Author: Ms. R.

Opened in 1894, the Manchester Ship Canal linked Manchester to the Irish Sea near Liverpool. After six years of work and construction, the 36-mile canal made Manchester’s docks the third-largest in the country, despite the fact the city is 40 miles inland. The canal remained in industrial use for almost 100 years until 1984 when the docks closed, as container ships and other industrial vessels became too large for the canal. Even 30 years after its closure, the concrete……

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An enigmatic monument stands in front of the Freshford House building in Bristol, a bronze sculpture of the mythical phoenix spreading its wings. Its four-sided pedestal comes with reliefs that depict nude female figures representing the four elements and is rich in alchemical symbolism. The earth elemental is depicted as a pregnant woman surrounded by orchids; air strides with pride, her hair flowing in the wind, water flows upstream, and fire seems to emerge from flames. The woman’s face……

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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 a national park in southwest Uganda that is home to nearly half the world’s population of endangered mountain gorillas. They and the local community rely on each other to survive. Learn how to help the Bwindi Mountain Gorillas. The sound of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and the mountain gorillas was recorded by Nick Penny. Our podcast……

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Down a dead-end lane on a salt marsh, encircled by a forest of gnarled petrified oaks—a sight so strange that it inspired the Martian landing scene in H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds—sits the only remains of an abandoned English village: the 13th-century church of Saint Mary’s. Christine McDonald and her friends were so intrigued by the ruins when they stumbled upon it as teenagers in Essex in the 1970s that they decided to make the church their……

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Romeo and Juliet is one of the most famous tragedies in literary history and is set in the city of Verona, Italy. While the story is just a play written by William Shakespeare, the tourism it generates for the Italian city is very real. One of the most visited landmarks in Verona is Juliet’s Balcony, located inside what is called the “House of Juliet,” but is actually just the former residence of a local noble family. Similarly, visitors can……

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Deep inside Queen Elizabeth’s Balmoral Estate is a beautiful iron bridge arching over the Falls of Garbh Allt. From the rough forest road, there is an easy footpath that leads to the bridge, but there is no path on the far side. Queen Victoria loved the falls and commissioned the bridge as a way to better enjoy the site and, in many ways, appreciate the falls more fully. The bridge, formally described as a “cast-iron segmental bridge with decorative……

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WNB Financial’s historic downtown Egyptian Revival building in Winona, Minnesota, was designed by Chicago architect George Washington Maher. The building features incredible Italian marble, Tiffany stained glass windows, and a third floor that is sure to surprise, as it’s filled with taxidermy and hunting trophies. WNB, originally named Winona Savings Bank, was established in 1874. In 1900,  J.R. Watkins, founder of the health and home goods company Watkins Incorporated, took a controlling interest in the bank. After his death, E.L…….

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