Friday, December 13, 2013
Located near the regional center of Rivne, Ukraine, is a small town called Klevan. As of 2001, its population was 7,470. One of Klevan’s main attractions is an overgrown section of railway that visitors can walk across known as the Tunnel of Love or Green Mile Tunnel.
According to Atlas Obscura, the railroad track is approximately 7km from the city center and stretches about 3km (1.86 miles). The private railway is used to transport wood to a nearby fibreboard factory so a train does run on these tracks up to three times daily. As you can imagine, the tracks are highly photogenic year-round.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Fearlessness and a thirst for adventure which these people have is something which can only be admired. Not everyone dares to rise to such a height, and many do so even without insurance. Well, we can only sit on a soft chair in the office, with solid ground under the feet and cheering these daredevils.
Now, that you’ve found that page, you are just about to kill your boredom. Do you love architecture?
Strangebuildings.com has a wonderful collection of the world’s most unusual architecture and together with HDwPic presents you an incredible list of 33 strangest buildings in the world, and best of all, it’s not just another random list, but it is based on 4.520 unique visitor votes.
Well enough of those boring talks, prepare your hand for scrolling down the list, while bored panda eats another bamboo leaf.
1. Mind House (Barcelona, Spain)
Monday, November 11, 2013
When reddit user smartforever posted this magnificent picture of an old rhododendron (from Ancient Greek rhódon “rose” and déndron “tree”) on reddit, he probably made it the most famous rhododendron ever. Most rhododendrons are considered shrubs, but this one definitely could pass for a tree – it’s over 125 years old! You can find it on Google maps (unfortunately, Google Street View car photographed it in the wrong time of the year).
Saturday, November 9, 2013
As a graduate architecture student, Hank was tired of seeing architecture projects that never left the drawing board. So when it came time to come up with a final project, Hank bought an old school bus into and turned it into cozy mobile home.
Together with his brother and a friend, spent 14 weeks converting it into a modern, well-designed mobile home that can host up to 12 people complete with beds, a kitchen, a bathroom and two skylights.
The kitchen consists of a pump sink with plans for an on-board refrigerator and gas cook stove in the future. Rounding out the list of home comforts is the small portable bathroom in the back of the bus.
Most of the furniture in the bus is modular, so it can be moved, stowed away or converted to different functions. The queen-sized bed can be made into a seating or dining area, and most of these modular pieces of furniture also include storage space.
He‘s currently taking the bus for a spin across America to check its viability as a mobile living space in different environments, from national parks to major cities.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Earlier this week, internationally acclaimed photographer Joe McNally posted a heart-stopping photo to Instagram, saying:
“My old battered shoes climbed the worlds tallest building today. What an amazing structure! Tweeting from 820 meters straight up!”
The photograph was taken well above the observation deck (located on the 124th floor), this is literally the highest point on the planet a person can be, on a man-made structure.
Joe McNally’s career has spanned over 30 years with assignments in over 50 countries. He has shot cover stories for TIME, Newsweek, Fortune and The New York Times; been a contract photographer for Sports Illustrated, a staff photographer at LIFE and a 23-year (still ongoing) contributor to National Geographic. He’s fairly prolific on Twitter, and you can also find him online at his Blog, Facebook, Google+ and YouTube.
At 829.9 meters (2,722 ft), the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is the tallest man-made structure in the world. Check out this list of records it holds:
- Tallest existing structure: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously KVLY-TV mast – 628.8 m/2,063 ft)
- Tallest structure ever built: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously Warsaw radio mast – 646.38 m/2,121 ft)
- Tallest freestanding structure: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously CN Tower – 553.3 m/1,815 ft)
- Tallest skyscraper (to top of spire): 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously Taipei 101 – 509.2 m/1,671 ft)
- Tallest skyscraper to top of antenna: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower – 527 m/1,729 ft)
- Building with most floors: 163 (previously Willis (formerly Sears) Tower – 108)[20]
- Building with world’s highest occupied floor : 584.5 m (1,918 ft)
- World’s highest elevator installation (situated inside a rod at the very top of the building)
- World’s longest travel distance elevators
- Highest vertical concrete pumping (for a building): 606 m (1,988 ft)
- First world’s tallest structure to include residential space
- World’s highest installation of an aluminium and glass façade: 512 m (1,680 ft)
- World’s highest nightclub: 144th floor
- World’s highest restaurant (At.mosphere): 122nd floor at 442 m (1,450 ft) (previously 360, at a height of 350 m/1,148 ft in CN Tower)[30][31]
- World’s highest New Year display of fireworks.
Taken earlier this month by redditor NothingI5True, is a picture of the famous Space Needle in Seattle, Washington.
He says he took the photo from his office window just as a heavy fog was rolling through. Another case of right place right time, as the fog makes the top of the space needle look like a UFO! Ten minutes later he said the fog was gone.
The Space Needle is an observation tower and at one time was the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River. The Needle is 605 ft (184 m) high, 138 ft (42 m) wide, and weighs 9,550 tons. It was built for the 1962 World’s Fair.
In this striking sunrise photograph by Manuel M. Almedia we see the Bufadero de la Garita in Telde, Gran Canaria in Spain’s Canary Islands. According to VisitCanaryIslands.org, the phenomenon comes from a ‘complex of basalt prismatic figures that have an underwater hollowness made by a volcanic tube which successively expels the water trapped inside, reaching a considerable height’.
This is the final shot of three pictures taken by Almeida showing this fascinating location. In the other photos you can see both the water rushing in and the water being expelled as outlined above. Although I’m unsure how deep this chasm actually is, the sight of ocean water gushing in to fill a large hole is truly a spectacle that would be exciting to experience and photograph!
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Hiking up the path to Bellavista from the edge of Baños, Ecuador, you reach a viewpoint and a seismic monitoring station named La Casa del Árbol (The Treehouse). As the name suggests it’s a small house built in a tree, at the edge of a canyon. The view from up here alone is worth the trip, but for adrenalin junkies, La Casa del Árbol offers a unique bonus – a swing hanging over the precipice. Believe it or not many of the people who come here actually use it just to see what it’s like to swing into the void, and the internet is full of scary photos of them hanging over the abyss. It’s reportedly a great way to keep yourself entertained when the clouds block the view of Ecuador’s rumbling Tungurahua volcano, but just I can’t stop thinking about the possibility of one of the lines, or the thin metal beam supporting it breaking which would most likely cause the rider to fall to his death. I know, I’m a coward, no need to rub it in.
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Friday, October 25, 2013
Watkins Glen State Park is located outside the village of Watkins Glen, New York, south of Seneca Lake in Schuyler County in the Finger Lakes region.
The centerpiece of the park is a 400-foot-deep (120 m) narrow gorge cut through rock by a stream – Glen Creek – that was left hanging when glaciers of the Ice age deepened the Seneca valley, increasing the tributary stream gradient to create rapids and waterfalls wherever there were layers of hard rock.
The park features three trails – open mid-May to early November – by which one can climb or descend the gorge. The Southern Rim and Indian Trails run along the wooded rim of the gorge, while the Gorge Trail is closest to the stream and runs over, under and along the park’s 19 waterfalls by way of stone bridges and more than 800 stone steps. The trails connect to the Finger Lakes Trail, an 800-mile (1280 km) system of trails throughout New York state.
You can find more visitor information at the official park website.
The beautiful capture above was taken by Peter Rivera who explains in his Flickr photo description:
“Shooting with shutter speeds of about 2 seconds I used a stone wall as a brace for this one. I walked through the gorge twice with my young son Simon, once for reconnaissance and then another pass for the shots I wanted. A cloudy day allowed me to slow the shutter down with a polarizer on the lens.”
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Seen here is a beautiful outlook point at Sai-Thong National Park in Chaiyaphum province, Thailand. For those not too afraid of heights, this would be an amazing place to reflect and ponder or to just soak in the beauty of our planet.
According to Thailand’s Department of National Parks website, this outlook is known as Pha Hum Huet and is a popular destination for hikers. Sai Thong National Park is located in the Pung Huei Mountain range and includes the Na Yang Gluk Conservation Forest. The national park was designated on the 30th December 1992, with total area of 319 km2.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Seen here is a section of the Great Wall of China tourists don’t typically see. as travel photographer Trey Ratcliff recalls:
“Just to get to this point required a long walk through a rocky forest. It wasn’t like the super-pristine part of the Great Wall (which is actually quite fake and Disney-like) — where you can drive up in a huge tour bus and park in a huge parking lot. No, it wasn’t like that at all. Instead, there was a “path” that was barely discernible (much less so when I walked back in the dark alone!) that wove up through a forest along an old creek bed. I’m not sure I could find it again if I had to!”
The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials. It was generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC. Since then, the Great Wall has been rebuilt, maintained, and enhanced; with the majority of the existing wall reconstructed during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644).
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Located in the village of Lotofaga (population: 1,089) on the south coast of Upolu island in Samoa, is the To Sua Ocean Trench. An all-natural swimming hole with a large ladder and small dock, visitors can pay a fee ($15 for adults, $6 for children 7-15, free for kids under 7) to access the 30 meter (98 ft) deep hole.
The island of Upolu was formed by a massive basaltic shield volcano. With an area of 1,125 km2 (434 sq mi) and a population of 135,000, it is the second largest in geographic area and the most populated of the Samoan Islands. Samoa gained its independence from New Zealand in 1962.
To Sua Ocean Trench is open all week from 7am to 6pm.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Land of Artsakh... Thanks to its enchanting nature and rich centuries-old history and culture, Artsakh is the crown of the Caucasus. the heart of the Armenian highlands. In itself it's a kingdom of skyscraping mountains and bottomless gorges, rushing rivers, frosty springs, thousand-year-old monasteries and castles, lacework crosses-stones, and prehistoric caves,Here the past and present, the new and old, exist side-by-side Artsakh is a dream sculpted from stone Artsakh is the land of mighty princes and impregnable fortresses as well.It is a symphony of natural and man-made wonders. Artsakh is the land of the soul...
Official website: www.karabakh.travel
Monday, September 30, 2013
Gaiole – two small rocky island off Cape Passilipo in the Bay of Naples off the coast of Italy. On one of the islands built a small villa, the other – uninhabited. The islands are connected to the unusual stone bridge. GAIOLE look very picturesque and serene, but with them, is quite grim story, and local residents believe that the curse of the Gaiole gravitates. In the early twentieth century, the villa was a master Hans Braun, who was found murdered here and wrapped in a carpet. Soon after, his wife had drowned in the sea. Villa acquired pharmacist Maurice Sandoz, which after a while committed suicide in Switzerland. The next owners of the island went bankrupt immediately after the purchase of the villa. Some time Gaiole belonged to the owner of Fiat, Gianni Agnelli, but after the suicide of his son’s death from cancer and favorite nephew, he sold the island. Since then, the villa is abandoned. Curious with the curse of the island attracts tourists who admire the amazing bridge slung between the islands. It seems that the thin arch stone bridge that literally hangs in the air.
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Sunday, September 29, 2013
Located on Lake Michigan is the St. Joseph North Pier (google maps), which features two lighthouses (‘Outer’ and ‘Inner’) that were both built over a century ago.
When the wind picks up during Michigan’s frosty winter months, large waves crash upon the pier and lighthouses, creating beautiful ice formations only nature is capable of.
Over the years, environmental and landscape photographer Tom Gill has journeyed to the pier to capture the amazing ice formations. His photographs have been published worldwide and can be seen in his 75+ photo Flickr album entitled Frozen World.
The inner lighthouse was first lit in 1907. The steel tower stands 57 ft (17.37 m) tall with a light that is visible over a range of 270 degrees. The lights are connected by an elevated catwalk that extends from the shore to the outer lighthouse. During inclement weather, the catwalk allows light keepers to access the lighthouses. The pier is located on Lake Michigan, on the north breakwater at the mouth of the St. Joseph River in St. Joseph, Michigan, near Tiscornia Park.
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Thursday, September 26, 2013
Neuschwanstein Castle is a 19th-century Romanesque Revival palace (i.e., a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th and 12th century Romanesque architecture) on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany.
The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as a homage to Richard Wagner. Ludwig paid for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing, not with Bavarian public funds. The palace was intended as a personal refuge for the reclusive king, but it was opened to the paying public immediately after his death in 1886.
Since then over 60 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle. More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with up to 6,000 per day in the summer. The palace has appeared prominently in several movies and was the inspiration for Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle.
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