Author: Ms. R.

If you were wandering the wilds of the Wasatch National Forest in Utah in September 2023, you might have encountered a strange sight: a line of slowly marching horses, with beavers saddled on their backs. Unfortunately, the rodents were not wearing tiny cowboy hats and boots. They were inside carriers, but their journey via horseback was still a fairly Wild West–type of solution to a problem. These beavers were headed to a new home—a battleground in the fight against……

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China’s oldest surviving city map is carved on a three-meter-tall stone tablet. Known as the Map of Pingjiang (now Suzhou), it was made in the year 1229 during the Song dynasty. The map covers the area within Suzhou’s city walls with remarkable accuracy: five city gates, 359 bridges, 67 temples, and numerous streets, lanes, and canals. Suzhou old town’s layout has remained largely unchanged in the nearly 800 years since the map was created, and so have most of……

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The Eel House sits beside the Wayfarers’ Way footpath in an idyllic woodland valley about just outside the town of New Alresford. It straddles the clean clear waters of the tranquil River Alre with a foot on each of its banks. The modest building with a clay-tiled roof dates back to the 1820s, when the Harris family of nearby Arlebury Park commissioned this minor masterpiece of 19th-century ingenuity. Its purpose was to trap mature eels near the start of……

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Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we visit Goffstown, New Hampshire, the pumpkin boat capital of New England, and meet the man who came up with the annual, improbable Goffstown Giant Pumpkin Regatta. Our podcast is an audio guide to the world’s wondrous, awe-inspiring, strange places. In under 15 minutes, we’ll take you to an incredible site, and along the way you’ll meet some……

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The Cilwendeg Shell House Hermitage was built in 1820, and thanks to a restoration project in 2004, the mysterious and impressive structure still stands. It was built by Morgan Jones the Younger of the Cilwendeg Estate, who constructed it as a shrine for his late uncle, Morgan Jones the Elder, who lived much of his life as a recluse from society. It’s coated from head to toe in seashells and minerals from local beaches, as well as fragments of colored……

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While the art of turning churches into cafés, libraries or even techno clubs is nothing new within a country such as the Netherlands, Czechs have always been a bit more conservative. This church, however, stands out. With a bizarre architectural style that stands in contrast to the city’s baroque buildings, this former church looks as though it belongs in the Baltics rather than Central Europe. Founding of the church can be traced back to the Germans living in Olomouc……

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An ancient Rimu tree estimated to be at least 800 years old peeks through the canopy at Ōtari-Wilton’s Bush. These remarkable, slow-growing trees can only be found in New Zealand. Park officials erected a platform around the ancient Rimu tree, nicknamed ‘Moko,’ to protect its fragile roots system.  The botanical garden and forest preserve is a reminder of what the New Zealand’s landscape was like before the arrival of European settlers. Upon arrival, European settlers quickly cleared the land for development……

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The lighthouse was originally built by the Venetians in the 16th century. It saw a rocky life, death and rebirth through following years when in 1645, Turks took control of the city and allowed the tower to collapse. In 1864, Egyptian troops raided and rebuilt it. It once again became damaged during WWII, however has now been a listed archeological site since 1862. Of the original building, only the base remains. A short walk along the defensive wall to……

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Our Stone Age forebears chewed gum just like us—except their version of “gum” was actually a tarry tree resin, and we can be sure it tasted nothing like Wrigley’s Doublemint. Samples of this birch pitch still embedded with 10,000-year-old tooth marks were discovered in Sweden several decades ago, but a recent study has revealed more about what the prehistoric teenagers ate and other activities they did with their teeth. The study, published last week in the journal Scientific Reports,……

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