Author: Ms. R.

It is quite remarkable to think that Arthur’s Seat, a large hill sitting to the southeast of Edinburgh, was an active volcano many million years ago. The now dormant volcanic plug sits at a height of 251 meters (823 feet) and gives fantastic views over the city of Edinburgh, North Berwick on Scotland’s east coast, and the North Sea beyond.  It is thought that around 350 million years ago, Arthur’s seat was formed by a volcanic eruption and the……

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On October 21, 1965, the San Bernardino Sun ran a recipe for what it described as a “moist luscious piece of chocolate cake.” The newspaper promised a dinner-party crowd pleaser, yet added conspiratorially, “your guests will not guess your secret until you are ready to reveal it to them.” In this case, the secret was “crisp, crunchy sauerkraut.” Home bakers have always reveled in a secret ingredient—the weirder the better. When The Washington Post ran a similar recipe years……

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Just off the coast of northeastern Scotland is a large arch called Bow Fiddle Rock. The 50-foot-tall rock formation was named for its resemblance to the tip of a bow used to play a fiddle or a violin. Bow Fiddle Rock formed over the course of millions of years of natural erosion. It is part of the Cullen Quartzite formation, a stretch of metamorphic rock found along this part of the Scottish coast. Originally, the rock would have been sandstone……

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Lapinlahti Hospital is a former psychiatric facility situated in a quiet area on the west side of downtown Helsinki. The hospital was founded in 1841 and operated for over 160 years before its closure in 2008. It was founded by professor Carl Daniel von Haartman on orders of Emperor Nicholas I, as the quality of care for mental patients in Finland at the time has been deemed abysmal. It was the country’s first clinical building solely built for psychiatric care,……

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Its hangar and building now abandoned and nearly forgotten in the Kaibab National Forest, the Red Butte Airfield was the Grand Canyon’s original airport, and it hosted some notable guests in its time.  Retired army pilot J. Parker Van Zandt and engineer B. Russell Shaw, who had worked with aviation pioneers the Wright Brothers, opened the airfield in 1927 as Scenic Airlines, Inc. Soon after it opened, the stock market crash that sparked the Great Depression forced them to……

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In summer, tiny Lake Šobec, not much larger than an Olympic swimming pool, is a playground. It’s the main attraction at a popular camping site just outside Bled in mountainous northern Slovenia. Šobec’s shallow waters feature areas for swimming and kayaking, plus a modest water park. Ducks and swans share the shore with humans, while a variety of small fish tickle the toes of anyone splashing past them. When winter descends on the Alpine landscape, however, the small lake……

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In 2019, Tsuru for Solidarity, a social justice organization led by Japanese Americans, wanted to organize a rally in Washington DC to protest the separation of migrant children from their families at the US-Mexico border. Because many in Tsuru for Solidarity had family members who were incarcerated at detention sites in the United States during World War II, they planned to chant the names of the people currently being held along with the names of those who were incarcerated……

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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 join Jonathan Carey and Michelle Cassidy of the Atlas Places Team, as they bring you stories of how sometimes giant monuments need to go on journeys no one every expected. 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……

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