Author: Ms. R.

This delightfully constructed forest mountain railway was originally built by Barry Brickell to collect clay and wood for his pottery art business. Track laying commenced in 1975 and it took around 32 years to complete the 1.6 miles (2.7 kilometers) line to the top scenic station, the brilliantly-titled EyeFull Tower. This is New Zealand‘s steepest and arguably most spectacular narrow-gauge railway. It has it all, from big drop viaducts to several small tunnels covered in ceramic artwork from Brickell’s……

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During the 18th and 19th-century, limestone was quarried locally at Tomphubil and transported to Strathtay. There, it was rendered down to make fertilizer and mortar. Around 1865, someone decided to build a large kiln at this location instead. The kiln was constructed into the hillside. The quarried limestone was broken into small pieces then loaded into the pot of the kiln. It was then alternatively layered with wood or peat and fired. The ash and quicklime were then drawn……

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Far in the northwest corner of Italy, in the town of Antey-Saint-André, an ancient, little-known aqueduct hugs the hillside. Dating back to the ninth century, the medieval aqueduct, known as Ru Du Pan Perdu, was originally built as an irrigation canal. The structure would collect water falling from mountainside streams and funnel it to the agricultural land below. The name Ru Du Pan Perdu literally means “channels of lost bread” and indicates that the laborers who built the aqueduct were……

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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 the taverns of colonial America to take a frothy sip of the hot ale flip and learn how it helped pave the way for contemporary mixology. 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……

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Loretta Shepard was still a teenager when she started using an alias and talking to strangers in the middle of the night. It was 1953 and Shepard, who called herself Joyce, worked past midnight in an undisclosed studio, operating what was, for its time, state-of-the-art technology. “We were told to give no information of ourselves, so we had to work under a different name,” recalls Shepard, who chose to go by her middle name. “I remember they were real……

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On March 29, 1924, Chin Foin, the wealthiest restaurateur in Chicago’s Chinatown, was found dying at the bottom of an elevator shaft in his own business, the Mandarin Inn. Some said it was a tragic accident, while others suspected foul play. Chin’s wife wondered if her own brother had given her husband a fatal push in a fit of jealous rage. Others suggested it was the work of one of the tongs, the local Chinese crime syndicates. Prior to……

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Roger Spindle was a mail supervisor with the U.S. Post Office Department during the Great Depression. Using funds from the Emergency Farm Mortgage Act of 1933, Spindle and his wife Wilma purchased a 4.5-acre lot and a kit home from Sears, Roebuck & Company—the Brentwood model—for $1,244. The building materials and assembly instructions were delivered by rail to a nearby station and Mr. Spindle hired a pair of local contractors, Bernard and Wallace Cross, to assist with the construction of……

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The Museum of the Future in Dubai can best be described as a torus with an elliptical void standing up. This spectacular building, situated near the financial district it is an amazing feat of architecture in a city filled with extraordinary buildings.   It’s not only the shape of the building that sets it apart from others. The outer structure is covered with Arabic calligraphy, more specifically a poem by Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed describing his vision for the……

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The road begins near San Ignacio, a rugged town in western Belize not far from the Guatemalan border. About three hours down a winding, muddy jungle road and you’ll enter the site of Caracol, a vast, ancient Mayan city that thrived for 300 years and, at its peak, covered nearly 77 square miles (200 sq km)—larger than Belize City today.  Even at its busiest, you won’t find crowds of tourists at Caracol. Although it is located only about 50……

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