Soca River – The Emerald Beauty

The Soča is a 136 km long river that flows through western Slovenia and northeastern Italy in one of the most beautiful and unspoiled valleys in Europe, springing from the limestone mountains in the north western part of the Julian Alps and quickly descending towards the sea. The rive flows majestically alongside mountain meadows, through steep gorges and under towering mountains until it reaches Italy, where it becomes the “Isonzo” then ending its short journey into the Adriatic sea

The river is famous for its remarkably clear emerald-green water, because of which its often called "The Emerald Beauty." It is said to be one of the rare rivers in the world that retain such a color throughout their length. The beautiful setting inspired Disney to film their 2008 movie Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian on this location.

For tourist, Soca and the region around it offers plenty of adrenaline rushing activities like mountain biking, water rafting, kayaking, paragliding, canyoning, and much more.

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Wind and Rain Bridges of the Dong People of China

The Dong minority is one of the 56 ethnic minority groups that reside in China. The Dong people live in scattered villages in China’s Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou and Guangxi provinces where they are famous for their traditional sweet rice and for their unique carpentry skills which they display by constructing beautiful wooden covered bridges. These bridges are called "Wind and Rain Bridges" because there are pavilions built on the bridge that provide shelter to people from the wind and rain. These bridges have also earned the name of "flower bridges" because of their exquisite architecture. On a raining day, the pavilions on the bridge provide locals an excellent place to meet, relax, socialize, exchange ideas, and even amuse.

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A Wind and Rain bridge is normally composed of the bridge, a tower and a pavilion, with wood being the main building material. On both sides of the bridge, there are railings and benches, providing a resting area for passers-by in the roofed corridor. The upturned eaves, towers and pavilions are decorated with dragon and phoenix carvings on the stone piers, with auspicious motifs of treasure gourds and longevity cranes etc. adorning the top of the bridge.

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Magical Miniature Worlds by Matthew Albanese

Matthew Albanese creates small-scale meticulously detailed models of outdoor scenes and landscapes using everyday, simple, mundane materials and transform them into an image through the lens of his camera making them look hyper-realistic. Albanese has used ordinary household items such as spices, cotton, colored paper, ink, steel wool and glasses to create his dioramas. We have featured Matthew Albanese’s amazing work in 2010. Here are some of his more recent creations.

Matthew Albanese stumbled upon his Strange Worlds idea by accident one day while in the kitchen at work.

“The first Strange World that I created was Paprika Mars,” Matthew details. “I had spilled paprika in the kitchen and instead of cleaning it, I was playing with it. It was the color and the texture and I just had the inspiration to create Mars out of it.”

And thus began an obsession with miniature dioramas. By day, Matthew is a professional fashion photographer. By night, he’s been creating large dioramas of tiny environments and photographing them.

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Hyper Realistic Pastel Portraits by Ruben Belloso Adorna

Ruben Belloso Adorna is a talented young artist from Seville, Spain, who, at the age of 27, has already made a name for himself in the art world. Trained in fine arts from the University of Seville, Belloso works with pastels creating incredibly realistic portraits of people that’s hard to believe are not photographs.

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Italy's Earthquake Ravaged Ghost Towns

You'll have heard, no doubt, of Pompeii, the Roman town perfectly preserved in a moment when nearby volcano, Mount Vesuvius, erupted. The townspeople had no time to flee and when the lava hit, they and their houses were preserved for thousands of years. Slightly lesser known, however, are the ghost towns dotted around other areas of Italy that were created by earthquakes. From artist communes; to film locations; to the plain spooky; these Italian ghost towns are truly sublime.

Romagnano al Monte

A very recent addition to the Italian ghost town collection, Romagnano al Monte was a small village in Salerno that was destroyed by the Irpinia earthquake of 1980. The earthquake claimed 3,000 lives. The astute villagers chose to relocate rather than rebuild, and moved a few kilometres away to a safer area, but the bulk of the town remains. In the 2000s, the area became a tourist attraction. Despite only being 30 years old and being littered with the remains of electricity wires and modern conveniences, the town already feels like a medieval ruin.

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4 of the World's Most Amazing Treetop Hotels

Once upon a time, building a hotel meant bulldozing the planet's precious trees. However, many of the world's accommodation providers now prefer a greener solution. Read on to learn about four of the most amazing hotels built into the trees.

Ariau Amazon Towers, Brazil

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Ariau Amazon Towers, northwest of the Brazilian city of Manaus, sets the standard for treetop hotels. With 288 suites located in seven towers over the Rio Negro, it's the largest commercial treetop hotel in the world. The late explorer Jacques Cousteau came up with the idea of creating a hotel in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, in the style of the native Brazilians. He shared it with a local hotelier, who decided to make Cousteau's dream a reality. Ariau Amazon Towers' tallest unit, known as the Tarzan House, is perched atop a living Mmahogany tree. It stands more than 72 feet above the grand to capitalize on its views of the surrounding Amazon Rainforest. But this vista pales in comparison to the sights you'll enjoy from the hotel's 150-foot observation towers.

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The Incredible Barringer Meteor Crater of Arizona

About 50,000 years ago, a rock fragment broke away from the asteroid belt and hurtled towards earth. The rock, composed of nickel and iron, was about 50 meters across and weighed 300,000 tons. It was travelling at 12.8 kilometers per second. Upon entering the earth’s atmosphere it became a giant fireball that streaked across the North American sky. When it crashed into the plains of Arizona, it exploded with a force equal to 10 megatons or about 150 times the force of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

The violence of the impact vaporized the meteorite leaving little residue, but millions of tons of limestone and sandstone were blasted out covering the ground for a mile in every direction. When the dust settled, what remained was a crater over a kilometer across and 750 feet deep. The impact occurred during the last ice age, a time when the Arizona landscape was cooler and wetter. The area was an open grassland dotted with woodlands inhabited by woolly mammoths and giant ground sloths. The force of the impact leveled the forest for miles around, hurling the mammoths across the plain and killing or severely injuring any animals unfortunate enough to be nearby.

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U Bein’s Iconic, Kilometer Long Wooden Bridge in Myanmar

U Bein’s bridge is a teak structure that stretches almost 1,200 meters across the Taungthaman Lake, near the ancient Burmese capital of Amarapura. It is said to be the longest and oldest teakwood bridge in the world. The bridge was built in the mid 1800’s by the mayor U Bein by salvaging unwanted teak columns from the old palace when the reigning King Mindon decided to move the capital to Mandalay. U Bein’s bridge is supported by more than 1,000 pillars and thousands of wooden planks. Over time some of the pillars have been replaced by concrete piles to strengthen the structure so that it continues to serve as a main passage indispensable to the daily life of the local people, as well as being an exciting tourist destination.

Amarapura was founded in May 1783 as the capital of the Konbaung Dynasty. It remained so until 1857, when King Mindon began building a new capital city of Mandalay, 11 km north of Amarapura. With the royal treasury depleted by the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, Mindon decided to reuse as much materials from Amarapura in construction of Mandalay. The palace buildings were dismantled and moved by elephant to the new location, and the city walls were pulled down for use as building materials for roads and railways. Unwanted wood from the palace and temples went into building of the bridge.

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Cruise Ship On a Cliff is Actually a Hotel

Perched high above the shores on the costal cliff in Jeongdongjin, a South Korean tourist town known for having the best view of the sunrise, according to the website visitkorea.com, is a cruise ship that appears to have been mysteriously transported from the sea. That is Sun Cruise Resort & Yacht - the world’s first on-land cruise themed resort.

The hotel measures 165 metres in length, 45 metres in height, and 30,000 tons in weight. The Sun Cruise Resort has 211 rooms, both condominium and hotel style, a Western and a Korean restaurant, revolving sky lounge, a night club, a karaoke, and sea water pool. It also offers six state-of-the-art function rooms for seminars and workshops.

The resort was designed to give tourists a realistic feel of a cruise ship without the motion sickness. Overhead speakers play sounds of crashing waves around the ship and even bird calls. Opened in 2002, it quickly became one of the most popular attractions in South Korea. Any why not? You can enjoy the whole experience for only £45.12 a night (80,000 South Korean Won).

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Annual Sand Washing Operation at Xiaolangdi Dam on Yellow River

These incredible pictures were taken at Xiaolangdi Reservoir on the Yellow River in Jiyuan, Central China’s Henan province early this month. What looks like a scene from a disaster movie is actually a meticulously-planned method of clearing silt that's built up in the dam. Silt builds up in massive amounts on the river bed which can slow the water flow and raise the level of the river, increasing the risk of flooding. So in an annual cleaning operation, the authorities open the floodgates allowing the slit to be washed downstream. Each year more than 30 million tonnes of silt are moved this way, with more than 390 million tonnes shifted over the last 13 years of operation.

In fact, the large-scale silt-shifting operation has become something of a tourist attraction, drawing large crowds who, umbrellas aloft, watch the waves crash through purpose-built holes in the huge dam.

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Anne-Catherine Becker-Echivard Makes Art Out of Fishes

Dressing up animals and placing them in a variety of situations is not a new concept. We have seen cats, squirrels, rats and rabbits dressed up as people, but this is the first time we are seeing someone placing decapitated heads of dead fishes atop doll-like figurines to create miniature scenes.

Paris-born artist Anne-Catherine Becker-Echivard, uses market-fresh fish to create her wacky scenes. After she is done photographing, she cooks and eats them.

“It is the perfect recycling of art. Nothing is left over - and I can live from it,” she said. No wonder, her family and friends thinks she is crazy.

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The Poisonous Blue Lagoon of Harpur Hill, Buxton

From a distance, an abandoned quarry at Harpur Hill in the English town of Buxton looks like a true paradise. The water is a brilliant turquoise blue that looks like something from the Mediterranean. Locals call it the “Blue Lagoon”. But looks can be deceiving. In reality, the water in the pool is blue due to chemical pollution – toxic leftovers from its industrial days. There are signs close to the shoreline that warn people of the pool’s dangerous contents that include abandoned cars, dead animals and human waste, and the ‘beach’ is limestone chippings. Despite the warnings, the flooded quarry had become a bizarre holiday destination as young people and even families turn up to camp out, swim and hold all-night drinking parties there because the web pictures show an idyllic stretch of water with a ‘beach.’

The attractive coloring of the water is caused by the surrounding limestone rocks which leach calcite crystals into the water, turning it turquoise. The calcium oxide in the water turns it alkaline with a pH level of 11.3, only slightly lower than bleach (ph 12.6) and ammonia (pH 11.5) - toxic enough to cause skin and eye irritations, stomach problems and fungal infections.

In June 2013, the council poured black dye into the water to lessen its appeal, and so far the plans has worked. Tourists have stopped swimming in it. Local business owner Rachel Thomas told to BBC, “They don't think they're on holiday in the Bahamas any more, they know they're in Harpur Hill.”

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Blue Lagoon Geothermal Spa in Iceland

The Blue Lagoon geothermal spa is one of the most visited attractions in Iceland, and easily the most photographed. The spa is located in a lava field in Grindavík on the Reykjanes Peninsula, southwestern Iceland, approximately 13km from the Keflavik International Airport. Though the lagoon looks like something born from Iceland’s otherworldly landscape, it is actually man made. The lagoon was created by run-off from the nearby Svartsengi power plant, which pumps up the geothermally heated water from a full mile below the surface. After being used to run turbines that generate electricity, the excess water is fed into the lagoon. The water is renewed every 2 days.

The warm waters are rich in minerals like silica and sulfur and bathing in the Blue Lagoon is reputed to help many people suffering from skin diseases such as psoriasis. The water temperature in the bathing and swimming area of the lagoon averages 40 °C (104 °F) and is enjoyable year round, even in freezing conditions.

In addition to the lagoon, there's a sauna, steam bath carved out of a lava cave and a massaging waterfall. A shop, café and viewing deck keeps spectators amused.

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Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s Strange Architecture

Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928–2000) was an Austrian painter, architect, and sculptor best known for his architecture characterized by colorful, ornamental, and biomorphic shapes. He initially gained acclaim for his paintings, but later became more renowned for his unique architectural styling.

Inspired by the Vienna Secession movement, especially the work of Austrian painters Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, Hundertwasser incorporated his decorative, labyrinthine spirals into his paintings, architecture and designs for postage stamps and flags. He developed his own theory of “transautomatism”, which was inspired by the Surrealist concept of automatism (painting or drawing without conscious self-censorship), and sought to loosen the rigid rules of conventional art to emphasize the viewer’s experience. Hundertwasser's architectural style is often compared with those of Antoni Gaudi.

In the 1950s, Hundertwasser began designing architectural projects. These designs use irregular forms, and incorporate natural features of the landscape. The Hundertwasserhaus apartment block in Vienna is one famous example. This building has undulating floors, a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows. He took no payment for the design of Hundertwasserhaus, declaring that the investment was worth it to "prevent something ugly from going up in its place".

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What If You Dropped Manhattan Into the Grand Canyon?

When Swiss photographer Gus Petro took a trip to the United States last year, he was struck by two things – the vast emptiness of the Grand Canyon and the sheer density of New York City. Petro writes about his experience when he visited the Grand Canyon the first time.

When we arrived at the place it was too dark to see a thing. We went on the cliff and tried out our powerful spotlights but all light was just sucked by the abyss. We had to wait for the morning. I remember waking up still at night and getting there again. It was completely dark. I just sat there and waited not knowing what to expect for until the dawn came. I was blown away by the view and the feeling.

Petro came to the Grand Canyon, one week after seeing New York City. The "contrast between the two was so strong and overwhelming that I had to express it somehow," he was quoted as saying to the Atlantic Cities. So he created a photo project he calls “Merge”.

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Giant Dragon Skull on an English Beach Promotes “Game of Thrones”

On Monday morning, locals and holiday makers were surprised to discover what appeared to be a giant skull of a dragon on Charmouth beach in Dorset’s Jurassic coast in England. The spectacular skull the size of a bus appeared to have been washed up on the beach famous for its treasure trove of dinosaur fossils. No need to panic. It’s just a publicity stunt by U.K. streaming video service Blinkbox who knows exactly how to celebrate the arrival of season 3 of the TV series Game of Thrones on their service.

The skull, which measures 40 feet long, 8 feet wide and 9 feet tall, took a team of three sculptors over two months to design, construct and paint. The skull was then transported across London and plonked down on Jurassic coast overnight. The choice of location was brilliant. The Jurassic coastline is home to a sequence of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rock formations spanning 185 million years of the Earth’s history. A large number of fossils has been unearthed in this region. The last major fossil to be found was that of the Ichthyosaur, a dolphin like creature which lived 220-65 million years ago.

The dramatic skull sculpture work was inspired by a memorable scene in the series which sees character Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) discover a dragon skull in the dungeons of King’s Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms. At this point in George RR Martin’s fantasy, the dragons are supposedly long dead, but it hints strongly at their return, which is a developing theme in the story.

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Sao Paulo: The City With No Outdoor Advertisements

In September 2006, the mayor of São Paulo passed the so-called “Clean City Law" that outlawed the use of all outdoor advertisements, including on billboards, transit, and in front of stores. Within a year, 15,000 billboards were taken down and store signs had to be shrunk so as not to violate the new law. Outdoor video screens and ads on buses were stripped. Even pamphleteering in public spaces has been made illegal. Nearly $8 million in fines were issued to cleanse São Paulo of the blight on its landscape. Seven years on, the world's fourth-largest metropolis and South America’s most important city remains free of visual clutter and eye sore that plagues the majority of cities around the world.

When the law was passed, it triggered wild alarm among city businesses and advertisement groups. Critics worried that the advertising ban would entail a revenue loss of $133 million and 20,000 people would lose jobs. Others predicted that the city would look like a bland concrete jungle with the ads removed.

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Bishop Rock: The Smallest Island in the World

Bishop Rock is a small rocky ledge jutting out of the sea, 4 miles west of the Isles of Scilly in Cornwall. The rock rises from a depth of 45 meter to expose a tip 46 meters long by 16 meters wide. On this narrow ledge stands a lighthouse, which makes Bishop Rock the world's smallest island with a building on it, as recognized by the Guinness Book of Records.

The rocks around the Scilly Isles caused the wreck of many ships over the years. When Sir Cloudesley Shovel's squadron of the British Fleet sank in 1707 along with 2,000 men, the Elder Brethren of Trinity House decided that the lighting of the Scilly Isles, which at that time consisted of only the old lighthouse at St. Agnes, was inadequate, and resolved to build a lighthouse on the most westerly danger, the Bishop Rock.

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Anamorphic 3D Illusion Drawings by Alessandro Diddi

When Alessandro Diddi takes his pencil to paper, he makes drawings come to life. The 42-year-old Italian artist creates clever anamorphic pencil drawings that, when viewed from a particular angle, appear to pop out of the page in three dimensions. He uses additional props like pencils, ring and his own hands to make the drawings even more realistic.

“I want my drawings to put across the message that the eye can trick the mind and make you believe that there are dimensions that are not really there,” said Mr Diddi. “When you understand the mechanism of the anamorphic design, you realise that putting together drawing like this is really not so difficult.”

“My goal is always to create something new and original, which people will want to look at and feel intrigued by. By simply trying to combine my two passions: the freehand drawing and three-dimensional representation, I was able to come up with these different designs. Although there is no message I'm trying to get across through my drawings, I do think it's important that people realise it is not necessary to consume a large amount of resources to achieve something interesting. All you need is a pencil and something to draw on, and you can create something really magical.”

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Floating Umbrellas Once Again Cover The Streets in Portugal

Remember the colorful floating umbrella installation on a street in the city of Agueda, Portugal, that we posted about last year? The city has done it again. Turns out the installation was part of an art festival called Agitagueda. Portuguese design firm Studio Ivotavares had created the cheery installation to turn traditional shopping streets into an engaging visual experience. The umbrellas will stay up throughout the month of July.

The colorful sight was captured by Flickr photographer Patricia Almeida. When asked how she felt, she said, "I felt like a kid, amazed by all that color!"

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