone approaching the ship right next to the famous Stone Bridge (Kamen Most), a 15th-century city landmark, will quickly recognize the charade: it is a kitschy stage-set building, a reinforced concrete structure on stilts that houses the Senigallia hotel and restaurant. Now, this artificial galley is certainly not the only architectural misstep in Skopje. While it is a pleasant place to sit with a nice view of the Stone Bridge and the river, where you can be certain not to capsize or get seasick, the political powers-that-be thought big with the “Skopje 2014” project: Why have just one kitschy fake galley when you can build two or even three? The restaurant ships are a central element of this controversial major project. Financing and construction were largely handled through state channels. The project was initiated by the then-Macedonian government led by the national-conservative VMRO-DPMNE party. The goal was to fundamentally change Skopje’s cityscape to create a new national identity based on historical, often antique, motifs. The ships were intended to visually enhance the Vardar as architectural highlights—even though they met with widespread confusion and criticism worldwide from a planning and functional perspective, as they are permanently anchored in the riverbed. Other elements of "Skopje 2014" include the sheer, incredible number of statues (about 284) and the construction of around 40 government buildings, which have earned Skopje the nickname "neoclassical Disneyland." While the ship Senigallia is currently still in operation (as of 2026), the ship located further upstream appears abandoned: the entrances are secured with chains and sandbags, the paint is peeling, and a faded sign—"Royal Restaurant Makedonija"—is still visible. During the implementation, one or two cousins of those politically responsible surely got their share; "Skopje 2014" was accompanied by fierce corruption allegations. Originally estimated at around 80 million euros, the total costs ballooned to over 500 to 640 million euros—all taxpayer money. If the second ship is already listing, all is lost for the third, downstream specimen. It is the true "Ship of Doom," where at most the undead pirates from Pirates of the Caribbean or the blind dead from the 1974 horror film (by Amando de Ossorio) could haunt. The ship is a picturesque "lost place," littered with trash, dirt, debris, and dead pigeons. Like a sinister ghost ship, it lies in the immediate vicinity of the "Bridge of Art" and seems ready to carry the souls of deceased Macedonian cultural figures on a journey to the afterlife. The living should beware of boarding the ship, even if there are currently no barriers or warning signs. The wooden planks of the upper deck are full of holes, and in the tween deck, a burn hole allows a deep look into the bow. A fall here would likely be an involuntary check-in for a journey of no return.
A split boulder sits in flat farmland just south of the village of Glemmingebro, in Sweden's southernmost region. About 46 by 30 feet (14 by 9 meters) and roughly 10 feet (3 meters) high, it is cleft in two, likely widened over time as water froze in natural fractures and forced the rock apart. Geologists classify it as a glacial erratic, carried here during the last Ice Age. Local tradition has a different account of both the journey and the split. In it, a giantess on the Baltic island of Bornholm, driven mad by the bells of Glemminge Church across the water, used her garter as a sling to hurl the boulder at it. At sunrise her strength failed and the throw fell short, the stone landing in a nearby field. The church still stands; local lore says the force of the throw split the rock in two. This same tradition holds that the cleft is more than a remnant of the failed attack. Those who pass through it risk having their senses scrambled. A woman is said to have stopped recognizing her own child, and a man became so disoriented that he climbed into bed with his neighbor’s wife. There is, however, a cure: retrace your steps through the cleft the same way you came.
The Cass County Dentzel Carousel in Logansport, Indiana, is a historic, hand-carved carousel built by the Dentzel Carousel Company, likely around 1900, and is a National Historic Landmark. It features stationary, hand-carved animals, and is famous for its brass ring tradition, where riders can try to catch a brass ring for a free ride. It is one of the company's oldest surviving menagerie-style carousels, with animals likely hand-carved by George Dentzel. Housed in a modern building in Riverside Park, it operates seasonally, with a miniature train also available. The carrousel features 43 animals, including horses, deer, goats, giraffes, a lion, and a tiger, all hand-carved by the Dentzel company. There are also 2 chariots with two 2-seat benches each. The carrousel is also famous for its brass ring tradition. The carousel includes its original mechanism for dispensing rings. An arm extends from the carousel to offer riders the chance to grab a brass ring for a free ride. Music plays from an organ in the middle of the carrousel next to the power plant. Originally from Fort Wayne, it was moved to Logansport in 1919 and is one of only three stationary Dentzel carousels left in the country. The exact construction date of the carousel is not known. It has been estimated to have been built c. 1900–1903, but may be older. In 1993, it underwent a complete restoration in which its original paint job was restored.
In 1973, the Belgian airline Sabena built the first grand luxury hotel in Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali. The 4-floor hotel has 112 guest rooms and three restaurants. It was named the “Hôtel des Mille Collines” in recognition of Rwanda’s nickname, “Land of a Thousand Hills.” The hotel gained worldwide recognition during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 and the resultant events that transpired there. Over a period of 100 days from April 7 to July 19, 1994, an estimated 800,000 people, mostly members of the Tutsi ethnic group, were violently and horrifically killed by armed Hutu militias. Also killed were moderate Hutus and Twa. The genocide was sparked by the April 6 assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu. Habyarimana’s plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile as it prepared to land in Kigali. All on board were killed, including Cyprien Ntaryamira, the president of Burundi. Habyarimana’s death caused Hutu extremists to target Tutsi and moderate Hutu leaders as retaliation. The ensuing conflict was one of unimaginable violence that pitted neighbors against neighbors and even family members. Dead bodies piled up in the streets as Rwandan militias and military forces carried out the systematic slaughter. The genocide ended in July 1994, when a Tutsi rebel group defeated the Rwandan government forces. During the conflict, the Hôtel des Mille Collines became a sanctuary for 1,248 people seeking refuge from the violence. The refugees were both Hutus and Tutsis. The hotel’s temporary manager, Paul Rusesabagina, is credited with keeping the hotel open as a shelter, although debate continues over whether his motivation was altruism or greed. There were allegations that he required payment from the refugees for food and accommodation. Rusesabagina, who is of both Hutu and Tutsi descent, allegedly used bribery (using hotel money) and his connections with Hutu elites to protect the refugees and hotel staff from massacre. None of those sheltered at the hotel were injured or killed in the violence. The events were subsequently portrayed in the award-nominated movie, “Hotel Rwanda,” although genocide survivors question the verisimilitude of the film’s plot. In the movie, American actor Don Cheadle plays Rusesabagina. Today, the Hôtel des Mille Collines still operates as a luxury hotel. It is an independent hotel property, and the government of Rwanda holds a 2.5% stake as a minority owner. Rusesabagina now resides in San Antonio, Texas, and is a permanent U.S. resident.
Cvrated by Ryan Matthew Cohn is a destination in Connecticut for the curious and the collectible. Its first permanent antique showroom opened in Bridgeport—part gallery, part cabinet of curiosities, and entirely unforgettable. Drawn from the personal collection of Ryan Matthew Cohn—known for his iconic “exploded skull” sculptures and as co-host of Discovery Channel’s Oddities—the space offers an intimate look at rare artifacts, antiques, unusual artworks, and extraordinary historical objects. Every piece has a story, carefully selected to intrigue collectors, artists, and the simply curious alike. Founded in 2017 by Cohn and his partner Regina M. Rossi, the renowned Oddities Flea Market comes to life here as well, with a rotating selection of standout vendors including Alex Streeter Jewelry, Feather & Foxglove, Ampersand Curiosities, Rebels and Outlaws, Eyeba NYC, and Susan Lloyd Shell Art. Whether you’re hunting for the rare and remarkable or simply want to step into a world where art, history, and the unusual collide, this showroom offers a one-of-a-kind experience. Visit: CVRATED by Ryan Matthew Cohn 726 Union Avenue, Bridgeport, Connecticut Hours: Sundays, 12–5 PM Or by private appointment by visiting the website. Discover something strange, beautiful, and impossible to forget.
Walking down the main shopping street in Prescot, near Liverpool, UK, you can be forgiven for missing a relic of the medieval era. A 16th-century street is tucked between two shops on Eccleston Street. At only 28 inches wide at its narrowest point it certainly isn't suitable for vehicles; it only comfortably fits one person walking down it. The exposed old red brickwork and cobbles beneath your feet as you walk along it give it a certain atmosphere of another time. A useful shortcut for locals, it's a survivor of centuries of change. It isn't the narrowest street in England—that record belongs to Parliament Street in Exeter. But Prescot is proud to celebrate having the next smallest. A red plaque attached to the wall is part of a heritage trail for the area and informs any curious passers-by who spot it that "Stone Street is the second narrowest street in England at only 28 inches wide." "This street originally led to a windmill and follows the curved boundary of a medieval burgage plot."
Perched high above Aurlandsfjord, with stunning views over the water and mountains, is Otternes Farm. This historical collection of wooden buildings, which date from the 1700s and was last occupied in 1996, preserves some of the rural and agricultural architecture and traditions in this remote area. When the farm was founded and active, most travel and trade was by water and the farmstead was largely self-sufficient. Otternes originally housed four distinct farms, where over 60 people lived and worked. There are a variety of buildings with different functions, which are being restored. Some are open to enter and filled with artefacts. Sometimes there are tours or demonstrations of local crafts available (there is an Instagram site that advertises availability of these), and there is a small shop selling natural products produced by local artisans. The staff that work here have lots of knowledge about the history and renovations of the site. There is an honesty box if you visit when volunteers are not on site. Otternes has recently been afforded a protected status by the Norwegian National Heritage Board.
According to the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament, Apostle Paul, at the start of his tour of Europe, spent his first night on the island of Samothraki (also called Samothrace), around 49 or 51 AD. This was the first ever time St Paul set foot in Europe. He is said to have started from Troas after a vision he saw that called him to preach in Greece and Europe. Paul spent just a single night on Samothraki, came into contact with the residents, told them about Christianity and left the following day for Neapolis, now known as Kavala. The Orthodox Christians on the island have long been proud of this link to St Paul. In the northern part of the island, where it is believed that he stayed, the "Shrine of Apostle Paul" was built in 2007 , to commemorate this event, It is about 7 km. from the port of Kamariotissa on the road to Therma Loutra, just outside the archaeological site of the much later 14th century Genoese defensive towers at Paleopoli. However according to locals, a structure remains on the coastline which, it is claimed, was actually involved in the visit. It is usually accepted that Paul approached Samothraki from the north of the island and locals insist that a stone built jetty that stretches out to sea from the beach nearest the shrine is the actual jetty that his boat tied up to. The truth of this is uncertain. The location would fit for this being associated with the Sactuary of the Great Gods, and thus being in existence at the time of Paul's visit, but equally it could be associated with the Genoese defensive system. The lack of any information boards at the site or official publication seems to indicate that the official position is that the St Paul link is just a myth, but it makes a great story. The intriguing little jetty runs out to sea from a steeply shelving pebble beach and forms a really comfortable entry point for snorkelling. Drop off the end of the jetty with a snorkel (it extends for some distance from the visible end, below water level) and it will be clear that the structure is indeed a very ancient one. Whether or not it is actually the same jetty that Paul used is not so clear but the locals are convinced it is so. Even without the historic/religious connection it is well worth having a look. The marine life attracted by the protection provided by the jetty is great and you have a great chance of seeing dolphins just off the beach.
In England fried fish and chips is recognised by most as the national takeout dish (with curries being the only real competitor). Nowadays fish and chips are most commonly fried in vegetable oil (partly because of perceived health benefits) and, whilst frying in traditional beef dripping is not uncommon, doing so on a traditional coal fired fish and chip range takes place in only around half a dozen places in the country. This rather unassuming shop, in a tiny, brick built lock-up, in the tiny village of Upton, near Gainsborough in Lincolnshire is one of them. It only opens on Friday evenings and Saturday lunchtimes (this has been the case for many years). These amazing, traditionally cooked, fish and chips are fried in a coal fired range manufactured in 1947 (according to the proprietor, and contrary to the 1948 date in the literature) by Frank Ford of Halifax, Yorkshire (still in business but no longer making coal fired ranges) when the shop started trading. At that time coal fired ranges were the most popular for fish and chip shops but they have largely been replaced by gas and electrically heated ranges. Whether because of the heritage value of the shop or because of the excellent products queues are common sometimes reaching well down the street with various lamp posts in the street known by the locals as being the 15 minute,30 minute and 1 hour markers for the line.
The Pëttenerbësch (literally "Pettingen Forest" in Luxembourgish) is a nature reserve located half an hour's drive north of Luxembourg City. At first sight, there is nothing special about this forest (apart from the fact that it is in the middle of the A7 motorway). In 2009, the land registry and topography department was in charge of the determination of the geographical centre of the Grand Duchy. It takes into account the various historical treaties that have defined the borders between the years 1659 and 1839. It also takes into account land swaps, the most recent of which occurred in 2006 between the communes of Sanem (Luxembourg) and Russange (France). The result of these calculations places the centre of the country in the Pëttenerbësch: 49°46'38''N 6°05'43''E In 2011, a monument in Corten steel was unveiled in the forest as a marker for this site. Its shape marks the 4 points of the compass. The inscription reads: "centre géographique 6°05’43’’E 49°46’38’’N". It is accompanied by an information panel which describes the treaties that have been taken into account and the method of calculation. A decade after the monument was inaugurated, it is still little known and there are no information panels indicating the site.
The Marolles district is the popular area of central Brussels par excellence. It is famous for its flea market on the Place du Jeu de Balle, its antique shops and its friendly atmosphere. The district is also inseparable from the dome of the Brussels Palace of Justice, which dominates it to the east. However, in 1969, a project to extend the offices of the prestigious building to the detriment of several city blocks caused a furore. The fierce resistance of the residents is still known today as the ‘Battle of the Marolles’. It all began on 30 June 1969, when the residents of the homes concerned received a letter informing them of their eviction. In all, 1,500 people were ordered to leave their homes within 6 months (without being offered alternative accommodation). With the help of the local vicar, Jacques Van der Biest, the protest was quickly organised. Only a week after the letters arrived, a press conference was organised in front of journalists. The media followed and supported the movement, giving it even more publicity in addition to the numerous (always peaceful) demonstrations and protests. The context of the time explains such mobilisation: Brussels was then in the midst of a process of ‘bruxellisation’: partnerships between private developers and the State were destroying entire neighbourhoods to replace them with modern projects. These demolitions were being carried out without consulting the residents - who felt they had no say in the matter - and were wiping out the heritage, social life and identity of the neighbourhoods affected. When the plan to demolish Les Marolles was announced, the northern districts of Brussels (around Brussels North station) had just suffered the same devastation: the residents of Les Marolles were aware of the consequences of such a project. Many other districts of Brussels also feared the same fate, so the mobilisation came from far beyond the boundaries of Les Marolles. Faced with such an outcry from the whole city, the project was abandoned at the beginning of September 1969. On 13 September 1969, a large parade was organised around the Palais de Justice to celebrate the end of the project. A symbolic funeral was also organised for the ‘Promoter, his faithful wife Bureaucracy and their child Expropriation’. A plaque marking this burial was unveiled in Rue Montserrat, a street that would have disappeared if the project had gone ahead. The story could have ended there, but it has had far-reaching consequences to this day: the organisations that came into being in 1969 - such as the Atelier de recherche et d'action urbaines (ARAU) - have been perpetuated. Today, it is unthinkable to carry out a major property or public space project in Brussels without directly involving local residents and neighbourhood committees. This citizen participation can take many forms: preparatory workshops - to identify the wishes and needs of local residents - information meetings, site visits, and so on.... Thanks to this symbolic battle in 1969, Brussels became a pioneer in citizen participation in its major urban development projects. This principle has now spread throughout the world.
The early 17th century was a difficult period for Luxembourg City, which was then part of the Spanish Netherlands. The city was simultaneously contending with attacks from the Protestant Reformation, famine, plague and war. In an attempt to restore hope to the inhabitants and perpetuate veneration of statues in the face of Protestantism, Father Jacques Brocquart of the Jesuit College of Luxembourg organised a procession on 8 December 1624 to erect a statue of the Virgin and Child outside the fortifications in the north-west of the city. The statue is known as 'Notre-Dame du Glacis' because it stands on the glacis of the city's fortifications. Between 1625 and 1628, a chapel was built for the statue. The statue gained great renown in 1639 when the first "Book of Miracles" was published, which collected testimonies of answered prayers. Things then moved quickly: in the same year, to accommodate the influx of pilgrims during the spring pilgrimage, the statue was taken in procession to the Jesuit college church in Luxembourg (now Luxembourg Cathedral) for eight days. This first celebration formed the basis for the annual Octave celebrations ('Octo-' meaning 'eight', referring to the number of days of the celebration), which remain popular to this day. In 1639, the statue was named 'Our Lady, Consoler of the Afflicted'. It was greatly venerated and designated the patron saint of the city of Luxembourg in 1666, and the patron saint and protector of the Duchy of Luxembourg in 1678. In 1794, French troops invaded the Duchy of Luxembourg and it became a French province. During the fighting, the statue was taken to the Jesuit college church (which had become a parish church in 1778) for safekeeping. It never returned to the Glacis Chapel, as two years later French revolutionaries razed the building to the ground. In 1870, the church that housed the statue became a cathedral. As the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg gained independence, the statue naturally became the country's protector, particularly after the Second World War, when the Octave became a 'national pilgrimage' and the statue became one of the country's symbols. In 1885, a new neo-Gothic chapel was built on the Glacis square, 150 metres south of the previous location. From that year onwards, the Octave tradition was reversed and the statue left the cathedral for eight days to be venerated on the Glacis. Since 1922, the Octave has been extended to last two weeks, from the fourth to the sixth Sunday of Easter, but it still retains its old name. In 2016, construction work on the tram line uncovered the chapel's ruins: the two tram tracks now run right through the old building! Following archaeological investigations, the ruins were protected and buried under the tramway foundations. During the finishing work, the outline of the chapel was marked out in paving stones on the ground. A metal plaque at the entrance commemorates this design. Today, few passers-by notice this outline on the ground. However, the rediscovery of the chapel's remains was a significant event for the country. The bond between the people of Luxembourg and their patron saint's statue remains strong, as evidenced by the large number of participants in the Octave and the Mäertchen (literally 'little market') on Place Guillaume II, which perpetuates the tradition of the pilgrims' market every year.
Huy - pronounced "Oui" ("Yes") - is a small Belgian town located at the confluence of the Meuse and Hoyoux rivers. It is halfway between Namur and Liège. The town is famous for its rich heritage. Some forty monuments and sites are protected. The fountain on the Grand'Place, known to the locals as "Li Bassinia" ("the basin" in Walloon), is one of the most remarkable. It was listed as a „Monument Historique“ on August 1st, 1933. It was one of the first 45 monuments to be listed in Wallonia, the French-speaking southern half of Belgium. Many changes over the centuries have resulted in its complex shape. The oldest parts are the 225 cm diameter basin and the central column. Both are made of bronze. The column is topped by a crenellated tower. It is surrounded by 4 important figures from the town: Saint Catherine (the patron saint of the industrial district where the spring that feeds the fountain comes from), Saint Domitian and Saint Mengold (the patron saints of the town) and Ansfrid (the last Count of Huy in the 10th century). The 4 figures are separated by 4 smaller towers (pierced by doors). An animal's mouth spitting water emerges from each one. The central tower was surmounted in 1596 by a representation of the "Cwèrneû" ("the horned one", named after the keeper of the town's bell tower who could sound the alarm in case of danger). In the 18th century, a rococo canopy (dais) was added to the top of the fountain. It is surmounted by a double-headed eagle. This is a reminder that Huy, as part of the Principality of Liège, was at that time a fief of the Holy German Empire. Four stone basins, each fed by a bronze lion's mouth basin, are placed at the base of the canopy. A second lion's mouth on a floor grid empties each of them. In 1881 the 4 stone pools were renovated and the names were engraved in gold lettering. Under the base of the 4 figures, an inscription, which is now illegible, states that the fountain was the work of Pierelo del Grevier and Henri le Pottier in 1406. It's worth noting that at that time, the art of "dinanderie" - working with copper, brass or tin, as opposed to the more noble art of goldsmithing, which involved working with gold and silver - was at its height in the Meuse valley. The foundrymen of towns such as Dinant, Huy and Tournai were renowned throughout Europe. The use of metal for a large public fountain could therefore be an indication of the power of this industry in the city at the time. That a material so easily remelted survived theft, war and changing tastes is something of a miracle. The corrosion of the metal and the separation of the stone parts made restoration necessary in early 2000s. Restoration work, which involved the complete dismantling of the fountain, began in 2009. Once the canopy was removed, it was discovered that the bronze basin stood on a stone base of exactly the same diameter. Excavations have confirmed that the foundations, water conduit and stone base are contemporary: pottery shards found in the fill date them to the late 14th or early 15th century. The basin is still in place on its original base, and the underground remains confirm the date of 1406. Following the confirmation of the age of the monument, there was talk of placing it in a museum. However, local residents and elected representatives strongly objected: the fountain was returned to its original location and, after restoration, was inaugurated in 2019. One last important detail: the water feeding the fountain still comes from its original source! The origin of the spring is documented in a deed signed in 1407 between the town and the owner. It is located 1 km from the fountain, in the garden of the "Résidence Vallée du Hoyoux", a home for the elderly, and can be seen from the Ruelle Chantelière. The tower that protects the spring and the whole of the underground canal that leads to the Bassinia were listed as a historical monument on June 4th, 2013. The fact that we don't know of any other 15th-century metal public fountains doesn't mean that they didn't exist: the Quinten Matsijs well in Antwerp, for example, dates back to 1490. It's impossible to say whether this is the oldest metal fountain in Europe, or even the world, but the fact that it dates from 1406, is well-preserved, still in use and in its original location makes the Bassinia de Huy exceptional.
The A42 motorway runs alongside Liège Airport and crosses several bridges, passing under just one: the 'L22' bridge. At first glance, it is clear that the bridge is no longer connected to anything on the north side; it ends at a building with a flight of steps, a situation that has existed since at least 1994. It therefore now serves only as a footbridge for a few airport workers who live in the Crotteux district of Grâce-Hollogne. The bridge could easily be demolished, as there is an underpass beneath the motorway 600 metres further on. However, no one in Belgium wants to see this bridge disappear because it is linked to the most notorious criminal case in the country's history: the Dutroux affair. On 24 June 1995, Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo, who were both aged seven, went to the bridge located 200 metres from the Russo family home to wave at passing cars. The motorists who later testified to having seen the girls were the last to see them alive. As the girls left the bridge to return home, a white van appeared: Marc Dutroux's. The consequences of this case were enormous in Belgium and abroad: the national gendarmerie was abolished in Belgium and Luxembourg and merged with the police; Child Focus was created (and also Alerte enlèvement in France);... Above all, however, the case left a deep mark on the entire Belgian population. The sites associated with the case continue to cause deep unease among Belgians to this day, who are torn between wanting them to disappear so that they can move on, and having a profound respect for the memory of the victims who suffered there. Although no one died there, the L22 bridge symbolically marks the spot where this national tragedy began. Although redundant, there is no desire to see this bridge disappear (it is sometimes even nicknamed the 'Bridge of Remembrance'). In order to give the bridge a new purpose, the Belgian motorway operator has installed ANPR cameras to read vehicle number plates and OBU detectors for the heavy goods vehicle toll. These small additions give the bridge a new lease of life and help to keep the memory of Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo alive. They had simply come onto the bridge to wave at the cars…
Nadrin is a small country village located between Houffalize and La Roche-en-Ardenne, almost two hours by car south-east of Brussels. Situated in the Parc Naturel des Deux Ourthes, Nadrin boasts a number of remarkable natural sites, including the Nisramont Dam, the Hérou Rock, and the archaeological site of the Cheslé fort. As you leave the village heading south-east, a group of white megaliths and a dolmen-like structure await you by the side of the road. However, this ensemble does not date back to the Neolithic period. It was created for the 1991 edition of the Europalia biennial. This biennial has been held in Brussels since 1969. It highlights the cultural scene of a country through exhibitions, concerts and other events. The rest of Belgium and even the four neighbouring countries also host events. It is in this context that the creation of the "Europalia Monument" should be seen. The inauguration of this work of art was in December 1991, in the presence of Maria Barroso, wife of the Portuguese president at the time. It consists of 12 standing stones - representing the 12 countries which then formed the European Union - and a dolmen, representing an open door. The artist chose the symbolism of the menhirs and dolmens because they are the oldest evidence of European civilisation and the remains of them can be found in all 12 of the countries that formed the EU at that time. The 24 blocks are made of pink marble from Portugal. They weigh between 1.8 and 6.6 tons. It is not the aim of the Europalia Festival to create permanent works of art. The Europalia Monument in Nandrin seems to be the only remaining work from a previous edition. It continues to symbolise the invisible links between European countries…
Seraing is a town located to the south-west of Liège, on the banks of the Meuse. Its name immediately evokes industry. It is famous for its Cristallerie du Val-Saint-Lambert and its steelworks, now owned by CMI (Cockerill Maintenance & Ingénierie). These factories cover a large part of the lower part of the town (in the meander of the Meuse) and are still called "Usines Cockerill" by the locals. Indeed, the company and factories are those founded in 1817 by British industrialist John Cockerill. John Cockerill was the son of a textile manufacturer. He and his brothers used the family fortune to buy the Château de Seraing (the summer residence of the prince-bishop of Liège). There they diversified production, with the construction of the first coke blast furnace in 1821. In 1823, John Cockerill bought out the shares held by his brother and became the sole owner of the company. The company, which was already leading in textile machinery, gradually became a leading steelmaker. It was thanks to Cockerill that Liège became the first city on the continent to experience the Industrial Revolution. In the second quarter of the 19th century, after the Belgian Revolution, the industry he had created would make Belgium the second-largest power in the world, after Great Britain. On 9 June 1840, John Cockerill died of typhus in Warsaw. His embalmed body was only returned to the cemetery at Seraing in 1867. His return was a catalyst for the idea of a public monument in his honour. Armand Cattier's design was chosen after a competition was held in 1868. The unveiling of the monument was on 22 October 1871 in front of the town hall in Seraing. The industrialist is depicted standing on a high pedestal. However, the originality of the monument lies in the fact that it is framed by 4 sculptures of workers representing the main trades present in the factory at the time of its creation. On the 14th of September 1947, his mortal remains were finally laid to rest in the crypt in front of the monument. Behind this idyllic homage lies a darker reality: between the monument and the town hall, a graduated column bears the dates of several major floods. What is most disturbing, however, is that level 0 is located above the ground level. The age and origin of this column are a mystery, but the main piece of information it contains is still true: the centre of Seraing is permanently below the level of the Meuse... and John Cockerill had a hand in it. Large quantities of coal were needed to run Cockerill's factories. Their location is ideal: the Meuse valley is rich in coal. As a result of the mining of large quantities of rock, the ground level in the area was gradually lowered. As Seraing was built in a meander of the river - not very high compared to the river - flooding became more frequent. Some streets, which were generally spared from flooding, began to be flooded several times a year at the beginning of the 20th century. They started building a wall against the river, but now the water behind the wall had to be evacuated. In September 1925, it was decided to drain mud and water, a project called the "Démergement" (a term borrowed from the navy to describe the process of draining water from the bottom of a ship). A high wall was built and pumps pumped the water back into the river. The project came too late. On 31 December 1925, during a hundred-year flood, the wall gave way and the water flooded the city centre. The damage was enormous, although the number of victims is unknown. Work was accelerated on the "démergement". The city sank further and further below the river. Today, if the pumps were stopped, it is estimated that the water level would rise in the basements within 6-8 hours and invade the streets within 24 hours. It's a cruel twist of fate for the tomb of John Cockerill. The man who unknowingly caused the town to sink below the level of the river now finds himself threatened along with it! His tomb is now dependent on the constant operation of the pumps to keep it from disappearing under the waters of the river Meuse. Even worse, his statue is condemned to stare for all eternity at the wall, several metres high, that separates the city from the river (as a metaphor for the broken link between the Meuse and the summer residence of the prince-bishops of Liège, which was built here a few centuries ago...).
Rue Saint-Paul is one of the main shopping streets in Liège. In the middle of the street, a shop window stands out from all the others: it displays only contemporary works of art, which change regularly. The window and the works belong to the Uhoda Collection, the largest private collection of contemporary art in the city. The Uhoda Collection was founded in the 1970s by the brothers Stephan and Georges Uhoda. It brings together works by artists from Liège and all over the world, from the 1960s to the present day. The two brothers buy works when they fall in love with them, without any desire for consistency. In addition to supporting artists, the two brothers regularly take part in initiatives to make contemporary art accessible to everyone. The idea of exhibiting works of art directly on the street was realised in 2019 as part of Art au Centre. Launched by the City of Liège, this artistic project aims to revitalise the city centre by exhibiting works by Liège artists in unoccupied shop windows in the city centre. It takes place several times a year for about 2 months. In 2021, the two brothers decided to go even further: while continuing to participate in each edition of Art au Centre, they now exhibited works from their collection without interruption. The showcase became known as "White Cube" and had its own website. The works were exhibited day and night for periods ranging from 15 days to 2 months. The idea of buying a shop window on a high street to display works of art from a private collection on a permanent basis seems to have no equivalent. In any case, it has achieved its aim: to give passers-by free access to quality contemporary art. Anyone can take the time to admire them whenever they like, and if necessary, an explanatory text is available on the White Cube website.
Situated on a narrow bank between the Meuse and the hills, Sclayn is a small village. It is located in the Andenne municipality, 1 hour and 15 minutes from Brussels or Maastricht (Netherlands). From the village, a narrow green valley descends to the plain. It was here that a cave was discovered by speleologists in 1971. Working on the entrance uncovered carved tools. In 1978, the University of Liège joined the excavations. This was due to the importance of the discoveries made during the first campaigns. Since then, the excavations have continued without interruption up to the present day. They have unearthed 120,000 animal bones and 20,000 artefacts dating back to the Middle Paleolithic. The biggest discovery was made on 16 July 1993. A left half mandible of human origin was found. 16 teeth, the right lower jaw and a piece of jawbone followed. The discovery was a huge success: these were the first Neanderthal remains to be found since the end of the 19th century. Scientific studies of these 19 bones confirmed that they all came from a single individual nicknamed "Sclayn's Child": An 8-year-old child - probably a girl - a Neanderthal who lived 127,000 years ago. Exceptionally, DNA was extracted from a molar, the oldest human DNA ever sequenced. In total, almost 15 m of sediments have accumulated in the cave. They are divided into 28 main layers. This makes it the most complete sequence in Belgium that is still accessible to researchers. It helps to understand the climate during the Upper Pleistocene. Researchers from all over the world are still in regular demand for samples of these different layers. The cave was declared an archaeological site on 19 April 1996 due to the discovery of the remains of the Sclayn child and the importance of its stratigraphic layers. On the 8th of October 2016, it was listed as part of the exceptional immovable heritage of Wallonia. This second classification means that since 2019, it has been on the provisional UNESCO World Heritage List of "Neanderthal fossil sites in Wallonia" (together with 3 other Walloon sites). It is the only Belgian cave still being excavated and open to the public. This makes it a unique site in Belgium.
20 km south-east of Brussels is the town of Braine-le-Château. This commune borders on Halle, which is home to the famous Blue Forest* (a part of which is located in this commune). Braine-le-Château is inseparably linked to the Counts of Hornes, especially Maximilien de Hornes (1475-1542), chamberlain to Charles V. He is responsible for the 5 listed monuments in the centre of the town: his recumbent statue in the church, the Horne castle, the water mill, the bailiff's house and the pillory. On the central square of the town, the Braine-le-Château pillory was built in 1521. Although it was located in front of the castle, justice was administered by the bailiff. The bailiff was responsible for justice, administration and taxes on behalf of Lord Maximilien de Hornes, whose house was also located on the square. With the construction of this pillory, Maximilian de Hornes showed that he had the power to do justice in his lands. The pillory is made up of a series of high steps that support a column. Its capital is decorated with a banner bearing the inscription "Maximilien de Hornes de Gasbecke, Knight of the Golden Fleece of the Emperor Charles, 1521". At the top, the skylight is made up of 6 columns that support a small roof (this roof was replaced during the restoration in 2019). Under the Ancien Régime, the bailiff would have convicts sentenced to "public exposure" taken to the lantern on market days. In 1794, during the French Revolution, there was talk of the abolition of the pillory. The bailiff - Justinien Thienpont - was against it. He argued that it was a symbol of the town. History proved him to be right. In 1839, the pillory was again threatened. It was its transformation into a public fountain that guaranteed its preservation for good. Two stone troughs were added in 1849. However, the water never flowed. On December 21st, 1936, the pillory was listed as a historical monument. Today, it is included in the list of the exceptional architectural heritage of Wallonia. In 2019, a roof (the existence of which was known despite the absence of any old representation) was restored during the latest restoration works. * https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-blue-forest-halle-belgium
The Hautes-Fagnes is the largest peat bog area in Belgium. It is located in the east of the country, close to the border with Germany. It occupies the highest point of the Kingdom, symbolised by the Signal de Botrange*. This immense peat bog, which is now about 10 km long and 6 km wide, was originally much larger. In this vast open space, man has added visual landmarks to avoid getting lost: isolated trees, monuments, crosses... One of the most famous of these is probably "La Croix des Fiancés" (the Cross of the Betrothed / Fiancés). But behind this romantic name lies a tragedy that claimed the lives of two lovers… François Reiff, aged 32, was from Bastogne and worked as an excavator at the Gileppe dam site. Marie Solheid, aged 24, was from Xhoffraix and worked as a maid on a farm in Halloux. The two lovers met in 1870 and became engaged. On January 22nd, 1871, a snowstorm hit the region. In spite of this, they set off for Xhoffraix (then in Prussia) to collect the necessary documents for their marriage. They never arrived. Two months later, on March 22nd, a Prussian customs officer, carrying out the first border check after the snow had melted, discovered Marie's body near the Belgian-Prussian border post 151. Inside her dress was a message, clumsily written by François: "Marie vient de mourir et je vais le faire" ("Marie has just died and I'm going to do it (too)"). Unfortunately, he was right: his body was found on March 13th, two kilometres to the west (he had probably set off in that direction to reach the village of Solwaster). Since at least 1906, a cross has marked the spot where Marie was found. It is next to the old Belgian-Prussian border. Old photographs show a clear change: the completely open countryside has now become wooded (due to the disappearance of cattle farming and the desire to use it for forestry). However, the cross has remained a landmark for walkers. They still stop there. Some of them place heather flowers in memory of the unfortunate lovers, in remembrance of the ultimate tragedy that had befallen them: they were buried in their respective villages, so they will be separated forever… *: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/signal-de-botrange
The Place de la Constitution is a balcony overlooking the Pétrusse valley in the heart of Luxembourg City, a stone's throw from the Place Guillaume II and the Cathedral. The Monument of Remembrance stands at its centre. The Gëlle Fra (« The Golden Lady » in Luxembourgish) stands at the top of the monument's granite column. It is a representation of the goddess Niké holding a laurel wreath. It is covered with a layer of shiny yellow gold. It is 3.3 metres high and 1.5 tonnes in weight. The statue is a symbol of the city and a must-see for tourists... But what is less known is the emotional attachment of the Luxembourgers to the statue since its creation in 1923 and the fact that it has been missing for 26 years! The attachment of the public began even before the creation of the monument: in 1918, the National Commission for the Fallen Soldiers was set up with the idea of erecting a monument in honour of the Luxembourgers who volunteered for the Allied Forces during the First World War. It should be noted that this is a citizens' initiative. It is not a government initiative. The competition for the creation of this monument was launched on 14 February 1920. It was won by Claus Cito (out of 18 participants). A nationwide fund-raising campaign was launched. Two stamps were issued with a surcharge. On 27 May 1923 the monument was inaugurated. During the Second World War, Luxembourg was under occupation from the 10th of May 1940. The occupying forces soon talked of demolishing the monument. However, fearing demonstrations and hostile reactions from the population, the Nazi authorities waited several months before doing so. On the 19th of October, an attempt was made to bring down the Gëlle Fra with ropes, but the ropes broke. Although the attempt was unsuccessful, it provoked a public outcry. An anti-occupation demonstration was held around the monument for the rest of the day. On 21 October, the statue finally fell from the monument. It was damaged and the column was toppled. Broken into three pieces, Gëlle Fra was hidden by a lady owning a shop in Hollerich. The two statues on the pedestal were removed the same day and managed to be hidden. As for the granite pedestal, the companies in charge of the demolition found excuses to delay the work (or even the workers themselves, who refused to work on its destruction!). In the end, it was the municipal workers, threatened with dismissal if they refused, who had to remove the pedestal of the monument. After the Liberation, the pedestal was rebuilt in 1944 and 1945 and the two statues on the pedestal were reinstalled in 1950. It remained to rebuild the column and restore the Gëlle Fra. The statue was exhibited during the Resistance Week in 1955, then nothing more. The statue remained missing until 1981, when it was found under the stands of the Josy-Barthel stadium. How and why it ended up there is still not known! The statue was restored in 1984. It was unveiled on 23 June 1985. Note that the statue is slightly different from its original configuration: It now looks down, with its chin pressed to its chest. This slight difference is the result of the fall of the statue on its head in 1940. In 2010, the statue was removed from the monument and flown to China to stand outside the Luxembourg pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo. Almost one in two Luxembourgers opposed the move, according to a poll conducted shortly before the event. Back in the country in November 2010, it was on display for 6 months in Bascharage, the home village of sculptor Claus Cito. After just 6 weeks on display, 37,000 people had already come to see it up close. This proves that the people of Luxembourg are still attached to the Gëlle Fra. It was finally reinstalled on the Monument of Remembrance in 2011.
Mushkpuri Top is one of the most scenic hiking destinations in northern Pakistan, known for its peaceful trails and sweeping mountain views. The journey to the summit begins near Nathia Gali and takes hikers through dense pine forests, fresh mountain air, and open meadows that burst into color after the monsoon season. The hike is moderately challenging but rewarding, usually taking around three hours to reach the top. At an elevation of nearly 9,500 feet, the peak offers wide, uninterrupted views of the surrounding Himalayan foothills, making it a favorite escape for nature lovers and adventure seekers. What makes Mushkpuri Top truly special is the combination of calm forest paths and dramatic landscapes that unfold as you climb higher. It feels like stepping away from everyday life into a quieter, greener world above the clouds.
This small plot of land, only a third of an acre in size, is the smallest park in Harris County — and home to some of its largest public art: Mount Rush Hour. Donated to the state in 2012 by local sculptor David Adickes, the collection combines two of his famous Presidential busts with two Texas politicians, Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston. The eighteen foot-high Statesmen rest on marble pedestals, lit at night by sconces. Every day, the Houston Chronicle estimates that they see about three million cars and trucks from their perch between Interstate 45 and The Katy Freeway. This park is only one of many final resting places for one of Adickes’ lifelong passion projects. He was on a fateful road trip past Mount Rushmore when he wondered what it might be like to look the sculptures in the eye, soon embarking on a journey that would consume over a decade of his life and lead to more than one hundred and fifty president head statues. According to The Washington Post, he was known to frequent movie theaters just to stare at the backs of old men’s heads in attempts to get the statues right. Adickes died in 2025 at the age of 98. The other 42 presidents from this set can be found at his old studio on Nance Street — and his sculptures of The Beatles (8th Wonder Brewery), Alexander Graham Bell (Hyde Park), and Virtuoso (Lyric Tower) can be spotted across the city. The other hundred president heads are split between an industrial recycling facility in Williamsburg, Virginia, and various RV parks and motels throughout North and South Dakota.
At the summit of Montpelier Hill in Rathfarnham Dublin are the stone ruins of a building constructed in 1725 for the then Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, William Connolly. Intended and designed as a hunting lodge, the building was sold after Connolly’s death in 1729 and was later used as a meeting place for the Irish Hellfire Club. The summit of Montpelier Hill originally held a passage grave topped by a cairn of stones. Connolly ordered the cairn dismantled and its stones used as building materials for the lodge. One of the grave’s standing stones became the lintel for the fireplace. The Hellfire Club was founded in 1735 by Richard Parsons, a notorious aficionado of the dark arts and black magic. The Club became known for lascivious and immoral behavior involving quantities of alcohol and sex. The Club’s president was called “The King of Hell,” and he reportedly dressed like a winged Satan. The Hellfire Club’s members were of such unsavory reputation that writer Jonathan Swift described them as “a brace of monsters, blasphemers and Bacchanalians.” It was rumored that the Club held black masses in the lodge during which black cats – and perhaps servants – were sacrificed. William Connolly’s grandson, Thomas, claimed to have met the Devil during a card game in the Lodge, where he watched Satan burst into flames and fly out the gable window. In 1741, the roof of the Lodge caught fire and was completely destroyed. Some claim the roof was intentionally set alight to give the building a more Hellish appearance. The most sensational rumor was that the Club lured a victim to the Lodge, intoxicated him, and set him on fire. The fire spread, killed several members, and destroyed the building. Rather than repair it, the Hellfire Club's members moved their meetings, but Club membership declined thereafter. Given the dark stories associated with the HellFire Club, it was no surprise that rumors spread that the ruins were haunted, and those rumors persist today.
Porto is a city that seems engineered for wonder. Its steep cobbled streets tumble toward the Douro River, where tiled façades glow amber at sunset and old trams rattle past wine cellars older than many nations. Travelers arrive for the port wine, the melancholic strains of fado, and the dramatic riverfront skyline, but Porto’s true magic lies in the way history and industry intertwine. Few places embody that union more powerfully than the Maria Pia Bridge, a masterpiece of iron suspended above the Douro like a line drawn in the sky. The bridge was designed by the celebrated French engineer Gustave Eiffel several years before he became world famous for the Torre Eiffel. Completed in 1877, the Maria Pia Bridge represented a turning point in Eiffel’s career and in modern engineering itself. Working alongside engineer Théophile Seyrig, Eiffel devised an elegant wrought-iron arch capable of spanning the deep valley of the Douro with unprecedented lightness. The project demonstrated the daring structural ideas that would later define his Parisian monument. Named after Queen Maria Pia of Savoy, the bridge connected Porto with Vila Nova de Gaia and transformed railway travel in northern Portugal. At the time of its inauguration, its central arch was the longest iron arch span in the world, measuring an astonishing 160 meters. More than a feat of mathematics, however, the bridge possessed an undeniable grace. Its delicate iron lattice appears almost fragile from afar, despite having carried heavy trains for more than a century. Although railway traffic eventually moved to the newer São João Bridge in 1991, the Maria Pia Bridge remains one of Porto’s most recognizable industrial landmarks. Seen from the riverbanks or from the decks of the city’s famous wine boats, it still commands attention with its airy silhouette and improbable balance above the water. For visitors willing to look beyond Porto’s postcard beauty, the bridge offers something deeper: a glimpse into the optimistic age of iron, steam, and impossible ambition. It stands not merely as infrastructure, but as a monument to the belief that engineering could be both functional and sublime.
Long before massive steel coasters launched riders into physics-defying drops and corkscrews, Pennsylvania helped define the art of the wooden roller coaster. When they debuted in the early 20th century, many of the state’s classic amusement parks drew city dwellers to lakesides, river valleys, and wooded hillsides for fresh air and excitement. By the 1920s, innovative coaster engineers at local firms like the Philadelphia Toboggan Company were transforming timber into gravity-powered marvels that hugged ravines, climbed hills, and delivered stomach-dropping airtime. A true testament to their design and appeal, some of these iconic rides continue to thrill riders today. For those wanting to trace the evolution of the wooden coaster—from some of the oldest operating rides on Earth to modern creations inspired by their predecessors—Pennsylvania is one of the best places to experience every incredible curve, climb, and drop. Jack Rabbit Kennywood Amusement Park, West Mifflin One of the oldest operating roller coasters in the world, the Jack Rabbit first began thrilling riders with its double-dip drop in 1920. One of three 1920s-era coasters at Kennywood, it ushered in a golden age of roller coaster innovation. Designed by engineer John A. Miller, it boasted new “underfriction” wheel technology that allowed trains to stay locked to the track on steeper drops. More than a century later, riders still flock to the Jack Rabbit to feel the weightlessness of its 70-foot drop. Afterward, historic-coaster fans can head over to the Thunderbolt to experience a steep plunge and lateral G-forces that have been wowing riders since 1924. If that’s not enough excitement, they can finish with the Racer, designed as a “Mobius loop” by Miller in 1927, with cars starting on opposite sides of the station and racing each other to the finish line. Thunderhawk Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, Allentown Originally known as the Coaster when it debuted in 1923, the Thunderhawk is among the last surviving works of celebrated coaster designer Herbert Paul Schmeck. The Reading-born Schmeck and his Philadelphia Toboggan Company left an indelible mark on Keystone State coaster history. The Thunderhawk is a classic example of an out-and-back coaster, carrying riders over, under, and through its wooden frame. Though the cars move at 45 miles per hour, the elegantly crafted layout is a testament to how a simple yet well-engineered design can still entice riders even today. Rollo Coaster Idlewild & SoakZone, Ligonier When it was built into a wooded hillside in 1938, the Rollo Coaster was literally a product of its surroundings. Much of the wood used in its construction was sourced from Idlewild’s property and milled nearby. Rather than fighting the landscape, its designer—Schmeck again—embraced it, creating a family-friendly coaster that twists through the terrain and demonstrates how early coasters often incorporated hills and valleys into the rides themselves. Featuring updated cars added for safety in 2018, the Rollo Coaster carries riders up and down the hillside before sweeping through a gentle curve and returning to the station. With smooth dips, modest speeds, and plenty of nostalgia, it’s the perfect first wooden coaster experience for newbies. The Phoenix Knoebels Amusement Park, Elysburg Like its namesake, the Phoenix rose from the ashes and was reborn anew. The coaster began its life as the Rocket in 1947 at a Texas amusement park. After nearly four decades of operation, however, it seemed doomed for demolition. That’s when the team at Knoebels stepped in to claim their coaster and shipped it across the country. After painstakingly dismantling the ride, they numbered each piece of lumber, sent it to central Pennsylvania, and rebuilt it. Now in its second life as the Phoenix, the coaster is flying high: It holds the record for the longest-running winner of the #1 wooden roller coaster award, issued by Amusement Today. Not only does Knoebels offer free admission, it also offers a second, spectacular wooden coaster. After riders scream and soar across the Phoenix, they can check out the Twister, filled with curves, a double-helix, and even a dark tunnel. The Comet Hersheypark, Hershey Another migrant coaster, Hersheypark’s Comet began its life in 1946 at a park in Ontario, Canada, before relocating to Pennsylvania in the 1970s. Since then, generations of riders have flocked to Hershey to enjoy its nearly 80-foot drop and several hills that provide some serious airtime. Today, its classic out-and-back design offers a ride experience that feels like an increasingly rare relic of the wooden coaster era. Its historic importance has even been recognized by American Coaster Enthusiasts, which granted it Landmark status. Ravine Flyer II Waldameer Park, Erie While many of Pennsylvania’s great wooden coasters are relics of the past, the Ravine Flyer II at Waldameer Park shows how the tradition is still very much alive. Built in 2008 on the site of a coaster that closed decades earlier, the Ravine is the tallest and fastest wooden coaster in the state. Dramatically crossing over a public road, it offers a blend of modern engineering and classic wooden-coaster aesthetics that have earned it international acclaim. Visitors to the free-admission park can enjoy the Ravine’s 120- and 105-foot drops, four tunnels, and 165-foot bridge over Peninsula Drive—all showing that old-fashioned thrills can still feel cutting-edge. Lightning Racer Hersheypark, Hershey Yes, we already included a Hersheypark coaster on this list, but the Lightning Racer deserves its own spot. Built in 2000, it pairs two wooden coasters (Thunder and Lightning, naturally) that race each other across 3,400-feet of tangled track, creating the illusion of near misses and photo-finish victories. Designed by Great Coasters International, the ride’s deft combination of racing and interweaving tracks proves that wooden coasters still have room to evolve in the age of steel competitors. Since its debut, Lightning Racer has consistently been voted one of the world’s 25 best wooden roller coasters by Amusement Today.
Open year-round (but closed on Tuesdays & Wednesdays), this alpine coaster offers fast turns and mountain views for all. The coaster combines modern engineering with the fresh Montana air to create a ride as timeless and unique as the state in which it resides. After ascending several hundred feet, riders will begin their descent down the coaster, their speed completely dependent on the rider's use of brakes as they zoom along the track, navigating the many twists & turns the coaster has to offer. The ride itself can take as long as the rider would like as everything with this coaster is completely up to the rider. In addition to the alpine coaster, guests to the Flathead Lake Alpine Coaster can also check out gem mining or play a round of miniature golf. It's a fun afternoon for the whole family!
Under the English "New Poor Law" of 1834, civil parishes in England were required to join together to form workhouse unions with the aim of housing two classes of poor people, the poor and destitute of the areas served by the union, who were given long term, often permanent, but very frugal accommodation with a requirement to work 12 hours per day for 6 days a week, and vagrants , just passing through the district, who were housed for 2 nights, giving a full day for them to provide 8 hours of hard labour in return for food. Both classes were given a very restricted diet but the vagrants' diet was very frugal and hardly adequate. Essentially prison conditions were imposed for the crime of being poor. Vagrants were searched for money on admittance and their own clothes were fumigated in an SO2 fumigation cabinet with the vagrants wearing workhouse uniform for their period of residence. Those seeking long term residence had to prove both their need and willingness to work and in addition a link to the locality. Without that the "Guardians" of the workhouse would send them on their way with instructions to seek relief in their own neighbourhood, both for economic reasons and as a throwback to the laws which were established to reduce mobility of labour after the Black Death, several centuries earlier. At Ripon the workhouse for the permanent residents was in a separate, purpose built, block within the enclosed courtyard and the vagrants were housed in separate accommodation in the form of a row of "cells" in one of the wings of the gatehouse block. The main work carried out by vagrants at Ripon was breaking stones to small "pebbles" for road mending and cutting firewood, both illustrated here in the work-yard display. The main workhouse block also contained the accommodation for the Master and his wife the Matron, jointly responsible for day to day running of the workhouse, with the "inmates" housed in separate single sex wings either side. Separation of the sexes, including married couples and children, was enforced rigorously. All these features are starkly illustrated by this fine museum. Although formally abolished in 1929 many workhouses remained in use until the National Assistance Act of 1948 mainly because they were satisfying an unfilled need.
The last time Oslo suffered from a bout of the plague was in 1654. The plague claimed the lives of more than 1500 citizens. Estimates vary, but at the time this could have represented as much as 40% of the population. The city desperately needed space for mass graves, and so Christ graveyard was opened. To commemorate the sad occasion, Oslo erected peststøtten, or the plague-marker. Today this is Oslo’s oldest public monument, although at the time it would have been well outside the city limits. The graveyard was in use from 1654 until after WW2. Famous generals, politicians and academics are buried there. Edvard Munch’s sister Sophie, subject of his Sick Child series of paintings, is also buried there. The marker reads: «JESU CHRISTO TIL ÆRE SOM OPUÆCKER DE DØDE ER DENE KIRCKEGAARD I DEN STORE PESTIS TID A° 1654. ANORDNET AF HANS JACOBSØN SCHØRT K.M. OBERSTE OC COMENDANT PAA AGERSHUS DA I STATHOLDERS W.H. GREGERS KRABBIS FRAVÆRELSE I SLOTESLOV FORORDNET EFTER BISPENS M HENNING STOCHFLEZ BEFALING AF SLOZPRÆSTEN H MICHEL PEDERSØN ESCHOLT DEN 18 OCTOBRIS INDVIET. VED TØYHUUSFORVALTEREN CAPT LAURITS PEDERSØN INSPECTION INDHEGNET DEN FØRSTE HER VDI BEGRAFVEN VAR ARNE SIVARDSØN SOLDAT AV WANG SOGN» Rough translation: “To the glory of Jesus Christ, who raised from the dead, this graveyard was in the year of the great plague, anno 1654, inaugurated by Hans Jacobsen Schist, appointed Royal Majesty’s colonel and commander of Akershus fortress due to the absence of prime minister W. H. Greger Krabbis. By order of Bishop Henning Stockflez, it was consecrated by the parish priest, Michel Pederson Escholt, on 18 October. It was fenced under the supervision of the armoury administrator, Captain Laurits Pederson. The first person buried here was Arne Sivardson, a soldier from Wang parish.”
If you ever find yourself needing a break from shopping, Dubai Mall offers a casual alternative: a 10-million-liter ocean dropped right next to the Cheesecake Factory restaurant. The Dubai Aquarium's centerpiece is a massive suspended tank where hundreds of sharks and rays glide past shoppers. The real magic happens inside the 48-meter transparent adventure, offering a 270-degree acrylic walkthrough from 11 metres below the surface. Walking through it feels like a slow-motion stroll across the sea floor, offering a fish-eye view of sand tiger sharks overhead. For those who wish to explore more than the rays and sharks, the upstairs zoo is home to King Croc, a massive saltwater giant who serves as a living reminder of prehistoric scale. The massive aquarium is visible, without the need for ticketing, from inside the mall. However, exploring the full scale of the Aquarium and Zoo, along with all experiences they offer requires prior booking. Tickets can be purchased online or at the door.
Most burger spots settle for a nice view. Twin Peaks Drive-In has two volcanos and an air show.This gloriously unassuming wood shack sits at the end of the Hood River Airport runway, close enough that diners on the outdoor patio regularly pause mid-bite to watch gliders, biplanes, and small aircraft clear the treeline just overhead. Mount Hood looms to the south. Mount Adams holds down the north. Somewhere in between, a fresh-pressed beef patty is sizzling on the grill. Nobody seems to agree on exactly when Twin Peaks opened — sometime in the 1950s is about as precise as the history gets — but the hand-forming of never-frozen patties every single morning has apparently never stopped. In an era when most American drive-ins quietly switched to frozen pre-formed beef and nobody said anything, Twin Peaks just kept doing it the old way. It sits along the Hood River Fruit Loop, surrounded by orchards, an easy and scenic drive from Portland. The parking lot is dirt. The shack is rustic. The planes are real. Stumbling onto this place feels less like finding a burger joint and more like finding a secret — the kind you immediately want to tell everyone about.
In the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains is the small town of Oakhurst, California. Once a cattle stop and logging town, Oakhurst became known in more recent times as the home of Sierra On-Line, a pioneer in the computer gaming industry. Oakhurst is also a gateway to the southern entrance of Yosemite National Park and calls itself the “Carved Bear Capital of the World." Most of Oakhurst's bears are carved from wood repurposed from trees lost to drought or bark beetle infestation. However, its most notable ursine inhabitant may be “The World Famous Talking Bear.” This molded fiberglass and steel-reinforced statue of a grizzly bear was manufactured by the Alpine Fiberglass Menagerie Co. of Alpine, California, a company recognized for creating large statues used as roadside attractions The Talking Bear is posed with an open mouth of bared teeth and a front paw raised to swipe, while his other paw rests on a grey rock. His brown fur is heavily textured, and he sports the classic grizzly hump on his back. When a button is pressed, the Bear vocalizes from a nearby speaker, letting out a growl followed by some California bear facts and history Legend says that the Bear was originally created as an enticement to the International Olympic Site Selection Committee. The inducement failed. However, in 1965, Hugh Schollenberger placed the fiberglass Bear at the intersection of Crane Valley Road and State Route 41 in the center of Oakhurst, and the Bear has presided there ever since. He endures annual holiday decorations on his island of grass and has even been spotted wearing a festive scarf in cold weather.
Yarm Castle was built from grey stone in the 1880's by a local David Doughty who once lived in the adjoining house, many years later his son added to it by building Yarm town hall. It has turrets, ramparts and coloured glazed windows which were once illuminated by gas light. Don't go expecting drawbridges and moats and you might have to search a bit to find what is probably best described as a folly.
Scattered throughout Hernando County, the Mermaid Tale Trail is a sprawling scavenger hunt made up of mermaid statues painted by local artists. The project was created to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, the famous Florida attraction where performers have staged underwater mermaid shows since 1947. The trail began with 26 statues unveiled in 2022 and has since expanded to more than 35 mermaids spread across Brooksville, Weeki Wachee, Hernando Beach, and beyond. Each statue starts with the same fiberglass form: a six-foot-tall mermaid modeled from the face cast of a former Weeki Wachee performer named Kristy. From there, local artists transform them into wildly different characters. Some are painted with old Florida wildlife and mangroves, while others lean fully into fantasy, folklore, or psychedelic color palettes. Visitors follow maps and digital passports from downtown storefronts to coastal parks, discovering overlooked corners of Hernando County along the way. The experience feels somewhere between a folk-art road trip and treasure hunt.
Just off a bicycle trail near Spring Hill, Florida, a live oak sings when the wind moves through it. The Wind Chime Tree stands near the Suncoast Trail right by Anderson Snow Park, with branches that have been decorated with a growing collection of wind chimes. Local school board member and businessman Gus Guadagnino first added chimes in memory of his mother in 1998, and others later added their own. The tree is now a place where anyone can come to commemorate their loved ones. Over the years, hundreds of chimes have been hung on the branches, from tiny ones barely six inches tall, to others with tubes several feet long. Other mementos, such as crosses, jewelry, handmade signs, and stuffed animals, can be found on and around the oak. The result is part roadside folk shrine, part accidental sound sculpture. Cyclists and walkers now encounter an oak whose branches glitter with metal ornaments. Here, grief has found a surprisingly gentle instrument.
This weathered wooden building sits at a rural crossroads near the Richloam Tract of Withlacoochee State Forest, surrounded by long stretches of scrub, pine flatwoods, and backroads. Entering the store feels like stepping back in time to the early 20th century. Antique signs, instruments, housewares, and other memorabilia hang from nearly every wall, while an array of nostalgic candies are displayed in glass jars. The shelves hold Southern staples like peach jam and pork rinds, and outside, you’ll even find an old-school gas pump and soda machine. The current structure dates to 1922, though Richloam itself was already an established settlement during Florida’s turpentine and logging era. The community once included a post office, school, church, and railroad connection tied to the region’s timber industry. As nearby settlements faded or disappeared over the years, the general store endured. Today, Richloam occupies a place somewhere between museum, corner store, and roadside attraction, with motorcyclists, hikers, hunters, and families alike stopping in on their way through central Florida’s wild interior. Whether you opt for boiled peanuts or fresh dill pickles (both served fresh out of big wooden barrels), you’re sure to leave with plenty of tasty snacks for the road.
On U.S. 19 in Spring Hill, Florida, a giant concrete dinosaur looms over the roadside. The former Sinclair Service Station was built in 1964, when Sinclair’s dinosaur logo was already a familiar green mascot for American motorists. Here, the branding escaped the sign and became the building itself. The creature is usually described as an Apatosaurus or Brontosaurus-like dinosaur, and it is hard to miss: 110 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 47 feet high, with a repair facility tucked inside its body. The station eventually became Harold’s Auto Center when local businessman Harold Hurst bought the dinosaur in 1977. The big beast survived long after many roadside novelties vanished, still standing as a wonderfully strange relic of gas-station architecture, brand mythology, and Florida’s talent for making the ordinary enormous. In 2020, the Sinclair Service Station was added to the National Register of Historic Places, which means this concrete dinosaur is not just a roadside gag. It is officially historic—a fossil of midcentury car culture hiding in plain sight.
Founded in 987 AD by the Anglo-Saxon nobleman Æthelmær and dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539, the abbey was converted into a private manor house and has remained in private hands ever since. Unlike the dramatic ruins found at Fountains or Rievaulx, Cerne Abbey is a working estate, lived in, cared for and quietly extraordinary. Two medieval buildings survive in remarkable condition. The Abbot's Porch, completed around 1509, is a three-storey Tudor gatehouse with carved royal heraldry, a two-storey oriel window and an original spy hole through which the porter would screen arriving visitors. The 15th-century Guest House, one of the few surviving monastic guest houses in England, once received Queen Margaret of Anjou during the Wars of the Roses. Private guided tours are led by the family who have called the abbey home since 1978, offering access to buildings and stories that no guidebook contains. Tea is served in the courtyard afterwards, which feels entirely appropriate.
The Boboli Gardens in Florence are certainly not lacking in sculptures. There are no fewer than 288 pieces here, mostly created between the 16th and 18th centuries. The park is part of the Italian World Heritage Site ("Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany") and a major attraction for the roughly 4 million tourists who visit the city every year. Most of these statues showcase ideal figures in line with their respective cultural eras: youths with theatrically outstretched arms, warriors in dramatic combat, women in seductive poses or showing maternal affection to a child. The bodies are slender, muscular, and defined—even those of older figures. One sculpture, however, stands in diametric opposition to this classical fiction: located at the northeastern end and exit of the park is the Bacchus Fountain (Fontana di Bacchino). Sitting atop a large Moorish turtle that spews water from its mouth is a stark-naked, overweight little man, looking proudly to his right and holding out his right hand in a defensive gesture. His body is massive compared to the length of his limbs. Beneath his heavy belly sits the dwarf's "best piece," which forms the exact center of the sculpture and appears rather disproportionate. While the depiction of male genitalia was common in Renaissance plastic arts, this emphasis on his manhood is, without a doubt, a deliberately used comedic element. Thanks to this curious contrast to normality, the grotesque sculpture is world-famous and is sold as a miniature to tourists in Florence. Depicted in this potentially degrading pose is a real-life historical figure: Nano Morgante, the famous court dwarf of the Medici from the reign of Cosimo I to Ferdinando I. He lived from roughly 1530 to 1584, and his real name was Braccio di Bartolo. He suffered from chondrodystrophy, a genetic form of dwarfism where abnormalities in cartilage and bone formation result in short arms and legs combined with a normal torso and a disproportionately large head. Even his nickname, "Dwarf Morgante," was ironic: Morgante was actually a giant from a popular epic poem of the time by Luigi Pulci. However, di Bartolo must have been highly intelligent, as well as humorous, quick-witted, and diplomatic. He was highly esteemed as the favorite court jester and served as a close advisor to Cosimo I. The Grand Duke granted him personal freedoms, his own income, and even land ownership. In 1560, Cosimo I de’ Medici commissioned the Florentine sculptor Valerio Cioli to create the work. Nano Morgante’s significance is evident in the fact that he repeatedly appears as a comedic or allegorical element in various paintings and sculptures of the Florentine Renaissance. Furthermore, the lightheartedness and humor of the Bacchus Fountain embody Cosimo I de’ Medici's life motto: Festina lente—Make haste slowly.
In a small cemetery beside a Baptist church in Florida, Massachusetts, a lone parking meter stands among the rows of stones and flowers. This parking meter marks the final resting place of Gordon “Gordy” Burdick, who passed away in January 2003. The unconventional headstone was chosen by Gordy before his death. His wife, Joyce Burdick (d. 2011), is also buried there and commemorated by the meter. Joyce’s plaque, affixed to the device, reads: “If there’s ever a time I can not be with you, keep me in your heart and mind and I will always be there.” While no amount of quarters can bring Gordy or Joyce back, this whimsical choice of memorial inspires curiosity seekers to visit their eternal parking spot.
Ioannina is a beautiful Greek city located on the shores of Lake Pamvotis. The history of Ioannina begins in pre-historic times and continues to this day. Inside the lake is an island, the largest lake island in Greece and one of the few inhabited in Europe. The island has no-name, simply called the Island (=Nissaki in Greek). From the 13th to the 15th century, prominent Byzantine families founded monasteries there and by the 17th century they established the Island’s settlement. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, Ioannina was handed over to the Ottomans. The undisputed ruler of this period was Ali Pasha. During his reign (1788–1822), Ioannina became an important economic, cultural, educational and commercial center of the Ottoman Empire. In 1820, Ali Pasha turned against the Sultan and was accused of treason. In March 1821, when the Greek War of Independence broke out, 60,000 of the Sultan's soldiers began to besiege Ioannina. In February 1822, Ali Pasha found refuge in the Monastery of Agios Panteleimonas at Nissaki, where he was killed. The caves of the monastery had been used as hermitages in the 15th-16th centuries. In November 1940, during WWII, the Island’s residents resorted to these caves, to protect themselves from the bombings of the Italian air force. The monastery and the caves are housing the Museum Ali Pasha and Revolutionary Period, since 2012. The museum exhibits some 6,000 items from the collection of Fotis Rapakousis family, including personal belongings of Ali Pasha, artifacts and weapons. The holes of the bullets that killed Ali Pasha are visible on the floor. The Museum at Nissaki is a witness of a 700-year-old history.
The statue of Skuli Magnusson was erected in 1954 to mark a century of free trade in Iceland. Skuli Magnusson was born in the remote village of Keldunes in the north east of the country. He moved to Húsavik with his family before joining a Danish merchant's company as a teenager. Upon joining the company he was told by the merchant to "weigh it right", meaning to cheat customers. This made Magnusson angry, and he swore he would strive to replace the dishonest merchants. Magnusson then took up a position in the south of Iceland as a county magistrate before moving to Skagafjörður in the north of the island 3 years later. While in this position he discovered a Danish trading ship had foundered in the fjord and was illegally trading with locals. He seized the ship and cargo and used it to build Akrar village. Magnusson had a vision to use his wealth and power to destroy what he saw as a corrupt system and help strengthen the country. Magnusson sued a corrupt merchant for dealing in mouldy flour, poor quality iron and for selling over the maximum price. He won, becoming popular with the Icelandic public. Magnusson became the first Icelandic Governor in 1749 when the Danish Governor was dismissed for drunkeness and bankruptcy. Magnusson came good on his vision of improving the country by build factories which focused on sulfur processing, developing agricultural machinery, wool weaving, dyeing, leather working, rope-making, fishing and shipbuilding. He also pushed for Icelanders to use boats with a deck so they could fish deeper waters in safer vessels than the previously used rowing boats.
The Corstorphine Dovecot, located in Edinburgh's suburb of Corstorphine, is a well-preserved example of 16th-century Scottish dovecot architecture. Originally part of the Corstorphine Castle estate, it stands as the sole surviving structure from the castle grounds, which were established by Sir Adam Forrester between 1375 and 1405. The castle itself was largely demolished around 1797, leaving the dovecot as a historical remnant amidst modern developments. Architecturally, the dovecot is notable for its beehive shape, a design characteristic of the period. It boasts substantial dimensions, with an external circumference of approximately 86 feet 10.5 inches. Inside, it houses over 1,000 sandstone nesting boxes, meticulously constructed to provide shelter for pigeons. These birds were a vital resource, supplying fresh meat, known as squabs, and eggs, particularly during the scarce winter months. Additionally, pigeon droppings were collected for use as fertilizer, enhancing the estate's agricultural productivity. Beyond its practical applications, the dovecot also served as a status symbol, reflecting the wealth and prestige of the estate's owners. Dovecots were fashionable additions to landed estates, often designed to be eye-catching features within the landscape. Today, the Corstorphine Dovecot is a popular landmark, offering visitors a glimpse into Scotland's architectural and agricultural heritage.
The Australian Pinball Museum, located in Nhill, Victoria, offers visitors an interactive journey through the history of pinball, showcasing a diverse collection of machines from various eras. As Australia's only pinball museum, it features the largest public selection of playable pinball machines in the country, with exhibits ranging from a 1931 machine to contemporary models. Established as a not-for-profit operation, the museum's mission is to promote pinball culture and provide a space where rare and unusual pinball games can be enjoyed by enthusiasts and newcomers alike. Visitors can engage with the machines firsthand, experiencing the evolution of pinball technology and design over the decades. Situated along the Western Highway, the museum is an accessible stop for travellers between Melbourne and Adelaide. The museum's presence adds a unique attraction to the town of Nhill, contributing to local tourism and offering a nostalgic experience for those interested in arcade history.
In 1805, Lt. Col. Timothy Dix of Amherst, New Hampshire was granted a parcel of land deep within the imposing mountains of the Great North Woods. The land came with just one stipulation: Dix had five years to have the land settled by at least thirty residents. Dix named the town Dixville (fittingly enough) but didn't have too much time to make good on his promise, as he would become involved in fighting the War of 1812, dying in 1813 in battle. Granite State super-politician Daniel Webster, a friend and sponsor of Dix, took it upon himself to try and incorporate the area. But before he did, someone actually did live in Dixville before Dix's death. In fact, two people did: husband and wife duo Betsey and John Whittemore. The Whittemores would arrive in Dixville in 1812, but soon found themselves fighting against the elements. Due to the town's extreme terrain and remoteness, as well as the fact that the only road into town was not equipped for the brutal winters, the Whittemores would endure incredible hardships while trying to make a life for themselves in Dixville. In 1815, Betsey died in the frigid month of December. Unable to bury his wife or even leave town, John was forced to keep her body frozen for the entire winter before any proper burial. Likely shaken by the horrifying ordeal, John would bury his wife in a makeshift graveyard then move to the nearby Colebrook the following spring. John would die in 1846, and Dixville would be properly settled in 1865, with new residents being buried alongside the Whittemores at the small cemetery for years in unmarked graves. In modern times, little documentation remains as to who else lies alongside the Whittemores, but the gravesite has been preserved by New Hampshire State Parks, who keep the legacy of the Whittemores and their perils alive for curious visitors. While today Dixville may only boast a population that hovers around a little over ten, the lives of the town's first settlers continue to inspire and fascinate.
Loch Doon Castle was built by the Earls of Carrick at some point during the late 1200s. It is said that the castle may have been built by Robert the Bruce, however it’s more likely that his father (also called Robert) was the one who actually had the castle constructed. The castle has not always been so easily accessible, having once stood on Castle Island out in the middle of Loch Doon. The island was located about 400m south of where the castle now stands. In 1935, Loch Doon Castle was carefully dismantled, stone by stone and removed from its original island location, and was then reconstructed on the landside bank of the loch. This was done to preserve the ruin from the rising water levels in the loch caused by a hydroelectric dam scheme. If the water levels are right, you can still make outvthe island! Loch Doon’s unique 11-sided polygonal plan was derived from its original island location. The curtain wall once had two entrances. One, an impressive pointed arch, with a door and portcullis, which is said to lie out on the bottom of the loch. The other entrance was a postern, or back gate and less grand in appearance. Inside the curtain walls are the remains of the original internal buildings. The foundations of a tower house bulit by Kennedys in the 1500s, were also recovered from the island.
The Ministry of Awe is a wacky, wonderous vault of secrets, questions and forged checks. It's a collective that has no point of origin. It's an experience with no right or wrong directions. It's a bank with many currencies, but no money. It's an invitation to ask questions, to experiment and let your curiosity lead you. The Ministry is the brainchild of world renowned muralist Meg Saligman and the 100+ artists who created this living work of art. The historic bank building had sat empty since the 1980s. Now the space is alive and ever changing, with characters inhabiting the space and interactive elements that will never give you the same response twice. The Ministry invites you to access your account with them. You've always had one.
Once the largest linen thread mill in the world, Hilden Mill stands on the edge of Lisburn as one of Northern Ireland’s most haunting industrial ruins from Victorian times. Established in the 19th century by the Barbour family (not connected to the modern clothing brand), the vast complex exported thread across the British Empire and beyond. At its height, thousands of workers passed daily through its gates, and an entire model village, Hilden, developed around the factory, complete with workers’ housing, schools, and social halls. Today, the silent red-brick buildings, broken windows, and towering chimneys remain as powerful reminders of the era when linen made Ulster one of the industrial centres of the world. Also known as Barbour's Mill or Barbour Threads Mill, Hilden Mill is especially compelling due to the strange atmosphere created by abandonment on such a monumental scale. The mill closed in 2006. Nature has begun reclaiming sections of the 24-acre site, while rusting machinery, collapsing interiors, and long-empty corridors evoke the vanished lives once tied to the rhythms of the mill. Unlike polished industrial museums, Hilden still feels raw and authentic. The surrounding landscape of the River Lagan and nearby woods only deepens the contrast between industrial ambition and decay.
This is the location of the former U.S. Radium Corporation where many women, known now as "The Radium Girls,"worked painting luminescent paint on watch dials during WWII. It was a lucrative job for women at the time so many were reluctant to give it up even as information about the radiation poisoning began to surface. When a woman became ill, corporation doctors routinely diagnosed them with syphilis instead to keep families from coming forward. The location is now a family-friendly park with memorials throughout telling the stories of the collective issues the women faced, along with individual memorials to the women that worked there. Many of the women are buried at nearby Rosedale Cemetery. Their plight was recorded in the book "The Radium Girls" by Kate Moore and made into a movie in 2018.
Berlin is in a state of constant change; some streets are barely recognizable from one year to the next. Every gap is being filled, scaffolding and cranes stretch into the air, construction activity is everywhere. Yet, there are places in Berlin where time stands still—likely because building regulations prohibit or complicate new developments. One such place is Lübars, that West Berlin topographic curiosity, which truly still looks exactly as 50 years ago: a few equestrian farms, the village church, the Labsaal, the Dorfkrug (village inn), and the village school. And then there is the Tegeler Fließ valley, which in summer looks just like the landscape in Spitzweg’s painting "The Sunday Stroll" (Der Sonntagsausflug). If you follow the path toward the Fließ at the entrance of the village, there is an old open shed on the left-hand side that has always been there. Whether it was intended as a shelter for horses or for hay remains unclear; today, it stands empty. Very few people know that this exact shed was once the backdrop for a bloody confrontation. It took place in 1980: during a failed ransom handover behind the shed, one of the extortionists was shot dead by Tom Ripley. However, this atrocity occurred only in the imagination of Patricia Highsmith when she wrote the fourth part of the world famous five-volume Ripleyiad, The Boy Who Followed Ripley. Tom Ripley is the sinister hero of this series, a man who is far from squeamish in the choice of methods to achieve his goals. In every volume of the series except the last, he kills at least one person—and always gets away with it scot-free. Patricia Highsmith was actually famous for displaying an almost obsessive attention to detail when it came to the settings of her novels. Particularly in "Ripleyiad," she traveled to almost every single location she had her amoral hero, Tom Ripley, visit. Among her literary estate at the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern, researchers found boxes of meticulously collected, alphabetically sorted city maps, road maps, and travel guides, all filled with her handwritten notes. Many literary critics emphasize that crime writers in particular need this extreme topographical accuracy to make the implausible—the perfect murder—believable to the reader. Since Ripley is a cosmopolitan and an art connoisseur, Highsmith's own research had to be flawless. For her books, she retraced the exact paths her characters would later take in Venice, Rome, Hamburg, Tunis, or indeed in the wintry West Berlin of the 1980s. If you look closely inside the shed, a fan has carved "Patricia was here" into the wooden beams.
In 2012, the devil was officially let loose in Middelfart, Denmark. Local sculptor Steffan Herrik unveiled his bronze Fanden er løs ('The Devil is Loose') at a seafront spot that the artist nonetheless calls "the town's ugliest." Herrik describes the work as a monument to the early 2000s and their spirit of chaos and uncertainty. Less a conventional devil than an unsettling chimera, the gaunt figure stands just under 5 feet tall (1.5 meters) and has a beaked, cyclopean head, branching antlers, and a single wing. Beneath it sits a large egg from which two snakes emerge, one with a smaller snake slipping from its open mouth like a tongue. The title echoes the distinctly Danish saying Fanden er løs i Laksegade ("The devil is loose in Salmon Street"), rooted in an 1826 Copenhagen incident widely blamed on the devil himself. Whether or not Herrik had that case in mind, the connection feels natural in a Danish context. For those amused by the town's name: Middelfart derives from the old Danish middel ("middle") and fart ("crossing" or "passage"), referring to the narrowest point of the Little Belt strait. As for the sulfurous associations, they are purely coincidental, though perhaps not entirely unfitting, given sulfur's long reputation as the smell of the demonic.
The old areas of Pune are called Peths. A Peth is a neighbourhood or a ward. The old city has been divided into a number of such wards. These areas have been in existence since several centuries. Narrow lanes, houses with timber overhangs, stone mansions, mysterious alleys, curiously shaped streetlamps, random crumbling walls… In the midst of all this, the temples of old Pune have historically served as community gathering centres for people of all ages to come together and socialise. Many of these temples are Shivkalin (built during the time of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj) or Peshwekalin (built during the time of the Peshwas). In this post, I will be discussing some of the most commonly seen traditional features of Pune’s heritage temples I have come across during my explorations of the city. Most of these temples have a vintage old fashioned stone gateway or a gatehouse to enter the premises. The gatehouse has a room above it and one can see traditional arched windows built in it. The door is always ancient and wooden, with shiny metal bolts and latches. Often, there are statues of Dwarapalakas (guardian deities of temple entrances in Hindu culture) on either side of the door. Once you step through these doors, you enter a time machine. The hustle and bustle of the street falls behind and you enter a different world. A slower world. A calmer world. There is generally a tiled courtyard open to the sky. The old temples are always set in a nice, peaceful courtyard. There is also a Tulsi Vrindavan near the temple entrance. A Tulsi Vrindavan is a stone or marble pedestal housing the Tulsi plant (Holy Basil, Ocimum tenuiflorum) which is considered to be sacred in Hindu culture. The temples are generally constructed out of both stone and wood. Particularly in the old temples in these old areas, since there is a lot of history involved, one can find a lot of paintings and historical information on the walls. Many temples also have intricately designed glass lamps hanging from the ceiling. Back into the courtyard, you will always find birds chirping around, squirrels nibbling at nuts or a cat snoozing in a corner. It is their home. The courtyard also generally has other smaller shrines dedicated to other deities, apart from the main deity of the temple. There can be a huge tree in the courtyard as well, one big enough to provide shade to the entire place. Such courtyards also have mysterious locked doors and closed windows. These generally lead to other houses in the area. A couple of times, I have seen beautiful stone statues lined along the corridor. Upon asking the locals, I found out their history. The locals are really kind and when you ask questions with a curious smile on your face, they are only too happy to share their knowledge. They have probably lived in that area all their lives and are privy to information not available elsewhere. People rarely stop to ask questions and when they do, the locals are delighted to share what they know. The kind of interesting facts and anecdotes they tell you will fill you up with a sense of wonder about the history of these places. There is so much that has happened in the past. We only know a small portion of it so it a delight to explore these places. There are many such temples in Old Pune, out of which I have visited a few. There is Tulshibaug Ram Temple in the Tulshibaug area whose spire was once upon a time the tallest structure in the city. There is Nageshwar Shiva Temple which is said to be around 700 years old. There is Belbaug Vishnu Temple which has a Portuguese bell and an interesting story behind it. There is Trishund Ganpati Temple which has an idol of Lord Ganesh with three trunks. There is Lakshmi Narasinha Temple in Sadashiv Peth with a nice courtyard. There are many more temples I am yet to explore. Most of them have some fascinating historical fact or anecdote associated with them.
Xagħra is the second largest locality on Gozo, the second largest island within the nation of Malta. Like many other towns on the island, Xagħra is located on a hilltop overlooking agricultural fields below it, although Xagħra seems to sprawl more. While Xagħra’s outwards appearance may make it look as quiet as most other residential communities on Gozo, the location actually has quite a few sites that are worth going out of the way to visit. The Xagħra Parish Church and the central plaza in front of the church stand at the center of the community. The current limestone church was built in the nineteenth century, and while it is similar to many of the other parish churches across the Maltese Islands, it is still an impressive building both inside and outside. The rest of the plaza features most of the community’s local shops and restaurants, and many of these restaurants have outdoor seating on the plaza. Also note the cross at the west end of the plaza; these crosses are a common feature of communities across the Maltese Islands. Xagħra’s most notable attraction is Ġgantija, a neolithic temple complex that sits on the community’s southern slopes. Built between 3800 and 2000 BC, Ġgantija is one of the largest neolithic structures in the islands, and the complex is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In spite of being so famous, Ġgantija is actually relatively uncrowded, making it a peaceful place to visit. Visitors will first be able to see neolithic artifacts from Ġgantija in the visitor center, including a few of Malta’s famous fertility figurines, before being able to walk inside the complex itself. Just north of the entrance to Ġgantija is the Ta’ Kola Windmill. In the 1700s when the islands were ruled by the Knights of St. John, the government constructed many windmills like Ta’ Kola to mill grain for the local population. Each windmill had a broad square base and a cylindrical tower at the center, giving the windmills a very distinct appearance. Most of Malta’s windmills have either been dismantled or demolished, but Ta’ Kola provides visitors with a chance to go inside one of the very few windmills left in the islands and to learn about their history. People who enjoy small, quirky tourist attraction will want to visit Ninu’s Cave and Xerri’s Grotto, both of which are located near the central plaza. Both locations are small limestone caves filled with stalactites and stalagmites that were found serendipitously by people drilling wells behind their homes; Ninu’s Cave was found first in 1888, while Xerri’s grotto was found in 1924. Both were turned into tourist attractions, and both are now run by the descendants of the men who found the caves. Note that Xerri’s Grotto is open during regular business hours but that Ninu’s Cave is only open late in the afternoons, and visiting both caves requires descending down narrow staircases. Located just north of Xerri’s Grotto is Sansuna’s Rock. While this looks like just a large limestone rock in a weedy plot of land, the rock may actually be the remains of an ancient burial chamber. It has also been associated with the mythical Sansuna, who is credited with constructing Ġgantija, and it is recognized as an important cultural site. The far northeastern end of Xagħra features a closed lookout standing over Calypso Cave, one of a couple of caves in the Maltese Islands that has been associated with the nymph from the Odyssey since the 18th and 19th centuries. While it is not possible to stand on the lookout or see the cave from above, this spot does offer spectacular views of Ramla Bay, which has one of Malta’s very few sandy beaches. The trail down to the beach passes through Ulysses Lodge, the most notable abandoned building on the island of Gozo. While this hotel was a popular wedding and events venue in the 1980s, it’s now aatracts graffiti artists and urban explorers (but note that walking around inside the structure may be unsafe because the structure is unstable). Most visitors spending just a few hours on Gozo will want to at least stop by Ġgantija for a couple of hours, but people spending at least one night on Gozo may want to spend the better part of a day exploring all of the different sites within this small community. Xagħra is easy to reach either by car or by public transport, but walking to the location is not recommending. For people driving on Gozo, the center of Xagħra is less than 10 minutes from the city of Victoria and less than 15 minutes from the island’s sole ferry terminal at Mgarr. Some of the roads may be narrow, but street parking is easy to find. Buses regularly travel to Xagħra from both the central bus station in Victoria as well as from the harbor. Although Xagħra does not have any large resort hotels, it does have a series of small guesthouses, bed and breakfasts, and smaller hotels that may appeal to tourists who are interested in having a quiet place to stay in a small town setting while visiting Gozo.
A house and its garden stand alone on a traffic island, with bicycles, cars, buses, trams and pedestrians passing by on all sides. However, nobody lives there, as this abode is inhabited instead by imaginary characters dreamed up by Emilia Kabakov and her late husband, Ilya, both Russian-born artists who relocated to the US. The piece is known as La Maison aux Personnages (The House of Characters), and the vacant building was erected in 2009 as part of a project by the local metropolitan authorities to fund and install permanent public artwork at various locations along the city’s new and expanding tram network. The house cannot be entered but visitors are encouraged to voyeuristically peer through the windows of the ground-floor and first-floor rooms (the latter can be reached via an outdoor staircase). Each room has been decorated as if inhabited by a different imaginary character, and poetically worded panels provide a minimalist backstory for each static scene. One room contains a wooden sailboat; another appears to be an inventor’s workshop; one resembles a hoarder’s paradise; and another contains a ladder that leads nowhere. When it was unveiled, the installation caused controversy due to the inconvenient symbolism of building a house for imaginary characters at a time when homelessness is widespread, the significant energy footprint of the air conditioning required to maintain a constant temperature in the rooms, and the project's substantial cost. While the controversies have died down over the years, the house and its imaginary inhabitants remain, providing passers-by with a surprising touch of absurd escapism, whatever the time of day or night.
What do you get when you take a statue of Moses pointing one finger toward the sky and place him on the football-mad campus of the University of Notre Dame? You get “First Down Moses,” of course. Outside the Hesburgh Library, there is a 17-foot-tall bronze statue of Moses. With one hand, he is holding the Ten Commandments, and with the other, he is pointing toward the heavens with his index finger extended. Perhaps he is suggesting Notre Dame is number one in college football or that a first down has just been made. The name “First Down Moses” was given to him by the student body when the sculpture was placed on campus. The sculpture was created by Josip Turkalj in 1962. A first down is earned when the offensive team advances the ball 10 or more yards in four plays or fewer. If they do this, a new first down is awarded, and another 10 or more yards must be gained in the next four plays.
The Wisbech and Upwell Tramway was essentially a light railway operating from the attractive Georgian town of Wisbech, England into the fens of Cambridgeshire, terminating at the village of Upwell in an important agricultural area about 6 miles away. When railways first started to be installed in the UK in the 19th century a significant part of the cost was legal expenses associated with the need to have an Act of Parliament to authorize each individual line. A very slow process! This experimental system, however, operated like a cross between a street tramway and a railway. It was built under the Tramways Act 1870 and operated in much the same way as lines were operated under the, subsequent, Light Railway Act 1896. This legislation owed its origins , in part, to the initial success of this experiment. This resulted in the UK building many rural railways such as the Leadhills and Wanlock Head Light Railway the highest adhesion railway in the country. The Tramway might be seen as the forerunner of the many light rail systems operating in the world on a combination of dedicated and road-sharing tracks although the importance of freight to this line seems unique in the UK (but not unknown in the rest of the world). The Tramway was instigated in 1883 by the Great Eastern Railway. It was intended to increase both passenger and freight traffic on their main line and, at its peak, operated 6 return passenger services per day often including a freight element in the train. Alongside this were numerous dedicated freight services. The outgoing freight was both fruit and potatoes, the main agricultural products in the area, and the majority of incoming freight was coal, much of it destined for the many steam powered pumping engines being used, at the time, to enable the drainage of the East Anglian fens. The line had a coal depot next to the Wisbech Canal at Outwell Basin for on-shipment by barge of coal into the more isolated interior of the fens. During the fruit picking season traffic was intense, with hundreds of fruit wagons being stored in sidings and necessitating a need for a mobile fruit transport office in the form of a modified box van. Initially passengers could be picked up or dropped off at any point along the line by waving to the driver (or asking the guard) as well as the several formal stations between Wisbech East and Upwell but, following accidents, this was later restricted to a number of request stops. In 1966 the Wisbech Canal was filled in, having been officially closed in 1922. Well Creek, which the canal connected with, however remained open and offered a route from the rail system into the Fens waterway network until the line was closed. Because the line was officially a street tramway the Board of Trade required locomotives to be provided with cow catchers and side skirts. This resulted in the construction of several, double cabbed, four wheeled, steam locomotives of a particular design called a Tram Engine. The Tram Engines were rectangular and had the appearance of a brake/guards van or, some would say, a wooden shed on wheels. Fans of the books or TV shows starring Thomas the Tank Engine will remember one of the later and best loved “Characters” was Toby, the Tram Engine, who was nearly always accompanied by Henrietta a four wheeled passenger car (the initial passenger rolling stock on the tramway were 2 four wheeled and 2 eight wheeled (bogie) carriages). A later character was Mavis, a 0-4-0 diesel shunter also based on the Tramway stock. The author of the railway stories, the Rev W Audrey, lived close to the Tramway at the time (1953-1965) and both Toby and Mavis will have been familiar sights. In 1952 the steam engines (now in their second generation with the initial four wheeled engines being replaced by, superficially similar, six wheeled engines (with improved boilers) between 1903 and 1921), were initially supplemented, then replaced, by 0-4-0, class 04, diesel mechanical locomotives made by Drewry. Four of the steam powered tram engines kept, supposedly, for emergencies (but there are lots of old photos showing both the diesel shunters and the tram engines being used concurrently in the late 1950s) The diesel locomotives also had to have cow catchers and side skirts to meet Board of Trade requirements. When Awdry later introduced the character Mavis it was illustrated with cow catcher and side skirts, almost unknown for British diesels of the time, a characteristic maintained for the animated TV series. The local claim that this line was the first entirely diesel powered railway in the UK seems rather tenuous. The traffic on the line was initially limited to a speed of 8mph (and, after 1904. to 12.5 mph) and with the introduction of motor buses after WW1 it could not compete in terms of speed for passengers. The line was closed to passenger traffic in 1927 but kept going for freight services until 1966 The last scheduled train on the line ran on 20th May 1966 some 3 days before its official closure with occasional "heritage" specials running until the tracks were removed. Whilst a few of the railway’s buildings were put into re-use the extensive sidings etc. were built over with little clue of the past beyond occasional street names such as “The Tramway” in Outwell, "Railway Rd" in Wisbech. and "Tram Station Lane" in Emneth plus remains of track bed and occasionally re-used buildings and bridges converted for road use. From the 1980s onwards locals started a campaign to commemorate and provide information about the tramway. Amazingly, for various local political reasons, this series of "mementos", including a sculptured signpost and 5 comprehensive information boards at strategic points, was not completed until 2024. For rail enthusiasts and those who are fans of The Rev Awdry' s railway stories, what is left of the line has become something of a pilgrimage.
St Georges Guildhall in King's Lynn, Norfolk , England was built around 1420 as a guildhall for a religious fellowship (not to be confused with merchant and craft guilds which served a different purpose) in King's Lynn. Religious guilds and the closely related chantries were dissolved by Edward VI in 1547 at which time the guildhall became the property of Lynn Corporation (the dissolution was largely motivated by the transfer assets from religious institutions to the Crown). It is the largest surviving medieval guildhall in the country. From the start of its history the building was used for theatrical performances, at first amateur ones but quickly by professional troupes of actors, the first being a nativity play in 1445 and initially the performances were, mainly, religious plays. After the dissolution of the religious guilds the building was regularly used by a variety of theatrical companies and local tradition has it that William Shakespeare appeared here as an actor, as part of the troupe called the Earl of Pembroke's men in 1593 at a time when troupes of players were driven out of London by the plague. Shakespeare's best known comic actor Robert Armin was born one street away. A scene, in Hamlet, is widely said to have been inspired by an incident in King's Lynn. Theatrical performances were curtailed when banned by the Commonwealth Government of Oliver Cromwell in the early 17th century but resumed after Charles II regained his throne in 1660. After a competing theatre was constructed in the town the guildhall was sold (1826) and for a short time was used as a warehouse. After a number of other uses, including a period of dereliction, the guildhall was restored by the architect Marshall Sisson and then given to the National Trust (1951). Subsequently it has been developed into an arts centre and theatre with the former warehouses in the courtyard were converted into art galleries as early as 1963. Tree ring dating had shown that a floor exposed during renovations in 2023 dated from the time that Shakespeare is reputed to have performed here. In 2024 a door was exposed behind a plasterboard panel which was 600 years old and is thought to have been the entrance to the dressing room used by Shakespeare.
Long before shopping malls swallowed modern cities whole, Budapest had Otthon Áruház — a grand urban department store where residents once bought everything from carpets and textiles to kitchen appliances beneath elegant balconies and enormous skylights. Today, the building feels less like a former shop and more like a time capsule sealed somewhere between the Austro-Hungarian era and late socialism. Standing on busy Rákóczi Road, the exterior gives only a hint of what hides inside. Beyond the worn façade lies a vast multi-level atrium wrapped in curved galleries, iron railings, dusty escalators, and fading architectural details that survived decades of political change, economic collapse, and abandonment. Sunlight still pours through the upper windows, illuminating layers of peeling paint and forgotten interiors that look frozen in time. Unlike many abandoned commercial buildings, Otthon Áruház carries an atmosphere that feels strangely theatrical. The silence inside contrasts sharply with the noise of central Budapest outside, making the place resemble a forgotten shopping cathedral devoted to a vanished consumer culture. Some parts of the building have recently reopened for temporary exhibitions and cultural projects, but much of the structure still retains the ghostly atmosphere that made it legendary among urban explorers. For architecture lovers, photographers, and fans of hidden urban history, Otthon Áruház is one of Budapest’s most surreal surviving relics — a place where glamour, decay, and nostalgia coexist under one enormous roof.
There's no passport or customs check, but yet it feels like wandering into another world. Just outside the tiny village of Kessel, near the German-Dutch border, lies the universe shaped by puppeteer Heinz Böhmler. Historical sources cite that the place has been known for it's mill since the 13th century, but what you see know upon arrival, is predominantly 19th century buildings and a wacky wonderful collection of all things thinkable. Mummified cats and rats? Check. Soaps and boardgames from bygone days? Check. Passports from countries that don't exist anymore? Check. An overview of elektrical switches? Present. There is just a touch of order, like all the dentist-related objects are sort of in the same corner, but there is also a wide array of variation and surprises to be found. Everywhere. And puppets, there are loads of puppets. Parts of the grounds are used as theater and bar, but most of the spaces are used for storing the wildly diverse collection of Herr Böhmer, who moved here in 1994, after the mill had been abandoned and dilapidated. The place now serves a venue for theater events and parties, and is only sparsely open to the public. You can always book a tour however, there are programs called True Craziness (Wahre Wahnsinn) or Time Travel, there are also puppetshows, or you can plan your wedding there. All in all, it's an ode to imagination, to collecting, to chaos. As one of the handwritten signs on display says: today's trash is future treasure.
In the summer of 1897, Sweden held its breath. Engineer Salomon August Andrée, photographer Nils Strindberg, and student Knut Frænkel had lifted off from Svalbard in a hydrogen balloon named Örnen [The Eagle] bound for the North Pole. After that, there was nothing but silence – no signals, no news, no wreckage. Just an emptiness that stretched across three decades of rumour, theory, and quiet national grief. Then, in August 1930, a Norwegian sealing vessel landed on the remote and normally ice-locked island named Kvitøya [White Island] and stumbled upon a frozen camp. The three men lay where they had fallen, their diaries, cameras, and undeveloped film preserved by the cold. Ninety-three photographs emerged from those rolls: haunting images of the crash, the ice, the men themselves, still cheerful and alive against the white void that would soon claim them. Sweden wept again after finally finding out what had happened to the expedition. The procession carrying their remains into Stockholm on October 5, 1930, has been described by Swedish historian Sverker Sörlin as one of the most solemn expressions of national mourning ever seen in the country. Four years later, on December 15, 1934, their ashes were placed in copper urns designed by sculptor Tore Strindberg (younger brother of Nils Strindberg). These urns were lowered into a rock grave at Norra Begravningsplatsen. The monument above them, hewn from granite quarried at Flivik, was a collaboration between Stockholm's stonemasons' guild and Förenade granitindustrier. Strindberg completed the reliefs adorning it in July 1948 — more than fifty years after the men had disappeared into the polar sky. Look carefully at the base of the arrangement. Embedded among the Swedish granite are stones brought back from Kvitøya itself. A piece of the island where they died now sits in a cemetery outside Stockholm, connecting the two places across 2,500 kilometres – a monument to ambition, cold, and a very long silence. The monument stands in section 15E of the cemetery, not far from the graves of Alfred Nobel and playwright August Strindberg, cousin to Nils' and Tore's father.
Located up in the Colorado mountains in the historic mining town of Georgetown lies the Hotel de Paris. Opened in 1875 by Louis Dupuy, the Hotel de Paris quickly became known for it's luxury amenities and gourmet French cuisine during the Colorado gold rush. The hotel is very well preserved and holds over 5,000 items from the late 1800s, many of which are original to when Dupuy owned the hotel. Louis Dupuy was born as Adolphe François Gerard in France in 1844. After leaving seminary school for culinary school, he immigrated to the US in 1866 where he became a writer for a New York paper. After being caught plagiarizing, he joined the US Army. They moved him out to Cheyenne, Wyoming before he deserted and went to Denver, Colorado. He joined Rocky Mountain News as a mining reporter which lead him to Georgetown. He soon became a miner and worked in nearby Silver Plume where he was hurt in a mining accident. The local community raised enough money to help him change careers and rent a local bakery and two adjacent buildings which he turned into the Hotel de Paris. The arrival of the railroad in 1877 improved Georgetown's growth and business. Dupuy made sure the hotel was up to date with the newest and nicest amenities of it's time. Every room had a sink with both cold and hot water, gas lighting (replaced by electric in 1893), and radiant heating. The hotel held on strong until 1893 when the silver crash hit Georgetown's mining driven economy, which didn't recover. Dupuy died in 1900 and left it to his housekeeper and close friend Sophie Gally. She died very quickly after him. In 1903, the Burkholder family purchased the building and made it into a boarding house. They owned it until 1954 when the Colonial Dames of America purchased it from them after years of declining business. It has been a museum ever since. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and later named a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2007. Entering the hotel is truly a step back in time. The original furniture and ornate decorations are floor to ceiling due to the hotel and boarding house closing and immediately becoming a museum.
In 2015, Living Lenses added a public art installation titled Fault Whisper in Fault Line Park in East Village, San Diego. The installation consists of two metal spheres situated directly across from one another, and an accelerometer installed below the spheres in the fault rupture. The accelerometer monitors the movements along the fault rupture and records the direction and amplitude of the movement. The data is then converted into musical notes and broadcast from the west sphere viewfinder. You can click here to learn more about the design and making of the art installation.
In a city known for sleek design, serious museums, and ambitious architecture, FLOP museum celebrates something far less polished: failure. Located in Oslo’s Bjørvika district, close to the Opera House, MUNCH, and Barcode, this small museum is dedicated to products, inventions, and ideas that were launched with confidence but did not go quite as planned. Inside, visitors meet forgotten gadgets, marketing mistakes, dangerous toys, overhyped technology, and products that were too early, too late, too strange, or simply too confusing for the world around them. The museum is funny, but not only because things went wrong. Its real point is that failure is not the opposite of innovation. It is often part of the process. Behind many successful ideas are rejected prototypes, bad timing, public embarrassment, and expensive lessons. FLOP museum mixes international product failures with Norwegian stories, making it a rare place where business history, pop culture, design, nostalgia, and bad decisions share the same room. It is a museum for anyone who has ever wondered how confident people, large companies, and clever inventors can still get things spectacularly wrong.
In the centre of Koregaon Park in Pune lies a stretch of green which takes you to a different world. Osho Teerth Park, also known as Osho Garden, is an oasis of peace and quiet in the middle of the hustle and bustle of all the restaurants and cafes Koregaon Park is famous for. A stream of turquoise water flows through the garden forming tiny pools and ponds at regular intervals before flowing ahead. Tiny bridges made of wood and stones offer visitors the delight of hopping onto the other side of the water stream. Trees, both huge and small, provide a cool shade in the afternoon sun. Storks and egrets waddle through the shallow stream, trying to catch the tiny fish making their way about in the water. At one spot there is a folly, shaped like an ancient stone archway. The folly is covered in ivy, rendering it a fascinating look, quite in keeping with the surrounding aesthetic. Some trees have gigantic roots radiating outwards and spread out in all directions around the tree, like a protective circle. Flat stones have been turned into makeshift steps to reach the water stream at many spots. There is also a tiny waterfall in the middle of a clearing. Pathways have been lined with stones for visitors. The huge trees provide a cool shade everywhere. The entire park feels like a magical adventure. The gentle sound of the stream and the chirping of the birds lend the garden a peaceful charm. The entire aesthetic of the garden relaxes the mind and offers a refreshing experience.
Every February 2nd, the small Georgian Bay town of Wiarton gathers before dawn to consult one of Canada’s most unlikely celebrities: a groundhog named Wiarton Willie. If Willie sees his shadow, tradition warns of six more weeks of winter. If he does not, spring is supposedly just around the corner. In a country where winter often feels endless, thousands still take the prediction remarkably seriously. The tradition supposedly began in 1956 after local resident Mac McKenzie invited friends to a Groundhog Day party at the town hotel. Most ignored the invitation, but a reporter from the Toronto Daily Star made the journey north expecting a genuine festival. Upon arriving, the reporter discovered there was no organised event at all and faced the prospect of returning to Toronto empty-handed to an unimpressed editor. Thinking quickly, McKenzie improvised. A fur hat was tossed into a snowbank to stand in for a groundhog, a prediction was declared, a photograph was taken, and an enduring Canadian tradition was accidentally born. Over the decades, several different groundhogs have taken on the mantle of “Wiarton Willie,” inheriting both celebrity status and the dubious responsibility of outperforming trained meteorologists. The town has fully embraced its furry forecaster. Giant statues of Willie stand around Wiarton, local businesses display his likeness, and every February the community hosts parades, pancake breakfasts, fireworks, and elaborate ceremonies culminating in Willie’s prediction. Today, Wiarton Willie remains equal parts folk tradition, tourism spectacle, and beloved Canadian absurdity: a tiny rodent entrusted with determining the fate of an entire season.
From the town of Vela Luka, follow the signs to Vela Spila. The walk is uphill (genuinely, significantly uphill, but you'll be used to that if you are in Dalmatia!), but if you can manage it, do. The path winds through sweeping views of the Adriatic, past fig and olive trees, and in April, wild irises that stop you in your tracks. The trail is easy to follow, and driving is apparently possible, but the walk is very much part of the experience. At the top: the cave. The path leads you directly to it, unmissable. Vela Spila is intimate in scale, with a gate at the entrance that limits independent wandering inside, though everything is easily visible from the threshold. Entry through the gate isn't always possible due to the cave's structural instability, but even from the outside the view is remarkable. Korčula is a quiet island, and this is a quiet, beautiful spot. Standing here, it is easy to imagine an unbroken human presence stretching back tens of thousands of years, because there was one. Pottery has been found dating to 17,000 years ago, and human burials in the cave have been dated between 13,500 and 12,600 BC. Excavated artifacts are on display at the Centre for Culture in Vela Luka. A 40-minute climb (uphill, did I mention uphill?) to a place that reframes everything. This island was ancient long before we had a word for ancient, and its human history extends back thousands of years before Illyrians, Greeks, and Romans walked here.
Ocean View Avenue in Monterey, California, became known as "Cannery Row" after the 1945 John Steinbeck novel of the same name. From 1902 to the mid-1950's, Cannery Row was the epicenter of the sardine canning industry and home to more than 30 canneries and marine docks. At their peak, the canneries employed up to 4,000 people, and Monterey was known as "The Sardine Capital of the World." Following World War II, the Monterey sardine industry collapsed due to overfishing and environmental changes that affected sardine life cycles. Monterey required plentiful, nearby housing for the workers employed by the canneries. Cannery owners built hundreds of single-room wooden shacks on the waterfront to house the primarily immigrant workforce. These buildings are long gone, but the City of Monterey preserved three. The furnishings of each Shack represent one of three prominent ethnic groups that worked in the canneries -- Filipino, Japanese, and Spanish. The Workers' Shacks were in a section of the Row known as the "Chicken Walk," where embedded planks served as steps up to the houses. Onlookers compared people navigating the plank steps to chickens climbing ladders into chicken coops. The City moved the display Shacks to Bruce Ariss Way, where they sit directly across from the Pacific Biological Laboratory, once owned by marine biologist Ed Ricketts, immortalized as "Doc" in Steinbeck's novels. The units were single-story, one-room buildings constructed from wood planks with board-and-batten siding and wood shingle roofs. Each cottage had a tiny kitchen area with running water, electricity, and natural gas. The spartanly furnished houses came with small tables and iron bedsteads. Cannery workers made as little as 35 cents an hour. Housing was scarce and expensive, so as many as four people occupied a single unit. Because the sardine run was seasonal, many cannery workers left Monterey in February to pick fruits and vegetables or work in the Alaskan salmon canneries. One by one, the canneries closed, and the workers moved on. The famous Hovden Cannery shut down in 1973, and its building became the world-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium. Once, when asked where all the sardines had gone, Doc Ricketts replied, "They're in cans." The three workers' shacks remain as a reminder of a significant period in California's fishing industry.
The Detroit Public Library's main building is one of the most beautiful libraries in any American City. It's truly one of those places you could spend a whole day just looking at the art around the building. Since its opening, Detroit Public Library's "Main Library" building has served as the heart of the Detroit Public Library system. The building was designed by architect Cass Gilbert, who designed other important public buildings in America (like the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.). The Library was constructed with marble in an Italian Renaissance style. Later, Cass Gilbert Jr. (son of the architect) with partner Francis Keally designed the library's additional wings that were added in 1963. The north and south wings opened June 23rd, 1963, and added a significant amount of space to the building. As a part of the addition, a triptych mural was added to the west wall of Adam Strohm Hall on the third floor. The mural is by local artist John Stephens Coppin and is entitled "Man's Mobility" (which depicts a history of transportation). On the opposite wall there is another set of murals by Gari Melchers depicting Detroit's early history (completed in 1921). This library is right across the street from the Detroit Institute of Arts, and is a great place to stop by after visiting the art museum. It is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sinclair Seamen’s Presbyterian Church is nestled away by Belfast’s old docklands, yet few buildings capture the city’s maritime history so completely. Opened in 1857 and designed by English architect Charles Lanyon, the church was built to serve sailors, dockworkers, and merchants moving through the busy port of Belfast during the height of the industrial age. Unlike most Presbyterian churches, its purpose is immediately visible: the pulpit is shaped like the prow of a ship, maritime signal lamps frame the sanctuary, and even the floor contains semaphore symbols welcoming seamen to Belfast Harbour. The building feels less like a conventional church and more like a spiritual extension of the harbour itself. What makes Sinclair Seamen’s unique is its connection to Sailortown, now a vanished waterfront district. This was once home to crowded terraces, lodging houses, shipyard workers, and transient sailors from across the globe, much of which disappeared during 20th-century redevelopment. While Belfast often presents its history through Titanic tourism or political conflict, Sinclair Seamen’s preserves another side of the city entirely: the everyday maritime culture that shaped Belfast into one of the great industrial ports of the British Empire. Inside the church, details such as the bell of HMS Hood and its nautical symbolism transform the building into a living memorial to that lost world.
For centuries, mariners feared the waters around Cape Hatteras in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Shifting sands and powerful storms make the area especially hazardous and unpredictable. More than 5,000 ships sank in these waters in the last 500 years, and it has long been known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. A fascinating museum at the southern tip of Hatteras Island tells the story in detail. The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum explores one of the most dangerous stretches of coastline in North America. The meeting point of the cold Labrador Current and the warm Gulf Stream creates volatile conditions offshore, while the constantly moving sandbars known as the Diamond Shoals have wrecked vessels ranging from pirate-era schooners to Civil War ships and German U-boats during World War II. The museum sits fittingly close to the ferry terminal in Hatteras Village, almost at the edge of the continent itself. Inside, the exhibits trace the long relationship between Outer Banks communities and the sea. Shipwrecks here are not presented merely as disasters or curiosities. They become windows into navigation, weather, commerce, warfare, migration, and survival. Salvaged artifacts, photographs, maritime tools, models, and personal stories reveal how coastal residents built livelihoods around fishing, lifesaving stations, boatbuilding, and, at times, wreck recovery. One of the museum’s strongest themes is the strange duality of the Outer Banks coastline. The same waters that isolated communities and destroyed ships also sustained generations of islanders. The region became famous for the bravery of the U.S. Life-Saving Service crews who launched wooden rescue boats directly into violent surf to reach stranded sailors. That legacy eventually became part of the foundation of the modern U.S. Coast Guard. Originally opened in 2002, the museum was extensively renovated and reopened in 2024 with new exhibits and programs. What makes the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum especially compelling is that the story is unfinished. New wrecks are still discovered offshore. Storms still reshape the coast. Hurricanes continue to expose and rebury fragments of maritime history in the sand. The graveyard is not just a metaphor preserved behind glass. It is an active collection dedicated to loss, survival, and memory.
The waterfall among the rocks in the village of Sündü in the Gobustan region fascinates everyone with its unique beauty. The surrounding trees, berry bushes, and steep rocks seem to add additional color to this beauty. To see this mysterious beauty, you need to go south to the village of Sündü, located 16 kilometers from the center of Gobustan, park your car on the mountain and walk up the slightly steep road. In the summer months, the area around Kirkhbulag, Soyudlu spring, Tandirnohur and Sündü waterfalls are full of tourists every day. One of the reasons for the large number of guests is the convenience of the roads and the proximity to Baku compared to other places. A small, deep lake has formed where the waterfall flows. Sündü (also called Syundi and Syundyu) is a village with an ancient history, located in the midst of fertile plateaus consisting of agricultural fields. The surrounding steep hills, rare waterfalls and springs gushing from their chests, and deep ravines covered with green are just some of the features of the wonderful nature of this village. In addition to the waterfall, Sündü village also has 32 springs, 2 kahriz, 2 water mills, a 100-year-old school, and a mosque dating back to 920.
Set into the red-brick exterior of Gumlösa Church—one of Scandinavia’s oldest surviving stone churches—this weathered relief is both an artifact of ambition and an accident of history. Carved in the mid-16th century, the monument was intended as an elaborate tomb slab for the Swedish nobleman Birger Nilsson Grip, a powerful regional lord and governor, and his wife Brita Joakimsdotter Brahe, niece of King Gustav Vasa. The couple themselves are buried elsewhere, in Småland. This slab never fulfilled its original purpose. Instead, it tells a stranger story. Likely commissioned from a skilled workshop in northern Germany or the Low Countries, the stone was left unfinished—its rough surfaces and incomplete detailing still visible today. During transport to its intended destination, tradition holds that the slab was lost near Gumlösa, possibly amid the chaos of the Nordic Seven Years’ War (1563–1570). Whether dropped, abandoned, or deliberately left behind, it remained in the landscape for centuries. It was rediscovered in 1850 in a nearby field and later embedded into the church’s eastern wall, where it remains today—an orphaned monument, far from the grave it was meant to mark. The relief itself is striking: the noble couple stand side by side in prayer, frozen in a posture of eternal devotion. Birger appears in armor, emphasizing status and martial identity, while Brita is depicted in formal dress, her figure more restrained but equally solemn. Decorative heraldry frames them, though parts of the composition remain incomplete, hinting at the interrupted craftsmanship. What visitors see today is not just a memorial, but a fragment of a disrupted journey—an artwork suspended between intention and accident, preservation and loss.
When Henri Frugès, a sugar trader, wanted to provide his employees with affordable housing, he approached an up-and-coming Swiss-born architect named Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, who would later become known as Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier applied his ambitious vision of minimalist, functional, standardized, prefabricated housing to a small pilot scheme in nearby Lège, where six houses and a communal building were delivered in 1924. He then deployed the same approach on a larger scale to a plot acquired by Frugès in Pessac, where around 50 homes were completed in 1926, albeit somewhat short of the initially planned 135 units. The distinctive, flat-roofed and colorful homes come in six modular variants. These include a row of 'Arcade' designs aptly connected by arcade-like features; twin 'Jumelle' designs; and the comparatively tall 'Gratte-ciel' (skyscraper) homes with outdoor staircases leading to desirable rooftop terraces. Even today, the various units look unusually modern. Back in the 1920s, they seemed revolutionary and otherworldly to the local population, who were more accustomed to the creamy limestone of Bordeaux's typical, low-rise "échoppe" housing than to reinforced concrete, red and blue painted walls, and suspended gardens. Despite the estate's modern conveniences, such as central heating, running water and large windows that let in plenty of sunlight, Frugès’s employees, who worked in central Bordeaux, were reluctant to move to the leafy suburbs of Pessac. Meanwhile, Frugès’s sugar business was struggling with the onset of the late 1920s financial crisis. The Le Corbusier homes were therefore sold on to private owners at a loss. While Le Corbusier’s reputation grew throughout the rest of his life (he died in 1965 aged 77), the Frugès estate gradually fell into disrepair. However, the owners of one of the Arcade models painstakingly restored their home and applied for it to be designated a national monument. This was achieved in 1980, triggering renewed interest in the estate and prompting further renovation efforts on other homes. This positive momentum was amplified when the local town council purchased one of the 'Gratte-ciel' units and transformed it into a walk-through museum. The museum provides a valuable insight into Le Corbusier’s early work and features a scale model of the estate hand-crafted by Henri Frugès himself in his later years. These days, residents have become used to seeing architecture students and enthusiasts exploring the estate. While most of the homes are well-maintained, one or two are little more than unkempt, empty shells. The estate is among the 17 Le Corbusier sites around the world that are collectively listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites and, if you are tempted to own your own small piece of Le Corbusier’s influential architectural legacy, Cité Frugès homes do sporadically appear on the property market!
Hidden away south of the Lincoln Memorial and just steps from the Potomac lies a monument that seems out-of-place on the National Mall. The inventor of the screw propellor may seem like a dull and undeserved choice for memorialization here. However, John Ericsson's achievements were arguably as pivotal to victory in the American Civil War as President Lincoln's leadership. An engineering prodigy from an early age, Ericsson immigrated to the United States where he hoped that his screw propellor would be more well-received in a more open intellectual environment. There, he helped develop the U.S.S. Princeton, which proved to be the most sophisticated warship yet afloat. Later on during the American Civil War, he designed the ironclad U.S.S. Monitor, revolutionizing naval warfare once again. Similar monitor warships were used to ensure naval victory of the Union in the war. Today, modern maritime travel is still greatly indebted to John Ericsson, whose screw propellor is still the basic method of ship propulsion used today. As such, this memorial to him was unveiled on the National Mall in 1926. Behind Ericsson himself, who is sitting pensively on the monument's plaque, are three figures symbolizing adventure, labor, and vision.
The history of the pedestrian tunnel in Gorizia, Italy, underneath the city’s castle has been, for the most part, relatively mundane. The tunnel was originally conceived in the second half of the nineteenth century as a way to connect the city center of Gorizia on the west side of the castle with an animal market (that no longer exists) on the east side of the castle in the neighborhood of Rafut (which is now located across the border in Slovenia). Work on digging the tunnel through the hillside started in 1943 during World War II, but the war soon disrupted the construction of the tunnel in part because local residents needed to use the tunnel as an air raid shelter. The tunnel was eventually completed in 1950 and was named after local politician Giorgio Bombi. After opening, the tunnel would function for decades as a simple, straightforward way for pedestrians and cyclists to commute to and from the city center. In 2025, Gorizia, Italy, and Nova Gorica, Slovenia, were both designated the first transnational European Capital of Culture, and as part of this event, Gorizia renovated the tunnel, transforming it into what is now called the Digital Art Gallery. The tunnel features arched LED screens with an area of over 900 square meters and a length of 100 meters that completely cover the tunnel’s ceiling. Animated displays on the LED screens along with speakers hidden under the lower walls provides visitors with an immersive, surreal experience as they walk through the passage. While this gallery opened as part of the events connected to 2025’s European Capital of Culture, the digital architecture will stay in place in the long term, continuing to provide tourists to the city with otherworldly experiences while also providing local residents with livelier commutes to and from the center of Gorizia.
The Iglesia de la Vera Cruz (Church of the True Cross) was established in the Barrio Lastarria of Santiago, Chile, in 1852. The founders intended it to be a memorial church for Pedro de Valdivia, a Spanish conquistador believed to have lived there. De Valdivia founded Santiago, Chile, in 1541, and served as the country’s first Royal Governor. Although scholars could not confirm the location of his residence in Santiago, the Church was considered symbolic of his arrival and residence in Chile. French architect Claude-François Brunet des Baines designed Iglesia de la Vera Cruz. Fermin Vivaceta completed it in 1857 following Brunet des Baines’ death. Neoclassical in style, the small Church has a single nave, a bright red façade, and a belfry with two bells. It is named “Church of the True Cross” because it holds a relic believed to be a piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. The relic was gifted to the Catholic Church by King Charles V of Spain in the 1500’s. The Chile Ministry of Education declared the Church and its parish house a National Monument in 1983. In 2019, social unrest and civil protests known as the “Social Outburst” rocked the city of Santiago. On November 12, 2019, arsonists and vandals directly related to the protests severely damaged city churches, including Iglesia de la Vera Cruz. A hooded individual allegedly threw an accelerant at the Church’s main doors. The conflagration destroyed the Church’s roof and heavily damaged the interior. During the same protests, the neighboring Church of the Assumption was looted and burned to the ground. No one was ever arrested or charged for the acts of arson and vandalism. After the fire, officials covered the Church doors and windows with sheet metal and painted over the exterior graffiti. The Church remained closed and boarded up for several years. Upon reopening, the parish decided to leave the interior damage exposed and visible as a reminder of the destructive event. The walls and ceiling remain heavily blackened and charred, and some ornamentation shows damage. The building continues to function as a church and cultural space, and its severely scarred interior remains a symbol of Chilean self-determination.
Long before Hollywood cameras arrived, League Stadium was already a centerpiece of small-town baseball in Huntingburg, Indiana. Originally built in the 1890s and rebuilt in 1928, the park has retained its vintage charm, from its wooden grandstand to its hand-operated scoreboard. That authenticity made it the perfect stand-in for the Rockford Peaches’ home field in A League of Their Own. When filming took place in 1992, the quiet town briefly transformed into a movie set, with locals filling the stands as extras and the stadium stepping into cinematic history. Today, League Stadium still hosts games, but it also serves as a living time capsule. Visitors can sit in the same stands seen on screen and experience a rare blend of real baseball history and Hollywood nostalgia—all in a park that looks much as it did decades ago.
While nude statues aren’t unusual, they don’t normally have the mischievous charm of the newly unveiled bronze on Colwyn Bay’s promenade. For this is Terry Jones in his guise as the Nude Organist from Monty Python’s Flying Circus, with his bottom proudly on display. Crafted by local artist Nick Elphick, the statue has the organ morphing with Jones’ real-life writing desk, which features nods to his multi‑faceted career as a writer, historian, director, and performer. Jones was born in Colwyn Bay in 1942, and although his family moved to Surrey when he was four, he maintained connections to the town, becoming patron of Theatr Colwyn and supporting its renovation in 2011. Following his death in 2020 at age 77 from a rare form of dementia, his family decided to create a statue in his memory, funded through a public fundraiser. It was unveiled by them in April 2026, with fellow Pythons Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam. It was subsequently gifted to Conwy County Borough Council. It now stands on the promenade as a warm, playful reminder of a man loved by generations of comedy fans.
Kelmarsh Tunnel is part of the Brampton valley way walkway and is 480m in length. The tunnel and walkway is popular amongst walkers and cyclists alike. Even on the brightest of days, the only thing that can be seen in the tunnel itself, is that light at the end of the tunnel. There are numerous local tales of a Victorian railway worker haunting the tunnel, who succumbed to a tragic death and has been seen both in the day and at night walking the tunnel carrying a lantern. The tunnel itself is is accessible day and night, however be aware, even on the brightest of days you will need a torch to see where you are going. Great for people looking for a nice family day out for a walk and also for those paranormal investigators who hope to catch sight of a ghostly figure. There are also a couple of tunnels a couple of miles North of Kelmasrh, located in Oxendon, however these are not as long.
When the United States entered the Second World War, Alaska became an important strategic hub for military operations in the Pacific, and for the transport of U.S.-built war planes to the Soviet Union for use on the eastern front. This required a considerable amount of petroleum that had to be shipped from the U.S. West Coast to Alaska, and the U.S. Army was concerned this shipping route was vulnerable to Japanese air attacks. The Canol Project was designed to mitigate this project: it involved a building a 2,600km system of pipelines with related roads and telegraph lines from the existing oil field at Norman Wells, NWT to Fairbanks, Alaska, through a remote area that was unmapped and essentially unknown by Europeans. The project was an incredible feat of logistics that involved moving an enormous amount of military and civilian worker, equipment and materials under wartime conditions to an extremely remote area. Workers worked through brutal cold that froze diesel, and horrendous bugs in the summer. They encountered significant challenges building on permafrost and crossing rivers, bogs and mountain ranges. Estimates put the projects' cost at US $300 million in 1944 dollars. Despite the enormous cost, the Canol was a failure. By the time it was complete in 1944, the case for the pipeline was debatable, and in 1945, with WWII nearing its end, U.S. Army shut it down because of its high operating costs. After the war, the U.S. Government had hoped to sell it to the Canadian government or oil companies, but found no buyers for such a remote piece of infrastructure. The pipeline was sold to scrappers, who stripped out everything of value but left pump stations, countless vehicles, equipment, and sections of pipeline on site. While the Yukon portion of the road was rehabilitated to support mining and is open during the summer, the NWT part of the road was left to deteriorate. Since then the 371-km NWT portion of the Canol service road has become a hiking trail. The Canol Heritage Trail is considered one of the most difficult hiking routes in North America, not because it is technically challenging, but because of its extreme remoteness and multiple wide river crossings. While there has been recent work to remove hazardous waste and old telegraph wires, the old vehicles and equipment have been left on site, relics of an expensive misadventure from WWII.
The Fisher Building is this amazingly beautiful building in Detroit, designed in an Art Deco style. It was completed in 1928, and has been called "Detroit's largest art object." This ornate 30-story building, faced with limestone, granite, and several types of marble, is one of the major works of architect Albert Kahn. The namesake of the building, the Fisher family, financed the building with proceeds from the sale of Fisher Body to General Motors. Originally the Fisher Building was planned to be a complex of three buildings, with two 30-story structures flanking a 60-story tower. However, when the Great Depression hit, it caused the project to be scaled back to a single tower. But even just as one tower, it's such an impressive structure. The building is also home to the Fisher Theatre, one of Detroit's oldest live theatre venues. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 29, 1989. The Fisher Building has shops, a cafe, is open 24-hours and is free to walk around in.
Wensleydale, famous for its mild , crumbly, cheese , has a number of attractive waterfalls but the series if three falls at Aysgarth are both the most impressive and the most popular ones on the river Ure. They are in three parts over a stretch of river about a mile long known , unimaginatively, as Upper , Middle and Lower falls or sometimes, in the local dialect, as Upper Middle and Lower Force ( force being the local word for a waterfall.). The upper falls used to be utilised for water power and the mill race which diverted some of the water can still be seen as can the mill building. This mill (Yore Mill) was used to produce woollen textiles and is reputedly the mill which produced the red flannel cloth used by the army of Italian military hero, Garibaldi. Some 200 years ago the falls were visited by Wordsworth whilst he and his sister Dorothy waited to have the horses changed on their stage coach and they were sketched by JMW Turner in 1816. More recently, they have been featured in scenes for both the 1991 movie , Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and the Wuthering Heights movie of 1992. The falls were created about 10,000 years ago and it is thought that their formation was quite, dramatic having been scoured out by water released from the bursting of a terminal moraine which had formed a natural dam at the end of the last ice age. The lower falls are the most impressive whilst the upper falls are most accessible, being viewable from the road bridge which is very close to the parking lot run by the Yorkshire Dale's National Park Authority.
In 1927, Floyd and Jane Wray purchased 320 acres of land near the Everglades for $5.00 per acre to establish a citrus orchard. They named their enterprise Flamingo Grove and planted their first orange tree on February 22, 1927. Over the next three years, the Grove expanded to 2,000 acres, with an inventory of more than 60 fruit varieties. Their business model included selling 5-acre plots of land to investors for $3750. Each acre was pre-planted with 66 citrus trees. The Flamingo tangelo was hybridized at the Grove in 1928 and immortalized in a poem by Jane. The Wray’s also established a botanical collection of rare tropical plants and trees. They obtained the specimens at no cost from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Wray House was constructed on the property in 1933. It is a one-story wooden clapboard residence built by the Wrays as a weekend cottage, and they used it for work and entertaining. The original building had a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bath. The dining room doubled as office space. Over time, the home was expanded to include a sunroom and a larger second bedroom to replace the original. As was common in southern homes, a “summer” kitchen was detached from the main residence and used for barbecues. The Wrays invited the public to visit the Grove and offered daily tours of their operation. Flamingo Grove became one of South Florida’s earliest tourist attractions. A tram was added to transport visitors around the property. Flamingos nested on the property, and Jane introduced peacocks to the gardens in the 1940s. In the 1960s, the resident alligator population was the impetus for an exhibit that included daily shows and demonstrations. After her husband’s passing in 1969, Jane Wray established the Floyd L. Wray Memorial Fund to honor him and preserve 60 acres of the original property. The name was changed to Flamingo Gardens. The Wray House became the Everglades Museum in 1975, with the original hallway serving as the Exhibit Room. In 1990, the Everglades Wildlife Sanctuary created habitats at Flamingo Gardens for injured native animals that cannot be released back into the wild. Residents include otters, hawks, bobcats, and three Florida panthers. A free-flight aviary is home to 45 species of wading birds, numbering over 250. The Flamingo Gardens property features 20 Florida State Champion trees, native hardwoods, and numerous varieties of orchids, hibiscus, crotons, and gingers. In 1991, the Wray House was completely restored to its present state as a model 1930’s South Floridian home. All the furnishings are authentic to that period. Artifacts on display include family pictures and letters from President Eisenhower and his wife thanking the Wray’s for fruit delivered to Key West and the White House.
Following the tragic September 11, 2001, attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in Manhattan, a series of memorials were created around the New York City area to remember the people who died in the attack. The Queen Elizabeth II September 11th Garden, which memorializes the deceased British and Commonwealth citizens from that event, is located relatively close to the World Trade Center site itself. This park contains a lot of subtle symbolism, but the most notable and outstanding feature within the park is the Braemar Stone. Braemar stones in general have their origin in ancient Celtic games. Competitors would throw these rounded stones, which may weigh between 19 and 28 pounds (8.6 – 12.7 kg), like a modern shot put. While the Braemar Stone in the Queen Elizabeth II September 11th Garden looks superficially similar to one of these stones, it was never used in any competition. Instead, the stone was taken from a part of the River Dee near Balmoral, the British royal residence in Scotland, and brought to Manhattan to be placed within the park. The stone now sits on a small plinth marked “New York to Aberdeen” with the distance between the sites marked below the inscription (but partly obscured by the ground), symbolizing the British royal family’s personal connection to this small September 11th memorial.
Most people visiting Eleuthera never know this cave exists, which seems like a real shame. Hidden off Queen's Highway near the Hatchet Bay silos, it's the largest cave system on the island and one of the more genuinely weird and wonderful things you can do in the Bahamas. A descent down a set of rough stairs puts you in the first chamber, where natural light still filters in and a few stalactites and stalagmites give you a preview of what's ahead. Keep going and things get considerably more dramatic. The cave runs about a mile underground across three levels, with formations that locals and visitors have given names like "Cathedral Hall," "The Wizard's Hat," "Wedding Cake," and "Frozen Waterfall." A thin guide string runs along the floor to keep you on track. The cave was described in an 1874 issue of Harper's Monthly as "a cave extending 1,100 feet underground enriched by stalactites of a brilliant brown hue," which is still pretty accurate. At one point you'll need to descend a ladder to reach the second level, where the real formations are. The cave is also home to colonies of leaf-nosed bats, which mostly ignore visitors but will remind you they are there if you make enough noise. And then there's the graffiti. Some of it is genuinely fascinating: signatures carved with carbide lamps dating back to the 1870s, left by people who made their way in here before electricity or automobiles existed on the island. The more recent spray-painted stuff is considerably less charming, but it thins out the deeper in you go. The Lucayan Arawak people, who inhabited the Bahamas before European contact, believed caves were gateways to the afterlife. Archaeological evidence suggests they used Hatchet Bay Cave for burial purposes, which adds a certain mood to the whole experience. The cave is unmanaged, free, and about as far from a tourist attraction as you can get while still being a place people actually visit. It's worth every minute.
Built in 1847 and designed by architect George Buckler, this fine Victorian building on the former site of Wisbech Castle was purpose built as a museum to house and display the collection previously held in in two rooms of a property in Old Market Place. Initially open to subscribing members only the original collection shared its premises with the Wisbech Literary Society (the Literary Society and Museum formally merged in 1877) and this may account for the fact that a small museum in a small market town in Cambridgeshire houses the manuscript of Charles Dickens’s novel “Great Expectations.” The collection also includes that of “Hours of Idleness,” the first collection of poems by Lord Byron. The museum is also associated with the collection of anti slavery campaigner Thomas Clarkeson, including the West African artifacts that he used to use to illustrate his lectures during the campaign to abolish the slave trade starting in the 1780s. There is a display of material related to the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway. The natural history collection includes some fine fossils of Ichthyosaurs and the skeleton of a small Orca. The collection is eclectic, as one would expect from a Victorian museum, but the building itself is the star of the show, a permanent record of the way our Victorian forefathers believed a museum should look and operate.
The only surviving complete round tower in County Kerry, dating from the 13th century. The ecclesiastical complex has an adjoining graveyard with the earliest addition dating from 1770. There is a door, located approximately 3m above the ground. This was a defensive feature that allowed the monks to retreat into the tower via a ladder, which they pulled up after them, separating them from their attackers. The purpose of building a tower was to utilise height to forsee an attack from afar. The tower has 4 windows at its highest level, facing north, south, east and west. Also visible on the north window on the first floor of the tower is a grotesque (gargoyle-like stone carving) of a humanoid with an exposed vulva. This is called 'Sheela-na-gig', and was intended to ward off demons and evil spirits.
In 1891, the National Chautauqua Assembly established Glen Echo Park, just outside of Washington, DC, as a school for liberal arts and sciences, an endeavor that lasted only one year. By the early 1900s, the site had become Glen Echo Amusement Park, catering to the Capital’s pleasure seekers. Although the amusement park rides are long gone, Glen Echo Park still operates its iconic Dentzel Carousel—a lasting reminder of the park’s vibrant history. Today, Glen Echo Park’s century-old Carousel stands as one of the world’s oldest merry-go-rounds, still in operation and at its original location. Constructed by the Dentzel Carousel Company of Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1921, it attracts more than 50,000 visitors each year and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Classified as a “menagerie carousel” due to its number and variety of animals, the Carousel features 52 hand-carved wooden animals and two circus chariots. Its menagerie includes 40 horses, several rabbits and ostriches, a lion, a tiger, a giraffe, and a deer. It spins at a relatively speedy five turns per minute to the accompaniment of a 105-year-old Wurlitzer organ. In 1983, Rosa Patton began a 24-year restoration of the Carousel, returning its animals, organ, canopy building, and floor to their original paint colors. The restoration was completed in 2003, ensuring that its original charm would endure for future generations. The Carousel also became a symbol of social change. During the summer of 1960, it was the site of protests in the American Civil Rights Movement. On June 30, 1960, black students from Howard University in Washington, DC, boarded the Carousel in defiance of the Park’s segregation policies. When confronted by Park security, the students refused to leave, prompting the operator to stop the ride. After two and 1/2 hours, five students were arrested for “criminal trespass.” Protests continued at and around the Park throughout the rest of the summer. When the Park reopened for the 1961 season, it was desegregated. The events at Glen Echo set the stage for legal change. They culminated in the landmark 1964 Supreme Court decision, Griffin v. Maryland, in which the Court ruled that the arrests of Black patrons by a state-commissioned deputy sheriff, albeit working as a security guard at a private establishment, constituted state-enforced segregation violating the 14th Amendment. This case, along with others, set an important legal precedent for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.