Author: Ms. R.

A little over 30 miles away from Los Angeles in the unassuming city of Chino Hills in an average-looking shopping center lies one of the most interesting buildings you’ll ever see. The “Egyptian Building,” as the locals now call, was originally constructed to be an Egyptian restaurant called Farou Food. Work on the exterior of the building was completed in early 2020 and features highly detailed facades on all four sides of the building, including scale replicas of the……

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On a little road surrounded by pine trees and quaint houses in Anniston, Alabama, you can find a number of headstones that mark the final resting places of German and Italian soldiers who were held as prisoners of war. From 1943 to 1946, German and Italian soldiers from the North African Campaign were brought to Fort McClellan as prisoners of war. More than 400,000 Axis soldiers were held as prisoners in camps throughout the United States, and some 3,000……

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Nestled between the candidly-named North Carolina mountain towns of Bat Cave (after an enormous mountainside bat cave) and Lake Lure (famed for its freshwater fishing, aside from being the primary filming location of Dirty Dancing), Chimney Rock does its part to toe the naming convention line. For miles in every direction, the village’s namesake rock is hard to miss. The titular rock is a half-billion-year-old monolith stationed along the eastern edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. While the “chimney”……

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Vere Cornwall Bird, the first prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, was born in St John’s in 1910. He became prime minister in 1981 and held that position until 1994. During that time, Bird took the twin-island nation from a British colony to an independent nation. Bird is seen by many as the father of the nation, and homages to him can be found all over the island of Antigua (the international airport for example was renamed in his honor). ……

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Welcome to the Santuario Di Gilliarey, a small chapel located in the Aosta Valley, not far from Italy‘s borders with France and Switzerland. The quiet here is amazing. The chapel and its breathtaking view. It is said that a small coin left from a traveler in Giliarey’s Oratory will be paid tenfold in our afterlife. Indeed, it is a kind gesture for the inhabitants that will use the money for the urgent repairs. A portion of the donations is used……

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The independence of Tibet is a very sensitive issue for most, made difficult by political pressure from China, which makes it difficult for officials to speak out on the topic. Despite this, a semi-official Free Tibet monument has been the center of its own controversy in Poland‘s capital. The roundabout and impromptu art gallery underneath an overpass were the brainchildren of counselor Kubiak of Warsaw in preparation for a visit of the Dalai Lana. They were painted by artists……

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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, reporter Sam O’Brien takes us to Lily Dale, the world’s largest surviving community of spiritualists, where she learns that there are plenty of ways to connect with the dead—even if you don’t believe in ghosts. 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……

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On a mild afternoon in early September, I walked with a group along the shores of Lake Laugarvatn, Iceland, in search of a local delicacy. As our guide led us past bubbling hot springs, the air smelled of sulfur and the black sand gurgled beneath our feet. We stopped before a large mound of sand. With shovel in hand, our guide started digging, slowly unearthing the stainless-steel pot that had been buried among the black sand and boiling water…….

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The Temple des Mille Bouddhas (Temple of One Thousand Buddhas) is located in the southern Morvan, near the village of La Boulaye. Dragons and banners are now part of the Burgundian landscape. This Vajrayana Buddhist center was established in 1974 in the castle of Plaige by the Very Venerable Lama Kalu Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama and founder of several monasteries. The Buddhist center was officially recognized as a religious congregation in 1995. Today, about 30 monks live on the……

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At its peak, the town of Terrace had as many as 1,000 residents and an eight-track switchyard. But when the cross-country railroad route changed, the town up and moved, leaving not much more than bones behind. Established in 1869, Terrace served as a division point on the First Transcontinental Railroad. The town met its demise in 1904 when the Southern Pacific Railroad was completed, bypassing Terrace and moving the division point 40 miles west to Montello, Nevada. Many of……

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Richard W. Norton struck it rich in the 1920s when he helped discover the Rodessa Oil Field of north Louisiana.  It was thanks to this wealth that Norton’s wife and son amassed quite the collection of fine art. Norton’s wife and son founded the R.W. Norton Art Foundation in 1946. The foundation aims to support and promote the arts. It was with help from the foundation that the R.W. Norton Art Gallery officially opened in 1966. The museum initially housed art that……

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