Do you know that road traffic accidents kill more people across the globe than malaria? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are more than 1.3 million deaths on the road and over 50 million injuries caused by traffic accidents that occur worldwide every year.

Safe driving is actively promoted. You will commonly see reminders such as “Buckle Up,” “Drive Safely,” “Don’t Text While Driving,” and “Don’t Drink and Drive” posted all over the place especially along major roads. Despite all our driving preparations to avoid getting into an accident, there are some concrete stretches that are just prone to fatalities. Even wearing a seatbelt won’t make you feel safe once you start driving on some of the riskiest roads in the world. 

Yungas Road
Bolivia

Bolivia's Death Road (photograph by Matthew Straubmuller)

Because of its dangerous twists and turns, the Yungas Road records between 200 and 300 fatalities each year. The Association for Safe International Road Travel reported that this notorious road in Bolivia was named as the World’s Most Dangerous Road. The infamous road has received different nicknames including “Death Road” and “Road of Fate.” The 40-miles that connect La Paz to Coroico also became a popular attraction for thrill-seekers who wanted to test their driving skills. 

Road Hazards: The narrow road, which sometimes measures only to three meters wide, makes it difficult to maneuver a vehicle. Other factors include uneven tracks and a steep drop-off since the road is located 1,000 meters above sea level. 

Biking Death Road (photograph by Warren F.)

A sheer cliff along the road (photograph by Alicia Nijdam)

Aerial view of the road (photograph by Michael Fernando Jauregui Schiffelmann)

Tipped over truck (photograph by funkz/Flickr user)

Memorials on Bolivia's Death Road (photograph by Michael Fernando Jauregui Schiffelmann)

Fairy Meadows Road
Pakistan

Fairy Meadows Road (photograph by Gary Romanuk)

Don’t be fooled by the road’s pretty name, because there aren’t any fairy or meadow sightings on this route. Instead, drivers are faced with unsightly dirt roads and rocky hills. The 16.2 kilometer (roughly 10 mile) unstable Fairy Meadows Road connects the Karakoram Highway to the Tato Village in Pakistan. It was named as the second deadliest highway in the world in 2013 by dangerousroads.org. This route isn’t for the faint of heart as it's on the base of Nanga Parbat, one of the tallest mountains in the world with a height of 26,660 feet.

Road Hazards: The ascending six miles of unpaved road has no barriers on the side, so there’s always a chance of slipping off course. Heavy snowfalls and avalanches may also block some parts of the road.

Halsema Highway
Philippines

View from the road to Sagada (photograph by Michael Fitzgerald)

The Philippines is known for its ocean views, so the first thing that many people think of are the seaside roads and beautiful beaches. However, this country is also known for its deadly mountain road called the Halsema Highway. Commuters, locals, and tourists have no choice but to pass through the risky highway since it is the only road going to Sagada, a popular tourist destination in the country. This route is the highest altitude highway in the Philippines with a measurement of 7,400 feet above sea level. The six hour road trip to the top isn't suited for those with acrophobia. 

Road Hazards: The sharp curves make it more difficult for drivers to overtake other cars, and there are even one-way lanes on this highway. Watch out for buses, trucks, and cars trying to speed ahead of each other. 

Kabul-Jalalabad Road
Afghanistan

Overturned truck on the Kabul-Jalabad Highway (photograph by Peretz Partensky)

People living near Afghanistan’s killer road are used to seeing fatal crashes every day. According to a report published by Pajhwok Afghan News, nearly 200 people lost their lives to traffic accidents on the Kabul-Jalalabad highway during the outgoing Afghan calendar year. Aside from that alarming number of fatalities, another 5,000 people sustained injuries. Due to the large number of traffic accidents occurring on Afghanistan’s killer road, it got a death rating of 9.5 out of 10 from CNN Travel, making it on top of the list of world’s most dangerous roads. 

Road Hazards: The winding lanes and narrow roads are one of the major causes of casualties. There are also many reckless drivers who try to overtake haulage trucks and other vehicles.

Kabul-Jalabad Road (photograph by Schuyler Erle)

Boulder fall on Kabul-Jalabad Road (photograph by Sven Dirks)

Valley along the road (photograph by Todd Huffman)

Soviet tank on the side of the road (photograph by Todd Huffman)

James Dalton Highway
Alaska, United States

Brooks Range on James Dalton Highway (photograph by Scott McMurren)

The 414 mile highway looks like a great place to go on a road trip because it appears flat and spacious. But it actually ranked the third most dangerous highway in the world according to Driving Experiences. The James Dalton Highway starts from Fairbanks and ends on Alaska’s North Slope. The road was opened for delivery trucks back in 1974 — that’s why it was called the “Haul Road.” However, truck drivers aren’t the king of the roads anymore because it was later opened to tourists in 1994.  

Road Hazards: The cold temperature and natural hazards such as flying rocks brought about by strong winds may cause road accidents. Watch out for potholes and slippery roads. Its remoteness often leaves many people with car trouble stranded in the middle of nowhere. 

Sign on the road (photograph by Malcolm Manners)

Survivor (photograph by Oliver Savage)

Remember to drive safely and have a presence of mind when passing by some of the riskiest roads in the world. Better yet, avoid these roads if you don’t want to risk your life. 

Discover more terrifying and fascinating roads to ride on through Atlas Obscura >

The Jardin des Tuileries depicted during the balloon launch (hand-colored etching, 1783) (via Library of Congress)

1783 was a big year for ballooning, one with peasants attacking the strange flying machines with pitchforks, and of double sunsets. Perhaps the most monumental achievement was on December 1, when French scientist Jacques Charles with Nicolas-Louis Robert of les Frères Robert, a duo of ballooning brothers, ascended into the skies over Paris in the first manned hydrogen balloon flight.

Plaque for the December 1 flight in the Jardin des Tuileries (photograph by the author)

A small plaque for the flight is tucked in an alcove at the entrance to the Jardin des Tuileries just before the garden meets with the busy Place de la Concorde. Despite being wedged on the thoroughfare between two of the most touristy destinations in Paris — the Louvre and the Champs-Elysées — the marker mostly goes unnoticed. However, back on that day in 1783, some 400,000 people packed into the garden just for the event, about half the population of the whole city at the time. 

Jacques Charles with Nicolas-Louis Robert (whose name is commemorated with his alternative name "Marie-Noël" on the plaque) didn't just suddenly decide to go ballooning, there was a whole aeronautical history that brought them to that point. Robert with his brother Anne-Jean (whose parents must have been wanting daughters based on the names) were active balloonists. Charles, however, had delved into physics without much training and was much more of an experimenter in the field. 

Earlier that year, on August 27, the group had launched another hydrogen balloon, this one unmanned. The balloon left the Champ de Mars in Paris (future home of the Eiffel Tower) and touched down in the village of Gonesse. There the locals were thrown into terror by the silk and rubber object suddenly drifting down from the skies like an otherworldly invasion, and thus rendered it to shreds with knives and pitchforks. 

Gonesse villagers attacking the balloon (via Wikimedia)

Then on September 19, another balloonist, Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, part of another ballooning brotherhood with his sibling Joseph-Michel, launched a balloon for King Louis XVI. The feat would not just get their father a title of nobility, but was the first to carry living creatures, with its passengers being a duck, a rooster, and a sheep. They survived, and the sheep was given a place of honor in the menagerie of Marie-Antoionette (no word on the fowl, perhaps there was a celebratory feast to which they fell victim). On November 21, at the Muette castle, Jean-Francois Pilâtre de Rozier then claimed the title as the first person to go up in a hydrogen balloon, while it remained tethered to the ground.

Crowd trying to scale the Jardin des Tuileries wall to see the balloons (note the men viewing the women's exposed rears with their spyglasses instead of the launch) (via Library of Congress)

The scene was insane on December 1, the country hyped up by the growing aeronautical feats. Contemporary artists delighted in depicting the wonder and madness, such as the above cartoon with men turning their spyglasses to the exposed bottoms of women attempting to climb the Jardin des Tuileries wall. The balloon itself was processed in by four noblemen, and in the crowd was Benjamin Franklin. 

When the balloon soared to the skies, Charles was absolutely euphoric. As Richard Holmes quotes in his book Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air, the scientist wrote of the journey:

"Nothing will ever quite equal that moment of total hilarity that filled my body at the moment of take-off. I felt we were flying away from the Earth and all its troubles and persecutions for ever. It was not mere delight. It was a sort of physical rapture [...] I exclaimed to my companion Monsier Robert - 'I'm finished with the Earth. From now on our place is in the sky!'"

Illustration of the balloon flight by Antoine Sergent dit Sergent-Marceau (1783) (via Library of Congress)

Chromolithograph of the flight (1890-1900) (note the destruction of the earlier balloon by the peasants in the upper left corner) (via Library of Congress) 

However, despite his avowal to leave all the annoyances of the planet behind, the day would be Charles' last in a balloon. After landing at Nesles-la-Vallée, brought down by horseback chasers led by the Duc de Chartres, Charles took a solo flight. The balloon wasn't quite in launch shape, and he took off much quicker than expected. As a contemporary account goes:

"In this second journey M. Charles experienced a violent pain in his right ear and jaw, no doubt produced by the rapidity of the ascent. He also witnessed the phenomenon of a double sunset on the same day; for, when he ascended, the sun had set in the valleys, and as he mounted he saw it rise again, and set a second time as he descended."

Chromolithograph of the flight (1890-1900) (via Library of Congress)

The dedication of the plaque in the Jardin des Tuileries in 1914 by the Aéro-Club de France (via Bibliothèque nationale de France)

Just two years later, balloonists Joseph Croce-Spinelli and Théodore Sivel would perish attempting to fly higher than anyone before, reaching 28,000 feet on April 15, 1785, but unfortunately dying in the process. (They are buried in Père-Lachaise, a monument showing their corpses hand-in-hand.)  Ballooning was really one of the last hurrahs of the French aristocracy, a show of richness and wonder above people who were starving. However, in these moments were real scientific victories that would lay the groundwork for the next century of flight experimentation, and eventually make leaving the ground with its troubles something attainable for the masses. 

Print of the Tuileries balloon launch (one scientist seeming to have dropped his flag of victory) (1783) (via Library of Congress)

The plaque in the Jardin des Tuileries (photograph by Jim Linwood)

Learn more about the history of flight on Atlas Obscura >

Matryoshka dolls are the famed Russian creation where each little person opens into a yet smaller person. Oddly satisfying, aren't they? But what about volcanoes inside volcanoes, or a castle inside another castle?

We've rounded up exactly that, a list of things within the same thing (occasionally within the same thing again). 

Vulcan Point
Philippines

Island within an island within an island (Wikimedia)

Vulcan Point in the Philippines is a volcanic island in the middle of a lake on an island that is itself on a lake within an island. It's confusing, so let's break it down:

• There's an island in the Philippines called Luzon. 
• On this island, there's a lake called Lake Taal. On this lake, there's an island called Volcano Island.
• On Volcano Island, there's a lake called Main Crater Lake. On this lake, there's an island called Vulcan Point, formed by the tip of the Taal Volcano.

About 30 miles south of Manila, the Taal Volcano is designated a "Decade Volcano," indicating it is worthy of study to prevent future disasters. One of the most devastating eruptions occurred in the early morning of January 30, 1911, when people on the island were awoken by what sounded like thunder and looked like lightning. In reality, Taal had erupted, driving an estimated 80 million cubic meters of solid ash and mud down the slopes of the volcano. Around 1,300 people died, practically all from scalding by hot mud or steam.

Krak des Chevaliers
Syria 

Castle within a castle (via Wikimedia)

Located in Syria, Krak des Chevaliers is one of the best preserved Crusader castles from the 11th century. In the 13th century, it was developed into a concentric castle, which means that within the larger grounds of the castle walls, a second castle with higher walls was constructed. The outer castle walls protected the inhabitants from siege weapons, while the inner castle walls allowed defenders to fight back with crossbows.

The castle got its name from the Knights Hospitaller, who held it from 1142 to 1271. The order of knights controlled a number of castles on the border of the Tripoli, and Krak des Chevaliers was among the most important, functioning as an administrative center and a military base. 

During the recent Syrian conflict, parts of the castle were damaged by shelling.

via Wikimedia

Fushimi Inari Taisha
Japan

Gates within gates ad infinitum (via Wikimedia)

Founded in 711 and designed the head shrine to Inari, the Japanese kami of merchants and rice, Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社) is probably better known for its thousands of nested gates that lead from the main gate to the inner shrine. Each torii gate at the temple was donated by a Japanese business. In 965, the shrine was included among the 16 that received written accounts of important events when Emperor Murakami decreed that the guardian kami of Japan should be kept up to date to best defend the nation. 

At the entrance to the shrine are a few stands selling tsujiura senbei (辻占煎餅), a snack dating back to the 19th century that is believed to be the origin of the popular fortune cookie now served alongside your kung pao chicken with lo mein.

via Wikimedia

Aogashima Island
Japan

Volcano within a volcano (Wikimedia)

Aogashima (青ヶ島) is an island administered by Japan and located in the Philippine Sea. The whole island is a class-C active volcano that last erupted over a four year period from 1781 to 1785, killing almost half of the local population. As of 2014, the island is inhabited by only 170 Japanese people.

For our purposes, all you have to know is that the volcano's caldera has a secondary cone named Maruyama (丸山), forming a volcano within another volcano.

It doesn't seem like anywhere I'd want to live since the lava probably just fills up the first volcano and that can't be good for your stuff.

Maya Devi Temple
Nepal

Wooden temple within brick temples (via Wikimedia)

Lumbini, Nepal, is said to be the birthplace of the man who would come to be known as Buddha, and in this sacred UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Maya Devi Temple dates back to the third century BCE. With its sacred pool and garden, the Buddhist temple itself has been quite an attraction, but in 2013, a sixth-century BCE ancient tree shrine was discovered under the temple by archaeologists.

This small shrine is possibly the earliest evidence of Buddhist structures ever found, and was located under a nested series of brick temples below the current temple. The mineralized tree roots in the structure of the temple fit well with Buddhist beliefs that associate shrines with trees, particularly since Buddha was said to have been born under a tree.

Cenote Angelita
Mexico

photograph by nonperturbative/Flickr user

In Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, there is a submerged cave made out of collapsed limestone called the Cenote Angelita ("Little Angel"). Divers in the cave experience a unique phenomenon called a halocline, where waters of different salinity form into layers due to density. Since the dense saltwater stays at the bottom of the cave, it looks like a river flowing along a bigger underground river.

Cenotes, which are natural pits or sinkholes, were traditionally been used by the ancient Maya for sacrificial offerings, so there may be gruesome surprises for intrepid explorers lurking in this river within a river. One particular cult was known to worship the rain god Chaac by ritually casting people into particularly sacred cenotes.

Rat King

As the final thing within a thing, we will cheat a little, partially because rat kings are so awesome.

Rat king in Germany's Naturkundliches Museum (via Wikimedia)

It's a phenomenon that supposedly arises when a number of rats accidentally get stuck together with a goo made up of blood, dirt, ice, feces, or simply the knotting of their various tails. 

The original German term, Rattenkönig, was adopted into English as rat king, and it refers to Medieval beliefs that the rat king was actually one animal with many bodies. Legends even grew around the thought that a king rat would sit on the tails of the other rats, overseeing the movements of the animals as they skittered along with their little paws. Kinda like a rat surfing on other rats, which should be enough to make you royalty already.

Preserved rat king in the Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Nantes (via Wikimedia)

One rat king specimen found in 1963 by a Dutch farmer consisted of seven rats. X-rays done on the calluses growing on the fractured tails show that the animals survived for a long period of time with their tails tangled. However, despite the fascinating idea of rats within rats, the rat king is widely regarded as a macabre myth. 

Mine in Broken Hill (all photographs by the author)

Things in Australia's Outback can come off as a bit “out-there,” at times. And Broken Hill, New South Wales — 700 miles west of Sydney, or half that from Adelaide — certainly plays by some of its own rules. One of the best reasons to go.

Chloride & Crystal streets

Once a booming mining town, Broken Hill is now watched over by a big bench atop a Line of Lode hill of mineral deposits that anchors the center where street names run like a mineral glossary (e.g., Chloride, Oxide, Cobalt). What you find on them, however, might look familiar. Broken Hill, and its surroundings, have appeared in over 100 films, including The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Mad Max 2; and the criminally overlooked 1971 film Wake in Fright, which actually scared Martin Scorsese.

Here are a few of the “only in Broken Hill” attractions. And then there’s always a surprising memorial to drowned (non-Australian) musicians to see too.

WHITE’S MINERAL ART & LIVING MUSEUM

The Miners' Creed

Kevin "Bushy" White in the Mining Museum

Probably no one in the world cares as much about mining or art — or the unique hybrid of both — than 70-year-old Kevin “Bushy” White, who spent 26 years underground in Broken Hill, before transforming a neighborhood home into a slightly scrappy mining museum.

Bushy walks visitors through White's Mineral Art & Living Mining Museum, regularly stopping to hoist or demonstrate old mining tools (“I used this drill”) or lunch boxes (“see? it’s rat-proof”). He hopes visitors feel like they’re a couple hundred feet under the ground.

Exterior of the Mining Museum

Rat-proof lunch box

Mining model

Artifact of the Mining Museum

Fake rat lurking in the Mining Museum

At least once, Bushy will reach out to pluck a large rubber rat off a model case of miniature miners. They’re everywhere here, for a reason.

“Lots of these buggers were about the mines,” he said. “Back before my time, in the ‘30s, there were so many that men had to tie up their pants legs to keep them from running up.”

Another highlight of the museum’s DIY appeal are the 400 mosaic artworks Bushy’s made from glittering minerals he brought back from mines years ago. “I used to tell my wife how beautiful it was down there,” he explained. “And she had the idea to make art with it.”

Art from mining minerals

Art & rat

Homemade miners

MAD MAX 2 MUSEUM, SILVERTON

Mad Max 2 Museum

Fifteen miles north of Broken Hill, Silverton is a step deeper into the Outback. It's a town with about 90 residents, yet a busy bar, a jail to visit, a couple of art galleries, and perhaps the world’s only museum dedicated to a sequel.

The lone madman behind the Mad Max 2 Museum is British ex-pat Adrian Bennett, a self-confessed Mad Max fanatic who comes off far more normal than you might expect.

Apocalyptic car at the museum

Open since 2010, his one-room museum and back lot of costumes, artifacts (the music box!), and vehicles looks straight out of the 1982 film. And it’s only here because of something he found during a Mad Max pilgrimage years before. Or rather, something he didn’t find.  

“This is the Hollywood of the Outback, and there was nothing on the film,” he explained. And so he made it.

Rubbing of Mad Max's ID badge

"Injured Max" head

Of his favorite pieces is the boomerang the “Feral Kid” uses to slice off fingers of evil gang members (“I couldn’t sleep when I found out I was getting it,” Bennett said). Another stand out, for this visitor at least, is the mask model of “injured Max,” which looks like a decapitated Mel Gibson.

“There is something real about being here. In this place,” Bennett said of living in the area. “To be here, I feel like I’m actually in Mad Max.” Some chase scenes were shot just north of the town, below a ridge overlooking the Mundi Mundi Plain, so flat you can see the curvature of the globe.

Mundi Mundi lookout

"The Vermin Have Inherited the Earth"

Mad Max costumes

“TWO-UP” AT MARIO’S PALACE HOTEL

Palace Hotel

A hotel since 1892, Mario’s Palace Hotel — called “tackarama” by Guy Pearce (in drag) in the 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert — features the same technicolor murals of natural scenes highlighted in the movie.

Palace Hotel murals

Two-up rules

Two-up ring

The grandiose two-part bar/restaurant still buzzes most nights, and particularly on Saturdays when two-up hits the hotel’s “ring” and (mostly) young folks bet on a toss or two. (Hopefully betting much less than the schoolteacher loses in Wake in Fright.) This traditional coin-toss gambling game is played nationally on Anzac Day (April 25), as a form of respect to vets of Gallipoli in WWI; it’s only in Broken Hill that you can play it every week.

Two-up in action

Robert Reid is a travel writer based in Portland, Oregon. He's National Geographic Traveler's Offbeat Observer. He traveled to Australia in a correspondent role for Tourism Australian. 

Illustration from "Death's Doings" by Richard Dagley (1827) (via British Library)

Funerals in the Middle Ages were very DIY. Not only did you personally tend to your loved one's decomposing corpse, you had to carry it all the way to the churchyard. And for many medieval citizens, that could be quite a journey.

Churches at the time were very protective of their flocks, both living and dead. When a parishioner died, they wanted him or her interred with all the rituals of the parish church. They also wanted the money that having those burial rights entailed. Yet as communities were growing more spread out, this meant the parish church could be miles from your home. Thus was born the corpse road, also known as the coffin road, bier way, church way, lych way, or burial road. These paths connected villages to the cemetery.

Coffin road to Loch Shiel (photograph by Peter Van den Bossche)

Old Corpse Road in Cumbria (photograph by morebyless/Flickr user)

Corpse road between Wasdale & Eskdale in the Lake District (photograph by Alan Cleaver)

While many of these roads have disappeared, either through development or their names being lost over the years, some remain in the UK and the Netherlands. For example the Old Corpse Road still connects the Swindale Head with Mardale in the Lake District. One reason some survived over the centuries is their remoteness. No one wanted rotting bodies hauled through their front yards, so the roads were set up on windswept hills and overgrown pastures where no one wanted to go. 

There was also a wealth of superstition that guided the design of the corpse roads, and helps makes them identifiable today. According to this 1977 article in New Scientist, the dead "were carried along strictly defined corpse roads for the belief was that coffins sterilised [sic] the land because the dead were forced to walk that way until their souls were purged." The roads proceeded right through the terrain, even if a river stood in its way, as many believed spirits traveled in straight lines. As Puck utters in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream: "Now it is the time of night, / That the graves all gaping wide, / Every one lets forth his sprite, / In the church-way paths to glide." 

Cross on the corpse road near Todmorden (photograph by Tim Green)

Ghost stories still linger over corpse roads, with supposed sightings of phantom lights in the night. But they don't need any mythology to make them spooky places. Walking along the roads, you might still see coffin stones where the corpses were placed when their carriers needed a rest, or crosses carved in rock. All corpse roads also ended in one place: the lych gates of the church that opened to the cemetery, the end of the road. 

Lych gate at St. Thomas' Church in Lincolnshire (photograph by Ian Paterson)

Learn more about the history of death on Atlas Obscura >

Jeep on the train tracks in France during WWII (via PhotosNormandie)

It’s a fact of life: not everyone can afford a private train. Even if we could, the diesel bills and traffic jams would be horrendous. But that doesn’t mean the world’s railroad tracks have to be reserved for dictators, millionaires, and “big train.”

From bamboo carts, to bicycles, to VW camper vans, almost every vehicle imaginable has been modified to ride the rails at some point.  

 
A Gaz M13 — the top-of-the-line Soviet luxury car — modified for railway use (photo by János Tamás, via Wikimedia)

"Draisine" is used as a catch-all term to describe any small, non-train vehicle made to ride the rails. The name actually comes from the predecessor to the modern bicycle; it evolved into its current usage because many of the earliest draisines in Europe were pedal-powered.   

A four-passenger pedal-powered draisine in Germany (photograph by Oktaeder, via Wikimedia) 

Most draisines were designed to transport workers and materials for track maintenance. Americans, and silent-film buffs, are probably most familiar with what are called handcars or pump trolleys, but they've taken on all kinds of forms. 

Handcar in use in Oklahoma, circa 1902 (via Wikimedia Commons)

One of the 30 modified VW camper vans ordered by the German National Railway in 1955 (photo by Spoorjan, via Wikimedia) 

Until very recently, handmade draisines were an important part of Cambodia's transportation infrastructure. The country's rail network, constructed during French colonial days, was heavily damaged during the rise of the Khmer Rouge and subsequent civil war.

Left without a reliable and affordable means to transport people or move goods to market, some enterprising citizens in the cities of Battambang and Poipet built their own vehicles to take advantage of the existing tracks. Called “norry trains,”  the first versions of these steel and bamboo carts were poled along the tracks like Venetian canal boats. Eventually builders added old motorcycle or tractor engines to power the carts — some could reach speeds of up to 30 mph. 

Because the norries travel on single-track lines, there is no way for cars to pass each other. When two norries meet traveling in opposite directions, one is simply picked up and removed from the track while the second car passes. Fortunately Cambodia's rail system is being modernized, and the norries are becoming more of a tourist attractions than a practical means of transportation. Similar craft are in use in rural parts of North Korea, but are rarely seen by foreigners.

 
Old tractor engine rigged to power a Norry train (photo by BluesyPete, via Wikimedia) 

Tourists on a norry train in Battambang, Cambodia (photo by Henry Flower, via Wikimedia)

Nowadays, most track maintenance vehicles are ordinary trucks or SUV's modified to be driven on the road or on railroad tracks. Outside of Cambodia and North Korea, these types improvised and human powered draisines are used mostly for recreational purposes. There are a number of events in the US and Australia where enthusiasts race for speed, as well as compete on creativity.

Entrants in the 2009 Santa Rosa Handcar Regatta (photo by David Berry/Flickr user)

Others focus on "railriding" or "railbiking" for exercise and sightseeing, which is especially popular in Europe. 

A line of pedal-powered draisines for rent to tourists in Sweden (photo by Jan Krutisch/Flickr user)

As a conclusion, here's a DIY postal car riding the rails in France: 

Explore more of the world's weirdest railroads on Atlas Obscura >

Sign at Alnwick Poison Gardens (photograph by Jo Jakeman)

Compared to fauna, flora and fungi have a pretty mellow reputation where humans are concerned. Unsubstantiated rumors of man-eating pitcher plants aside, most growing things mind their own business, clean the atmosphere, lynchpin ecosystems, and provide sustenance for the animals, homo sapiens included. Some, however, contain deadly poison.

Human beings have discovered which plants are poisonous through unfortunate accidents, only to turn around and make use of this knowledge. Just ask Socrates. Whether growing wild or carefully cultivated, deadly plants can be found all over the word, often inspiring mythology, folklore, and devotion that says far more about human beings than it does about botany. 

English Yew (Taxus baccata)
England

Churchyard Yew illustrated in Charles Tilt's "Woodland Gleanings" (1853) (via Project Gutenberg)

The long-living English Yew tree is a shrub-like evergreen found across Great Britain, including in many church yards and graveyards. Historians believe this is not an accident, as the trees were likely a part of pagan holy sites that existed before the churches were built. Both pagans and later Christians came to associate the tree with the soul and with death, most likely because of its highly toxic properties, and possibly because of its eerie appearance.

Scotland's Fortingall Yew (photograph by Paul Hermans)

Myths about the yew are plentiful. One story espouses their usefulness in undead prevention because their fine roots grow through the eyes of the dead, preventing them from seeing their way to the surface. Another, slightly more romantic tale, says that two yews entwined were the reincarnation of lovers executed via yew stakes to the heart.  Famous examples of the yew tree include the Ankerwycke Yew, which grows on the grounds of a former convent, and Scotland's Fortingall Yew, which grows in a village churchyard and which some claim is 5,000 years old. 

Nearly every part of the tree can be fatal to a human, owing to the rich amounts of the toxin taxus baccata. On top of that, there is a long history of people making weapons, including deadly longbows, from the trees. On the upside, in recent years, the tree has been processed into medicine, including chemotherapy drugs. 

Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum)
Europe

Socrates holding a cup of Hemlock (via Library of Congress)

In her book, Wicked Plants, Amy Stewart tells the story of an unfortunate Scottish tailor who in 1845, eats a sandwich prepared by his children, who had collected the wild greens themselves. He died a few hours later.

Hemlock growing in Lincolnshire, UK (photograph by Mick Talbot)

The children had likely mistaken poison hemlock for parsley, which it resembles. It’s roots also happen to resemble carrots and that, too, has lead to deadly mistakes. It grows as a weed on the roadside, in drainage ditches, and on the edge of cultivated fields across Europe, and in England has often been associated with witchcraft. As it did in Socrates's time, it has been used to facilitate human death for millennia. On top of that, there are persistent stories of it growing beneath the cross during the crucifixion, mythology which is reinforced by the red speckles which appear on the plant during the spring (usually right around Easter). 

Death Cap Mushroom (Amanita phalloides)
Europe, Asia, and the United States

According to a 2014 Slate story, those who lived to tell of eating the aptly named Death Cap Mushroom say it was the most delicious mushroom they'd ever eaten. The Death Cap — which is a fungi, not a plant — contains a number of toxins, but looks nearly identical to the edible Paddy Straw Mushroom. Both species grow wild in forests across Europe, Asia, and the United States. Because they form a symbiotic relationship with tree roots, Death Caps are most often found near hardwood trees like oak and pine.

Warning sign for Death Cap Mushrooms, Canberra, Australia (via AYArktos/Wikimedia)

Thanks to Paddy Straws being popular in many Asian cuisines and the easy misidentification, the aptly named Death Cap is thus responsible for the vast majority of mushroom poisoning deaths. Case in point, a couple living on the Isle of Wight picked some of these mushrooms from a botanical gardens, assuming they were the consumable variety. The couple’s aunt later passed away from eating the toxic fungi. 

Thankfully, scientists have developed a treatment for death cap poisoning that shows great promise, but it is not yet widely available.

The Suicide Tree (Cerbera odollam)
India

The state of Kerala, on the southern tip of India, is know for many things. Bull Surfing, fisheries, rice paddies, tea farms, and a suicide rate well above the national average.

The Suicide Tree (photograph by Agnes Rinehart)

One of the reasons cited for that last bit of grim notoriety is the plentiful abundance of Cerbera odollam, know colloquially as the Suicide Tree, which grows in salt marshes and other swampy areas. Tea or food made from the Suicide Tree has been the go-to method for those wanting to take their own life for generations, and more recently the tree has been suspected as a “perfect” murder weapon in a slew of suspicious deaths.

Since the toxic glycosides in the tree leave nary a trace and mix well with food, it’s convenient for suicides who want to avoid shame and murderers who don’t want to tip off authorities. While some people are content to blame the tree, recent social programs have sought to lower the deaths by Suicide Tree in Kerala by addressing the underlying sociological causes, and not by blaming commonplace vegetation.

Snake Root (Ageratina altissima)
North America

Snake Root is a tiny flower native to North America. It contains the toxin tremetol and was responsible for thousands of deaths during the 1700s and 1800s.

Snake Root (1913 illustration) (via USDA PLANTS Database)

photograph by Bob Heitzman

European settlers, unlike the native population, were unfamiliar with the pleasant-looking flowering weed and did not recognize the danger it posed to their livestock and themselves. When eaten by a cow, the plant renders her milk and meat poisonous. Those unfortunate enough to consume a poisonous cow product, most notably Nancy Hanks Lincoln, would become violently ill with vomiting and trembling. The future president was only nine years old when his mother succumbed to the poison, one of several people in the town of Pigeon Creek, Indiana to contract what was known as "milk sickness." 

It took many decades for scientists to connect milk sickness to snake root, but now the plant is kept far away from grazing livestock. Today, it grows in forests in the south and central United States, especially along streams, and is sometimes mistaken for ordinary nettles. 

Water Hemlock
North America

Water Hemlock (via Wikimedia)

Like its European cousin Poison Hemlock, Water Hemlock bears an unfortunate resemblance to edibles like cilantro and carrots, and grows in wetlands all over North America, especially in Western States where it continues to be a threat to livestock.

Scores of people have died over the years, including when in 1992 a young man in Maine mistook it for wild ginseng. It's even thought that a person can suffer mild symptoms just by handling the plant and there are claims that people have been poisoned by using the hollow stems as straws. 

Oleander (Nerium oleander)
Gardens Across the United States and Europe

Oleander (via Library of Congress)

It seems at the very least unwise, but two of the deadliest plants to humans are ubiquitous in ornamental gardens all across the world, especially in the United States and Europe.

So widespread is the cultivating of oleander in warm climates that botanists are unsure of its regional origins. Popular for its vibrant colors, oleander is a hearty, decorative shrub commonly planted in public spaces and private backyards and gardens, despite containing the deadly toxins known as glycosides. It is even the official flower of Galveston, Texas, which holds an Oleander Festival annually, and has an oleander park where the plant grows. 

Oleander illustrated by Lena Lowis (1878) (via Wikimedia)

The fear of oleander is so endemic in American culture that one of the most persistent urban myths listed on snopes.com tells the story of a troop of unlucky boy scouts (sometimes girl scouts) that uses oleander sticks to toast marshmallows and dies as a result. The incident never happened, and it is highly unlikely marshmallows toasted on oleander sticks would be fatal. However, people should still fear the plant.

Ingesting just a few of its leaves would kill a human, as visitors to the Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana find out, since oleander poisoning features in the estate's ghostly history. Legend has it that a servant looking to ingratiate herself with the family baked some oleander leaves into a cake, thinking this would be a holistic cure for some ill children. The children and their mother died, the servant was hanged, and ghostly apparitions ensued. 

Castor Bean Plant (Ricinus communis)
North America and Europe

1887 illustration of castor bean by Franz Eugen Köhler (via Wikimedia)

The other deadly garden resident is the castor bean. Although castor oil, derived from the castor beans, is used both for medicinal purposes and as an industrial lubricant, the plant contains ricin, a toxin so deadly to human’s that castor bean plants are consistently ranked at the top of the world’s most deadly plants. Fans of the American television show Breaking Bad will recognize it as the plant from Walt’s garden from which he made ricin to poison his enemies (or in one case, the child of his enemy’s girlfriend). 

Making castor bean plants even more spooky is that fact they come in enough various forms, owing to breeding for different purposes, that it can be tricky to recognize them. They are native to the Mediterranean and grow as an ornamental tree in countries like Greece, while in more temperate climates in the United States are grown as an annual. 

Africa
Ratbane (Dichapetalum cymosum and D. Toxicarium)

Ratbane (via eol.org)

For thousands of years, Ratbane caused very little trouble in its native West Africa. Local fauna coexisted with the plants for thousands of years, likely developing an immunity. Local people knew not to eat it. But with the arrival of Europeans and their livestock, the plant quickly became a threat to grazing animals, killing them in large numbers.

It also caught the attention of the pest control industry as a potential poison for rats and other mammals, including coyotes. The plant contains powerful poison sodium fluooacetate, which was extracted and widely used to kill unwanted mammals, including being placed into livestock collars designed to kill attacking coyotes that bit the animal on the neck. Ratbane was banned for commercial use in the United States in 1972, but the plants still grows wild and plentiful across Africa and livestock farmers have learned to manage it so as not to expose their herds. 

The West Indies
Jequirity Beans (Abrus precatorius)

(via USGS Plants of Hawaii)

Handcrafted jewelry and musical instruments from the West Indies are often made with ladybug-like beans from a plant known as the Rosary Pea or as Jequirity Bean. These “all natural” beads contain the deadly poison abrin, which is similar to ricin. So potent is the poison that it is thought that if a jeweler punctures the beads while stringing them, exposure to the poison could be fatal. More well-documented are the cases of jewelry owners ingesting a bead and dying. Although the outer shell is so hard that if it’s not chewed or punctured, the beans can pass through the body harmlessly. The operative word being if. 

Despite the risk, products made with the beads are widely available and make their way into stores. In 2011, a number of British retailers recalled thousands of bracelets that were for sale in gift stores across the UK after a botanist who worked at a horticulture attraction alerted authorities. The plant is probably native to Indonesia, but grows copiously and invasively in tropical climates and jungles around the world including in as far flung places as Trinidad & Tobago, India, Hawaii, and the southern United States. 

Toxic Blue-Green Algae (Cyanobacteria)
Everywhere

Scientists don’t know what causes a normally harmless population of blue-green algae to suddenly go all serial killer and release toxins on a large scale, but they do, and occurrences are getting more frequent. These unpleasant events, known as a bloom or red tide, can happen pretty much anywhere algae lives in the world (saltwater or fresh), and if it happens in a place where humans or animals or fish are exposed, deaths and sickness often follow. Although human fatalities do occur, the major danger is to fish and other aquatic life, and the resulting economic damage can be significant.  

2010 Filamentous Cyanobacteria Bloom near Fiji (via NASA Earth Observatory)

Blue-green algae is also the oldest species on this list, with fossilized remands indicating that they’ve been around and doing their thing before the other life forms on this list existed. Scientists have determined that they were essential in the evolution of plant life and the developing of Earth’s life-encouraging atmosphere.

In fact, every deadly thing on this list plays an important part in the ecosystem that sustains all life on Earth. Some even provide life-saving medicine or extremely helpful industrial products. Most of them are beautiful, and all of them should, like nature itself, be respected. 

Discover more horticultural marvels on Atlas Obscura > 

Chopin's hand in the Frederick Chopin Museum in Warsaw (photograph by Adrian Grycuk)

When genius dies, sometimes we try to dissect what made a person great. In the case of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin, the focus was on his hands.

After he died at the age of 39 from a still-debated illness likely related to tuberculosis on October 17, 1849 in Paris, sculptor Auguste Clésinger was rushed to his bed. There he made a cast of the composer's left hand, and a death mask. According to Victor Lederer's book on Chopin, Chopin's hands were "extraordinarily beautiful," but Lederer calls the death mask a "ghastly artifact" showing "a bloated face, its mouth twisted by the effort to breathe, beneath a bald head." Apparently this horrid thing was so shocking to Chopin's sister that Clésinger remade it to be a prettier version of the deceased, to fit with his place as an icon of Romanticism.

Chopin in 1849 before his death (via Wikimedia)

Chopin's hand & death mask at the Hunterian Museum (photograph by Dave Russ)

Chopin's body was buried in Père-Lachaise in Paris (he can now be found under a monument by Clésinger, who seemed to have given all his skills to a proper immortalization), and his heart was sent to the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw. His hand, however, went far. Casts of it can be found in metal and plaster in collections including the Frederick Chopin Museum in Warsaw, the Musée de la Vie Romantique in Paris, the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery in the UK, and the Polish Museum in Rapperswil, Switzerland.

Why obsess over this hand? It wasn't unheard of at the time to commemorate composers in this rather macabre way, and you can also find casts of the hands of Beethoven and Franz Liszt. However, by all reports Chopin's hands were special, and an anatomical key to his success. In At the Piano with Chopin, composer Stephen Heller is cited as extolling how Chopin's slim hands would "suddenly expand and cover a third of the keyboard. It was like the opening of the mouth of a serpent about to swallow a rabbit whole." A student, Adolf Gutmann, also reportedly said Chopin's "whole body was extraordinarily flexible."

Rhapsodic language aside, maybe there is something to be learned from looking at those legendary hands, able to bend across the piano in an unparalleled flow of movement. And there's something beautiful in knowing that in the haunting melodies of his nocturnes, pianists are still evoking his ghost. 

Chopin's hand (at left) in the Musée de la Vie Romantique in Paris (photograph by the author)

Objects of Intrigue is a feature highlighting extraordinary objects from the world's great museums, private collections, historic libraries, and overlooked archives. See more incredible objects here >

The reading cages at Marsh's Library in Dublin (via Marsh's Library)

Recently we explored a medieval form of book security: chained libraries. But a reader brought to our attention a library in Dublin, Ireland, that went a step further and locked its readers in cages.

Marsh's Library located by St. Patrick's Cathedral, dates to the 18th century, and was started by Archbishop Narcissus Marsh. Little has changed over three centuries at the late Renaissance space. According to Marsh's Library's site, it's one of the city's few 18th century buildings serving its intended function, and most of its books are still in their same places. 

One of those original features is three scholar alcoves with wire doors. These cages would be locked when a reader was using a rare book so they wouldn't walk off with it. Although books were more widespread than the middle ages that spawned the chained libraries, there were still books precious enough that libraries weren't comfortable without some restrictions. Marsh's was the first public library in the country, and at the time it was still a fairly progressive idea to offer a not-always-trustworthy public books for free. Marsh himself was very specific on library etiquette, stating "in case any person shall carry Himself otherwise (which We hope will not happen) We order Him to be excluded, if after being admonished He does not mend His manners."

Now visitors will find there is a skull in one of the reading cages. Don't despair that it is some biblio-miscreant. It's actually a cast of the cranium of the wife of one of the deans at the cathedral — author Jonathan Swift. 

The library is still open to the public with over 25,000 books dating back to the 15th century and has woven itself into Dublin's history. It even appears, although perhaps not in the best light, in James Joyce's Ulysses, alongside a sly Swift reference for good measure:

Beauty is not there. Nor in the stagnant bay of Marsh's library where you read the fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas. For whom? The hundredheaded rabble of the cathedral close. A hater of his kind ran from them to the wood of madness, his mane foaming in the moon, his eyeballs stars.

Yikes! Well aside from the lovely Marsh's being far from a "stagnant bay," we do hope no readers were ever forgotten in its cages. 

Marsh's Library (photograph by William/Flickr user)

Leaf through more library curiosities on Atlas Obscura >

Inside the Paris Catacombs (photograph by Claire Narkissos)

“Just a leisurely stroll around the Empire of the Dead,” I told myself when a friend got wind of a private expedition through a forbidden section of the Paris catacombs. At night.

I didn’t think too deeply about what that might entail, happy to forgo a long queue in the cold outside Denfert-Rochereau’s carefully maintained public face of the sprawling Paris ossuary.

With construction commencing during the 1780s in disused quarries as a solution to the irksome sanitation problem of overcrowded cemeteries, the catacombs comprise a 321 kilometer (nearly 200 mile) labyrinth of caves and tunnels housing the remains of six million people — half the population of the City of Lights thriving directly above.

Catacombs Tunnel (photograph by Claire Narkissos)

A "cataphile" is not somebody with a loyalty card for the Café des Chats, but a passionné who frequently makes the journey between the worlds of the living and the dead. In doing so, they risk being caught by a police task force charged with patrolling underground. Some devotees make amateur maps to distribute within an exclusive community, some dig their way into hidden sections; others organise secret film nights or even flame-throwers’ parties, turning these subterranean dungeons into their personal playground. Some respect the space; others don’t.

My group of six dreadlocked cataphiles were of the respectful variety, not leaving so much as a cigarette butt or breadcrumb behind during the five-hour visit. (Yes, we ate down there.) They came well prepared for our descent, I noticed as I glanced at the amateur photographer strapping on her thigh-high military combat boots, then looked down sheepishly at my own rainbow sneakers and yoga pants.

From our rendezvous at the 14th arrondissement Alésia metro, we scrambled down to an abandoned railway and marched along the track until the group leader (who prefers not to be named) pointed to a mud-slicked hole in the ground. My heart sank a little when it became apparent that I would be spending most of the evening wading down narrow passageways up to my knees in cold, cloudy-brown water, squeezing my way through ominous openings.

One of the makeshift tables in the catacombs (photograph by Claire Narkissos)

Maybe turn back here if you’re claustrophobic or squeamish about getting dirty. Still, it was with a convivial spring in our step that we greeted and passed other groups of explorers along the seemingly endless rocky corridors, leading to chambers equipped with stone tables and benches. We ripped into the supply of baguettes and beer, pointing headlamps under our chins to tell jokes and ghost stories — a strange yet comforting camaraderie. Sometimes we ceased all clowning to commune with the profound silence that enfolded us, a floor-to-ceiling graffitied Spongebob looming over us like Hades.

Unlike the restored two kilometer segment of the catacombs accessible to the public, where bones line the passageways in patterned formations, most of the têtes de mort laid to rest here have been stolen, our "guide" explained. I was just starting to feel disappointed when we were ushered through a crawlspace; suddenly I found myself on my hands and knees atop a sea of femurs, some brightly painted and set upright as macabre totems, and the occasional brainpan, which my comrades pointed out would have made ideal ashtrays. We went from a cavernous "auditorium" thick with film-themed graffiti to what appeared to be an eerie shrine for a young girl departed too soon; a flawlessly pretty teenager smiled up at us from a photograph placed next to a preserved rat floating inside a beaker.

Underground Paris (photograph by Claire Narkissos)

I got nervous each time our guide, who has been exploring the catacombs since he was a teenager, stopped in his tracks to look at the map — the Paris street names directly above us are etched onto the walls — or herded us back the way we came after taking a wrong turn. We piped reggae and French rap through mobile phone speakers to keep energy levels high, facilitate a swift exit, and avoid getting separated, at last clambering out just before midnight. On a whim, we decided on a different route back to civilization, jumped a stone parapet, and narrowly missed the flics, whom we later discovered had begun their vigil at our original entry point.

I shook bone-dust out of my hair, the only non-dreadlocked explorer in the group. It felt good to take in the crisp, cool air. And even better to take a bath.

via State Library of NSW

Happy Friday the 13th, and welcome to our nightmare! Sometimes what is real truly is stranger than fiction, and even more terrifying than the realm of dreams. Here are 13 places that spook us the hell out, from a clown motel by a cemetery to an island of abandoned dolls. Just don't fall asleep...

LA ISLA DE LAS MUNECAS
Mexico City, Mexico

photograph by Esparta Palma

Story goes that a man named Don Julian Santana witnessed, or imagined he did, a drowned girl. As a tribute to her memory, he filled a Mexican island with hundreds of dolls, hanging in trees, their faces left to decompose, their broken limbs as he found them when he scavenged them from the trash or nearby canals. To add to the eeriness, in 2001 Santana was discovered drowned — right in the same place he believed the girl died. 

CLOWN MOTEL
Tonopah, Nevada

photograph by librianguish

In an unholy convergence of terror, a Nevada hotel crowded with thousands of clowns is right next to an abandoned cemetery. The Clown Motel and Tonopah Cemetery, one with its painted-faced, glassy-eyed decorative clowns staring blankly, the other with corpses of Wild West miners, join in a fertile grounds for horror. 

THE SILENT PEOPLE
Finland

photograph by Timo Newton-Syms

Along Highway 5 outside of Suomussalmi, Finland, thousands of faceless figures stand quietly. The Silent People were created by artist Reijo Kela, who never gave an explanation of their meaning. Day and night, through rain and fog, the peat-headed people covered in straw loom upright in colorful clothes, like some mob of ghostly specters. 

WYCHBURY OBELISK
Hagley, England

photograph by David Buttery

Since the 1970s, this phrase has repeatedly be found on the Wychbury Obelisk in Hagley, England: WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH-ELM? In the 1940s, a woman's decayed corpse was found in a hollow witch hazel tree, a case that was never solved. The graffiti started in the 1970s, and although repeatedly scrubbed away returns periodically like a stain on the city that will never fade. 

MUSEO DE LAS MOMIAS DE GUANAJUATO
Guanajuato, Mexico 

photograph by Adri Lagunes

With gaped jaws, propped up in display cases or coffins with metal and twine, the dead in this Guanajuato, Mexico, museum look like some infernal level of Dante's hell. They're actually a congregation of naturally-preserved mummies, pulled out of the soil of the city cemetery after their families stopped paying for their tombs. Due to the dryness of the soil, their skin and even hair linger. The cemetery stored them for a time in the ossuary and then, enterprisingly, opened the museum in 1894. It even includes the world's smallest mummy... which is not as cute as you might think. 

CAPELA DE OSSOS BONE CHAPEL
Faro, Portugal

photograph by Gustavo Marin

Sure, there are bone churches aplenty in Europe, where someone got creative with the ossuary and built a chandelier or layered the skulls in a fashionable design. However, at Capela de Ossos in Portugal, the walls of the chapel itself are made from bones. Femurs with mortar make up the architecture, along with some skulls and other remains tossed in for good flair. An inscription over the door reads: "Stop here and think of the fate that will befall you."

LA PASCUALITA
Chihuahua, Mexico

photograph by Kiara Ramirez

When La Pascualita appeared in the window of a clothing shop in Chihuahua, Mexico, the townspeople couldn't help but notice an uncanny resemblance to the store owner, and to her daughter who had died suddenly before her wedding. Now 80 years on, there are still rumors that the mannequin is actually a preserved corpse, so real are the hands as they reach out from the latest fashions. 

THE DARK HEDGES
Ballymoney, Ireland

photograph by Kyle Monahan

Ireland's Dark Hedges were meant to be a pleasant welcome to a manor, but as the beech trees grew from their 18th century planting they took on a supernatural form. Reaching over the road, they seem to be stretching like arms to block your path, threatening to one day close the route completely in their grasp.

THE DUPLICATIVE FOREST
Lexington, Oregon

photograph by Andy Simonds

Each tree of the Duplicative Forest along I-84 in Oregon is the same distance from the last, the same height, the same width. Walking through the forest is disorienting, and speeding by might even cause a seizure. It's actually the Boardman Tree Farm, but an unnerving experience, like some surreal fever dream. 

ALEISTER CROWLEY'S THELEMA ABBEY
Cefalù, Italy

photograph by Hunter333/Flickr

Aleister Crowley's occult temple rests in ruins in Italy. Thelema Abbey on the Mediterranean Sea was where rituals were held in the common area, and he painted his own bedroom — the "Room of Nightmares" — with frescos of abominable monsters and erotic scenes of terror. It all came to an end when one of his disciples died, and despite efforts from Kenneth Anger and Alfred Kinsey to restore it, has been abandoned ever since. Some air of unease still remains over the walls, which, even with whitewashing from paranoid locals, still reveal occult fantasies. 

ODESSA CATACOMBS
Odessa, Ukraine

via Wikimedia

Underground tunnels weaving deep in the Earth below us are scary in themselves, but the Odessa Catacombs take it to another level. With 2,500 kilometers of tunnels, it is a labyrinth (as comparison, it's less than that distance to go from Odessa to Paris). People have gotten horribly lost there, including a girl in 2005 who died after three days of wandering. It's like the living version of the dreams of disorientation where you feel you might wander into a pit of darkness for eternity. 

DEVIL'S GATE
South Pasadena, California

photograph by Mr. Babyman

Devil's Gate in California has long been considered a tumultuous zone of spiritual activity, even drawing occultists Jack Parsons, and Aleister Crowley again. The rock face in its gorge does look like a devil, but now actually gated up the cavern is even spookier, like some sort of portal to the netherworld just barely closed. 

ENCHANTED FOREST THEME PARK
Ellicott City, Maryland

via urbanatrophy.com

To conclude, what's more horrifying than the desecration of childhood joy into a grotesque nightmare? Enchanted Forest Theme Park in Maryland was once an amusement park with fairy tale and nursery rhyme-themed attractions. It opened in 1955, closed in 1989, and now lurks behind a strip mall in decay. So if you go wandering in the woods, suddenly the battered face of Willie the Whale grins up at you in a pond of stagnant water, and Cinderella's castle emerges from the overgrowth with its spires mutilated by neglect. 

Sweet dreams... just remember, what your mind conjures in the night may not be nearly as disturbing as the waking world. 

Los Angeles has plenty of unique collections and unusual museums, but we were delighted to find out that it touts the largest collection of vintage printing machinery — in the world! — at the International Printing Museum in Carson, California.

The Los Angeles Obscura Society set out to view the collection, and learn about how the Industrial Revolution brought books, bibles, and printed news to the masses, making literacy not just for the elite.

All photos by the author.

Wood type

Melted alloy

Inking the galleys

Printed matter!

The International Printing Museum's collection includes a number of floor- and table-model iron, proof, and clamshell presses, Unitype and typography machines, as well as typewriters. It is so unusual, many producers have placed the printing equipment into their period films and television shows, sometimes even shooting at the museum itself.

Typograph

Sometimes, the printers' tools would be made of organic materials that the rats found tasty, and they'd be discovered gnawed away in the morning (and yet remained in use).

Teeth marks

After a docent-led tour around the museum, we were finally able to start touching things and feel the entire printmaking process with our own hands, from making paper (with wet fibers spread across a drying screen) to inking, pressing, and rolling across different cardstocks and papers, leaving with a few unique souvenirs.

Paper

Souvenir

Ready to roll

Red eagle

The big finale of our extensive visit was getting to see a professional operate a real working linotype machine from the first half of the 20th century to typeset the letters of our names, and generate an alloy slug with which to print one memento of our visit.

 
Linotype slug

Keepsake printed on a Vandercook HS-27 proof press

Our imaginations captured, our interest piqued, and our appetite whetted, we caravanned two miles to the next town over to visit one of LA's most recent craft breweries, Smog City in Torrance, which prides itself in creating small batch, artisanal beers using traditional machinery and processes (which also evolved out of the Industrial Revolution), with a creative twist.

Operations Manager Ryan Trousdale giving the brewery tour

 
New bottling equipment

Coffee Porter

Although small, Smog City is growing and has begun bottling their beers for wider distribution. Every taproom visit is unique, since they are constantly experimenting with different varieties of their beers (new flavorings, smoking, barrel-aging, etc.) and offer a rotating cast of taps for tasting.

Thanks to Ryan for the tour and the delicious beer! We'll be back for more soon.

The Obscura Society is the real-world exploration arm of Atlas Obscura We seek out secret histories, unusual access, and opportunities for our community to explore strange and overlooked places hidden all around us. Join the Los Angeles Obscura Society mailing list for our next adventure in the area! 

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As anyone who has lost a little companion knows, there is a grief for a dearly departed pet, whether it be dog or cat or iguana. However, before 1896, there was no official place in the United States to give these animals a formal burial. That's the year a Manhattan veterinarian named Samuel Johnson offered up his apple orchard to a client, and soon word was out about the rural place of remembrance. 

Hartsdale Pet Cemetery now is the country's oldest operating pet cemetery. It has over 80,000 interments and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with dogs making up the bulk of the eternal population, along with cats, birds, monkeys, horses, lizards, and even people. While pets are still not allowed in human burial grounds, you can choose to be buried among the herd in pet cemeteries. 

Last September, the NYC Obscura Society visited Hartsdale for a tour through some of its notable graves, from the pets of celebrities like George Raft and Mariah Carey, to curiosities like the first dog mausoleum and a memorial for a lion cub owned by Princess Elisabeth Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy. The pomp of the burials has changed some from Victorian times when mourning was an elaborate affair for all manner of creatures. Here’s an account of a 1905 dog funeral from the New York Times, as cited by Quigley's Cabinet:

“They came by carriage, which had drawn, black curtains. It was a wet, gusty April afternoon, and little eddies of vapor glistened now and again. Four men filed from the carriage and huddled toward its rear, collars up, coats buttoned tight against the swirling dampness. They shouldered a small, wreath-covered casket and slowly marched into the cemetery. Two women walked behind carrying flowers weeping silently. They were burying their dog. There was no officiating clergyman; no services at the grave. The whole ceremony lasted only about five minutes, and yet it was a remarkably fine funeral.”

Even if you're unlikely to see pet owners in full-on black crepe mourning at Hartsdale, there is still much more of a display of emotion than in most human cemeteries. And while when a pet dies some people might feel shame in expressing that grief, here it is let out unbridled. The epitaphs for the furry and scaly beasts can be incredibly sweet, touching, and humorous, and often more individualized than you would find in a human cemetery.

Here are some of our favorites:

Mariah Carey's cat

All photographs by Allison Meier & Dylan Thuras.

HARTSDALE PET CEMETERY, Hartsdale, New York 

Morbid Mondays highlight macabre stories from around the world and through time, indulging in our morbid curiosity for stories from history's darkest corners. Read more Morbid Mondays>

Atlas Obscura’s Israel Week is in partnership with Go Israel.com, your guide to Israel’s beautiful destinations and its many hidden wonders!

The terrain of Israel is much more diverse than you might think. From mountains to craters to flower fields, it is a country with plenty of nature and unexpected beauty. Here are a few of the highlights of wild Israel:

Shokeda Forest

Anemone coronaria flowers in the Shokeda Forest (photograph by Zachi Evenor)

Each winter, thousands of visitors bike and hike through the Shokeda Forest west of Netivot in the Western Negev region. They're drawn by the red anemone coronaria blossoms, which bloom in a stunning red carpet through the eucalyptus trees. 

Hexagon Pool

Hexagon Pool (photograph by lehava Or-Yehuda)

Another overlooked wonder is in the Yehudiya Forest Nature Reserve in central Golan Heights, north of the Sea of Galilee. Tucked at the base of a canyon is the Meshushim pool, which in Hebrew means "hexagon." The Hexagon Pool gets its names from the up to 16-foot towers of dried lava that surround the waterfall that pours into the pool. Alongside is a landscape of oaks and thorn trees roamed by gazelles, boars, porcupines, and numerous song birds. 

Makhteshim

Ibex at Makhtesh Ramon (photograph by amira_a/Flickr user)

You can only find the Makhtesh geological phenomenon in Israel's Negev Desert. The deep, sloping areas were long thought to be the impacts of craters, but are in fact caused by erosion. The biggest is the Makhtesh Ramon. The ground is usually hot and arid, but that doesn't mean it's a desolate place. Nubian Ibexes, gazelles, hyenas, recently reintroduced wild asses, and even some lurking Arabian leopards call these curious landforms home. 

Rosh HaNikra

Rosh HaNikra Grottoes (photograph by AF1621/Wikimedia)

The grottoes of Rosh HaNikra were long only accessible to intrepid divers coming in through the Mediterranean Sea. Now with a cable car the system of caves and tunnels on the north coast in Western Galilee are open to all. That doesn't make them any less entrancing, as the thousands of years of the ocean pounding into the white chalk cliffs has left an underground labyrinth of luminous water. 

Ein Gedi

Sunset at Ein Gedi (photograph by Mboesch/Wikimedia)

Bordering the Judean Desert is the oasis of Ein Gedi. While much of it is wild with Nubian Ibex, over 200 species of birds, and plants from tropical to desert, it also has more maintained botanical gardens and spas. Nevertheless, its nature reserve is still one of the most beautiful wild areas of the country, with flowing streams and waterfalls adding to the enchantment. 

Atlas Obscura’s Israel Week is in partnership with Go Israel.com, your guide to Israel’s beautiful destinations and its many hidden wonders!

If your film is set in a world out of fairytales and is peopled with wizards and elves, it may be tempting to film the whole thing on a soundstage. But some filmmakers managed to find fantastical scenery in the real world when making their epics.

Here are 11 stunning real-world locations of fantasy films.

LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY (2001-2003)
New Zealand

New Zealand, aka Middle Earth (photograph by Matt Chan)

Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of Lord Of The Rings not only brought the beloved novels to the screen, it put his New Zealand home on the moviemaking map. All the Middle-Earth locations were filmed in and around New Zealand; even the soundstage work took place in Jackson’s Weta studio in Wellington (which also offers tours to guests).  

"Mordor" by Jeff Pang (via fotopedia)

North of Wellington, the Tongariro National Park stands in for the forbidding land of Mordor, where Frodo must travel to destroy the cursed "Ring Of Power" by throwing it into the volcano “Mount Doom.” Tongariro Park boasts three volcanoes — one of which is still active. Jackson filmed most of the Mordor scenes around the inactive Tongariro volcano, and also on the ski slopes of Whakapapa Ski Field.  

A bit closer to Wellington, you’ll find Harcourt Park, where Jackson placed Isengard, home to the evil wizard Sauroman (Christopher Lee). In reality, the site is host to a more guest-friendly campground, the Wellington Kiwi Holiday Park, which boasts proximity to "Isengard" and a number of other film locations: the Hutt River on the park’s western edge is where Frodo and his companions set off by canoe after meeting with the Elf-Queen Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), and a 15-minute walk up river you’ll find where Aragorn (Viggo Morgenson) washes ashore after a battle with Orcs in the second movie. Kaitoke Regional Park, where Jackson filmed the scenes in the elvish kingdom Rivendell, is about 13 kilometers away. Finally, on the grounds of Wellington Park, you’ll find a portion of a tree trunk the owners claim to have been salvaged from the movie set.

Upper Hutt River (photograph by Jeff Hitchcock)

Harcourt Park, aka Isengard (photograph by Jessica Spengler)

Kaitoke Regional Park, aka Rivendell (photograph by Yortw/Flickr user)

The Fiordland region on the western coast of the South Island is another hub of locations. Near Te Anau, at the edge of the Fiordland National Park, is where Frodo is stabbed in the shoulder by one of the Nazgul riders. Parts of the Arrowtown Recreational Reserve to the north of Te Anau became the “Misty Mountains,” where Gandalf (Ian McKellen) tried to lead the Fellowship over the mountains rather than pass through the underground dwarf realms. 

Shotover River, Mat Cross (via Wikimedia)

Elsewhere in Arrowtown is the Shotover River, where the elf Arwen (Liv Tyler), carrying Frodo on her horse, lures a team of Nazgul into the path of a flash flood by taunting “If you want Frodo, come and claim him!” 

Further north still is Mount Sunday, a rocky hill in the center of a glacier-carved plain. Jackson built the set for Edoras, the royal residence in the kingdom of Rohan, on its peak. The set is gone, but film fans will definitely recognize the surrounding landscape.  

Mt. Sunday (FlickreviewR, via Wikimedia)

Back on the north island, Jackson filmed scenes in the elf kingdom of Lothlorien on the grounds of Fernside Lodge, a historic estate 40 miles east of Wellington. Fernside is also used for the flashback scene in Return of the King which reveals how Gollum – then known as “Smeagol” — first got the Ring of Power.   

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA (2005-2008)
New Zealand, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland 

Cathedral Cove, filming site of "Prince Caspian" (photograph by Robert Engberg)

J.R.R. Tolkein, author of The Lord Of The Rings, was a close friend of C.S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. So it’s fitting that the movie adaptations of their fantasy epics both claim New Zealand as a filmic home. 

The first Narnia film concerns the four Pevensie children, who are evacuated from London for safety during World War II to stay with Professor Kirke (Jim Broadbent), a family friend with a house in the country. Scenes of the Pevensies’ arrival at Professor Kirke’s house were filmed at the Monte Cecilia Park at Pah Homestead, a historic mansion just outside Auckland. However, the existing building was digitally altered for the film. 

Monte Cecilia Park (via Wikimedia)

The Pevensies discover an old wardrobe inside one of the spare rooms — a wardrobe which is a portal to Narnia, a magic land in the grip of a perpetual winter thanks to a witch’s curse. New Zealand wasn’t quite wintry enough, so production moved for this setting to the Czech Republic. Youngest sister Lucy (Georgie Henley) is first to explore Narnia, picking through a cluster of wintry cliffs and rock forms. She’s actually at Tiské Steny, a series of cliffs near the village of Tisá north of Prague. Much of the other “winter” scenes took place at Adrspach National Park near the Polish border. 

Tiské Steny (photograph by Thomas Schaffhirt)

Elephant Rocks (Pseudopanax, via Wikimedia)

The rest of the first film returns to New Zealand. Pevensie brother Edmond (Skandar Keynes) is a captive of the White Witch in Woodhill Forest north of Auckland, while the other Pevensies have teamed up with the lion Aslan (Liam Neeson, voice) to rescue him. They train for combat at Elephant Rocks, a series of limestone rock formations south of Duntroon on the South Island.  

Filming for Prince Caspian, the second film, once again jumps between Eastern Europe and New Zealand. The Pevensies learn that this time, they’ve been summoned to Narnia by Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), rightful heir to the Narnian throne, to help him during a war against the invading Telmarine people. On the shores of the tiny Moeraki River, the Pevensies rescue the dwarf Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage) from a pair of Telmarines.   

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010)
Cornwall, United Kingdom

Not surprisingly, the bulk of Tim Burton’s 3D take on this classic tale was filmed in a studio. But there are a pair of real-world spots you can visit, both located on the south coast of Cornwall in the United Kingdom. 

Antony House (Brian, via Wikimedia)

First is Antony House, an 18th-century mansion just outside Plymouth. The entire estate once belonged to the Carew family — a noble clan long associated with the British military. But in 1961, family head Sir John Carew Pole turned the grounds of the estate over to the public, provided his family could still live in the house itself. In the film, Antony House becomes “Lord Ascot’s Estate,” where a grown-up Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is dragged to a rather dull garden party where she spots her old friend the White Rabbit.

Charlestown Harbour (photograph by Robert Pittman)

After a sojourn in Wonderland, Alice returns to in time to turn down a marriage proposal from Lord Ascot’s son Hamish (Leo Bill). Impressed by her pluck, Lord Ascot (Tim Pigott-Smith) takes her in as an apprentice for his shipping business, and the film ends at Charlestown Harbour, about 25 miles west of Plymouth, where a delighted Alice is on board a clipper ship preparing to sail to China. 

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000)
China 

Hongcun (photograph by Mulligan Stu)

Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is set in China in the 1770s, but it’s in a more fantastical China, with magic swords, nomadic desert bandits, and men who can walk on trees. 

Houses in Hongcun (photograph by Mulligan Stu)

The film’s action opens in the village of Hongcun, a World Heritage Site near the Huangshan Yellow Mountain. Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat), a Wudan martial arts master, has come to Hongcun to retire. He asks Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), a warrior woman he is close to, to deliver his sword “the Green Destiny” to their mutual friend near Beijing, Sir Te (Sihung Lung). Sir Te's estate is the Chengde Summer Palace in Hebei Province.

Chengde was built in the 1700s as a summer residence for Qing Dynasty noble families seeking to escape Beijing’s summer heat. In the film, the local governor is at Sir Te’s home with his family, doing precisely that. The governor’s niece Jen (Zhang Ziyi) befriends Yu Shu at the estate. Jen is facing an arranged marriage and is fascinated by Yu Shu’s rough-and-tumble lifestyle. 

Chengde (photograph by Malcolm Brown)

But Jen is more familiar with a rough life than she lets on. In an extended flashback, the film reveals that Jen once ran away to join a team of outlaws in the Gobi desert after one of them, Lo (Chen Chang), stole her hair comb.  

The scenes where she hides out with Lo in the desert, and the two ultimately become lovers, are at Ghost City, a windswept 120-square-kilometer region filled with oddly-shaped rock formations. The winds moaning through the rocks give the region its eerie name. 

The final eye-popping battles between Yu Shu, Jen (who's stolen the Green Destiny), and Li all take place in or near Hongcun Zhen. First Jen fights Yu Shu in Hongcun Zhen proper, then escapes with the Green Destiny after hurting Yu Shu’s arm. Li chases her across Hongun Zhen’s Moon Pool – the two of them literally running across its surface – then take to the trees in the Anhui Bamboo Forest, to the east of the village. Anhui  Forest is the largest such forest in China, and even sports a Bamboo Museum, devoted to the history of its cultivation. 

Bamboo Sea (photograph by cnneil/Flickr user)

Cangyan Shan (photograph by Jeff/Flickr user)

The film’s final tragic scenes take place on “Mount Wudang,” the temple where a repentant Jen joins Lo after both her governess and Li have been killed. The actual temple used in the film is Cangyan Shan, a Buddhist monastery an hour southwest of Beijing by train. At the center of Cangyan Shan is the stone bridge where Jen reminds Lo of a story he told her about a man who made a wish and then dove off a mountain, but lived because he was “pure of heart.” She tells him to close his eyes and make a wish, and as he does, she dives off the bridge. 

WILLIE WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971)
Munich, Germany

Munich power plant (photograph by LateralusAD/Wikimedia)

The first adaptation of this Roald Dahl classic was filmed entirely in Germany. Director Mel Stuart felt that the city of Munich was just unfamiliar enough to audiences that it could be a generic “anywhere.”  Plus, it was cheaper. 

Most scenes were on sound stages, but for the scene outside Willie Wonka’s factory — where Wonka (Gene Wilder) first hobbles out with a cane — were filmed at the main entrance to the gasworks of Stadtwerke München, the power plant supplying the bulk of Munich’s electricity and natural gas. For the final scene, where Wonka takes Charlie (Peter Ostrum) on a tour in his glass elevator, filmmakers used aerial footage of the tiny Bavarian town of Nördlingen. 

Noerdlingen (photograph by Vid Pogacnik)

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS (2009)
London, England, and Vancouver, Canada 

Blackfriars Bridge (Duffman, via Wikimedia)

Like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this film set in a real-world location is very much a fantasy. The wizard Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) runs a traveling broken-down stage show with a few companions in London, in a bid to win a long-standing magic war with “Mr. Nick,” the Devil (Tom Waits), with Parnassus’ own daughter Valentina (Lily Cole) as the prize.

Their luck turns when they encounter Tony (Heath Ledger), a con man who appears to have hanged himself under Blackfriars Bridge, one of the traverses of the Thames. Blackfriars Bridge sits just west of the Tate Modern Museum and the Globe Theater. The troupe rescues Tony and invites him to join their show, in which audience members are lured into stepping through a magic mirror into a fantastical otherworld. Tony not only agrees, he rewrites the show altogether.

The troupe debuts the new show to great success at Leadenhall Market, a covered market established in the 14th century which has become one of London’s most fashionable shopping centers. 

Leadenhall Market (Diliff, via Wikimedia Commons)

Scenes in the latter half of the film were shot in Vancouver, Canada. Most are glimpses of the through-the-mirror world, which were for the large part shot on sound stages at Vancouver’s Bridge Studios. But one fantasy sequence featuring Tony (who at this point is played by Colin Farrell) was filmed at Vancouver’s Orpheum Theater, a lavish movie theater from 1927 which has been revamped as a concert venue. In the film, it’s where Tony’s fantasy about hosting a charity ball turns ugly. 

In the course of the climactic magic battle, Mr. Nick traps Dr. Parnassus inside the magic mirror, and he fears Valentina lost forever. When Parnassus finally comes to, he is alone, begging outside a glass-walled shopping mall. The scene is actually at the central branch of Vancouver’s Public Library. The library’s entry foyer was used as the mall’s food court. Towards the film’s end, Parnassus peeps through the window to see Valentina having lunch with a husband and two children, safe and happy. 

Vancouver's Orpheum Theater (photograph by Kevin Jaako)

TIME BANDITS (1981)
United Kingdom and Kasbah Aït Benhaddou, Morrocco

Dungeness (photograph by Simon Huguet) 

This 1981 film was, like Dr. Parnassus, a Terry Gilliam production, but it’s a bit more kid-friendly. A young English boy, Kevin (Craig Warnock), is swept up in the adventure when a troupe of little people crash through his closet one night. They’ve been working with “the Supreme Being,” they explain, and stole his map of the universe showing where “rips in the fabric of time” could allow them to time-travel. The history-loving Kevin joins them, and is soon off on a jaunt through history, meeting everyone from Napoleon (Ian Holm) to Robin Hood (John Cleese) to Greek King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) with the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson) in pursuit. 

A shaky budget kept Gilliam locked to England for most of his film locations. Napoleon’s castle is Raglan Castle in southeast Wales, where he holds court to a star-struck Kevin while the others raid his treasure hold, only to lose it all to Robin Hood in the next scene. Epping Forest, on the fringes of Greater London, stands in for Sherwood Forest. Even the forbidding “Time of Legends,” a fantastical realm of ogres and giants, is in England. It’s the Dungeness Headland on the coast of Kent, England’s only desert. 

The film’s big location splurge came for scenes with King Agamemnon. Here, the Kasbah Aït Benhaddou in Morocco stands in for Agamemnon’s kingdom of Mycenae.

Kasbah Aït Benhaddou (Donar Reiskoffer, via Wikimedia)

Kasbah Aït Benhaddou is an ancient fortified city and former trading post on the old caravan route between Marrakech and the Sahara. While most residents now live in a more modern development across the Ounila River, a few families still live in the older city.

GAME OF THRONES (2011)
Northern Ireland 

Although Game of Thrones — based on author George R.R. Martin’s ongoing book series — has visited Iceland, Croatia, and Morocco, the bulk is filmed on a soundstage in Belfast, and in the nearby Northern Ireland countryside. 

Most of the first season concerned the noble Stark family, lords of a region called Winterfell in the land of Westros. Winterfell’s castle is on the grounds of Castle Ward, an 18th century mansion in County Down. The show filmed at the ruins of the old castle, which dates to the 16th century.

Inch Abbey (Ardfern, via Wikimedia)

Several other scenes use Inch Abbey, the ruins of a monastery built in the County Down in the 800s. In the show, it's where Mistress of Winterfell, Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley) learns of her husband's death while on a visit to her son Robb (Richard Madden).

About 50 miles northwest of Belfast is the “Dark Hedges,” a stretch of road lined with overgrown beech trees.

Dark Hedges (Horslips5, via Flickr)

The trees were originally planted to grace the path leading to a mansion owned by the noble Stuart family, but as they grew, the trees twisted and interlaced as they arched over the road, leading to a spooky, rather than serene, path.

In Game of Thrones, the Dark Hedges become “Kingsroad,” a major thoroughfare in Westros, and is the path one of the Stark daughters, Arya (Maisie Williams), uses to make her escape after her father is killed. 

Elsewhere in Westros, pampered noblewoman Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) is forced to marry the king of the nomadic Dothraki people, and becomes one of their fiercest leaders. An early scene among the Dothraki took place in County Antrim’s Shillanavogy Valley, near the site where tradition holds St. Patrick was first brought to Ireland as a slave and set to work herding sheep. 

Cushendun Caves (Ardfern, via Wikimedia)

Also just nearby are the Cushendun Caves, used for a scene where the priestess Melisandre (Carice van Houten) gives birth to a hideous “Shadow Baby” that she then sends to assassinate the men in a nearby camp. 

Finally, Ballintoy Harbour in County Atrim is where Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen), after a long stint in service to the Starks, makes his return home to “the Iron Islands.”  The residents of Ballintoy were so proud to host filming that they erected a monument at the site once filming wrapped.

Ballintoy Harbour (photograph by William Marnoch)

THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987)
United Kingdom 

Especially beloved by its fans, this tale is the dramatization of a story read by a grandfather (Peter Falk) to his sick grandson (Fred Savage).  Their scenes are confined to the boy’s bedroom — most likely a soundstage — but the world of the story is a bit more dazzling. 

Haddon Hall (Rob Bendall, via Wikimedia)

The story mostly takes place in the imaginary Kingdom of Florin, ruled over by Prince Humperdink (Chris Sarandon).  The bride of the title, Buttercup (Robin Wright Penn), is a young peasant woman grieving over the disappearance of her true love Westley (Cary Elwes). Assuming Westley is dead, Buttercup agrees to marry Humperdink, moving into his castle during the wedding preparations. Humperdink’s castle is in reality Haddon Hall, a medieval manor house in Derbyshire, England. Humperdink presents Buttercup to the court in Haddon Hall's courtyard. Later scenes in Humperdink’s chamber were set in Haddon’s Banqueting Hall. 

Before the wedding, Buttercup is kidnapped by a band of three mercenaries while on a horseback ride through the woods. The woods themselves are the Burnham Beeches, a protected ancient woodland reserve near Buckinghamshire just outside London. 

The kidnappers — Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), Spanish swordsman Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin), and strongman Fezzig (Andre the Giant) — flee with Buttercup by boat to the “Cliffs of Insanity,” noticing that a mysterious man in black has followed them. 

Cliffs of Insanity (Colin D. Young, used with permission)

The cliffs are actually the Irish Cliffs of Moher, just south of Galway. Harry Potter film fans may also recognize Moher as the spot where Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) and Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) look for one of the horocruxes in The Half-Blood Prince. 

After scaling the Cliffs, the Man in Black rescues Buttercup from the kidnappers and reveals that he is her beloved Westley. Before Buttercup and Westley can run off together, Humperdink catches up with them and compels Buttercup to carry on with the wedding. Westley teams back up with Fezzig and Inigo to rescue her. Inigo also hopes to meet Humperdink’s advisor Count Rugen (Christopher Guest), and exact revenge upon Rugen for killing his father. 

Much of the rescue scenes are back in Haddon Hall, but Inigo’s final sword fight with Rugen is in the Baron’s Hall at Penshurst Place, a 14th-century manor house in Kent. 

Penshurst Place (via Wikimedia)

EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990)
Lutz, Florida, USA 

Director Tim Burton first considered setting this film in the Burbank suburbia where he grew up, but it had become a bit too hip. So instead, he chose the town of Lutz, near Tampa, Florida. The exact street where Edward Scissorhands (Johnny Depp) comes to live with the family of Avon lady Peg (Dianne Wiest) is Tinsmith Circle in Lutz. Today Tinsmith Circle looks nothing like the pastel-painted suburban street from the film, as Burton helped residents restore their homes after temporarily repainting them for the film. 

Southgate Shopping Center (Wes Bryant, via Flickr)

However, the Southgate Shopping Mall — where Edward Scissorhands finds himself uniquely suited to work in a beauty salon — is just as eye-catchingly kitschy as it was in the film. Southgate is in Lakeland, about 30 miles east of Lutz. 

EXCALIBUR (1981)
Ireland 

The 1981 adaptation of the Arthurian legend, possibly the most English of fantasy tales, was actually filmed in Ireland. An early scene when Arthur (Nigel Terry) pulls the sword Excalibur out of the stone, proving himself to be future king, takes place in Childers Wood, near the town of Roundwood in County Wicklow. A bit further east — the easternmost point in Ireland, in fact — is Wicklow Head, where director John Boorman set an early scene involving Arthur’s father Uther Pendragon (Gabriel Byrne). Arthur’s first battle, after which he demands the knight Sir Uryens (Keith Buckley) knight him, was at Cahir Castle in County Tipperary. 

Cahir Castle (Valdoria, via Wikimedia)

Back in Wicklow, a waterfall on the grounds of the Powerscourt Estate is the spot where Lancelot (Nicholas Clay) first meets King Arthur, challenging him to single combat to test his might as a King. Finally, the film that begins at Ireland’s easternmost point ends at its westernmost — the coast of Kerry, from which a dying Arthur sets sail for the land of Avalon. 

HARRY POTTER (2001 - 2011)
United Kingdom, Ireland, Scotland 

London’s King’s Cross Station is the main station for the Hogwarts Express, from “Platform 9 ¾.”  The exact spot from the film where Mrs. Weasley (Julie Walters) first shows Harry how to run into the wall is actually between platforms 4 and 5, and is no longer accessible to casual visitors — you need to have a valid train ticket. 

"Platform 9 3/4", Tom McIntyre (Used with Permission)

However, Kings’ Cross has set up a mock “Platform 9 ¾” inside the station near the entrance to the real platform 9, with a Potter-themed gift shop and a mock luggage trolley “disappearing” into the wall. 

Gloucester Cathedral Cloisters (Jinxsi1960, via Flickr)

As for Hogwarts itself, seven different cathedrals, universities, and libraries make up the bulk of its filming locations. The cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral stand in for the various corridors of Hogwarts in most of the films, including the spot where Harry sees the message “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened” written in blood in the second film. 

Hogwarts’ quad is at Durham Cathedral, further north. Many classroom scenes were at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire — the Abbey’s Sacristy hosts Professor Snape’s (Alan Rickman) potions class in the first film, and the “Warming Room” is where Professor Quirrell (Ian Hart) gives the first Defense Against The Dark Arts class. The Abbey’s Chapter House is where Harry discovers the Mirror of Erised in the first film, and in the second, it’s where Harry suddenly shocks his classmates by slipping into speaking Parseltongue. 

Oxford's Divinity School (photograph by Freddie Phillips)

Oxford University loans Hogwarts the Duke Humphrey’s Library, the oldest reading room at Oxford’s Bodleian library. It’s where Hermione (Emma Watson) first looks up the instructions for polyjuice potion. Elsewhere in the Bodleian library is Oxford’s Divinity School, which was used as Hogwarts’ infirmary. The Divinity School is also where Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) tries to teach Ron to waltz in The Goblet Of Fire. 

Scenes outside Hogwarts are similarly far-flung. The lake where Harry first sees Buckbeak and fights off Dementors in Prisoner of Azkaban is Virginia Water in Surrey. In The Half-Blood Prince, the Weasley’s home is set on the grounds of The Abbotsbury Swannery, a wildlife sanctuary for Mute Swans near Weymouth in Dorset. The Swannery is a fascinating trip in its own right. Its swans are the descendants of a domesticated flock raised to feed the monks of a nearby monastery in the 11th Century.   The monastery closed in the 1600s, and today the swans are protected wildlife. 

Abbotsbury Swannery (photograph by Trisha/Flickr user)

The two Deathly Hallows films are even more of a cross-country tour as Harry, Ron, and Hermione race to find and destroy all of the “Horocruxes” – a set of talismans that will let them defeat the evil Voldemort once and for all. 

For a while they hide in the Burnham Beeches (see Princess Bride, above). After a quarrel, Ron temporarily abandons Harry and Hermione, who relocate to a rock bluff in North Yorkshire — the Limestone Pavement formation at Malham Cove.  

Limestone Pavement, Yorkshire (Gordon Hatton, via Geograph.org.uk)

Finally, fans should visit the Warner Brothers Leavesden Studio just northwest of London, where most of the soundstage scenes took place. Set in a former aircraft factory, Leavesden also has also hosted films in the Star Wars and James Bond franchises, but the Harry Potter films have been its biggest tenant. In 2012  the studio built two extra sound stages to create a permanent home for their entire Potter collection, including the set from Hogwarts’ Great Hall and from Diagon Alley, a scale model of Hogwarts, displays of production design sketches, costumes, and props, and a café offering butterbeer.  

Leavesden Studio (photograph by Karen Roe)

Discover more real-world locations from film on Atlas Obscura >

Atlas Obscura’s Israel Week is in partnership with Go Israel.com, your guide to Israel’s beautiful destinations and its many hidden wonders!

Detail of the Bauhaus Museum, Tel Aviv (photograph by BergA/Wikimedia)

The immigration of Europeans fleeing the Nazis to Tel Aviv in the 1930s just happened to coincide with one of the most experimental architecture movements of the 20th century. The Israeli city now has over 4,000 examples of Bauhaus or International style buildings constructed between the 1930s and 40s. 

In the Bauhaus architecture, symmetry is less important than style, white was used to reflect the sunlight and give the structures a simplicity, and ideas from architects like Le Corbusier on proportions were brought into these studies in function. In this way Tel Aviv has its alternate name — the White City.

The whole of the White City was recognized in 2003 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, and local organizations like the Bauhaus Center and the new Bauhaus Museum pay tribute to this architectural legacy. But much of the beauty of Bauhaus can be appreciated visually just with a stroll through the city.

Here are a few highlights:

Rabinsky House

photograph by Degser/Wikimedia

photograph by Deror avi/Wikimedia

via Wikimedia

Cinema Hotel

photograph by Robinbagon/Wikimedia

photograph by Robinbagon/Wikimedia

photograph by Robinbagon/Wikimedia

181 HaYarkon 18

photograph by Brian Jeffery Beggerly

photograph by Sagie/Flickr user

photograph by Sagie/Flickr user

Hechal Yehuda Synagogue

photograph by Avishai Teicher

photograph by Avishai Teicher

Dizengoff Square

photograph by Itaifortis/Wikimedia

via Wikimedia

photograph by Robinbagon/Wikimedia

Atlas Obscura’s Israel Week is in partnership with Go Israel.com, your guide to Israel’s beautiful destinations and its many hidden wonders!

Atlas Obscura’s Israel Week is in partnership with Go Israel.com, your guide to Israel’s beautiful destinations and its many hidden wonders!

Some of the most beautiful wonders of Israel aren't on the land at all, but under the waves that wash up to the shore. From scuba diving to underwater restaurants, here are some of the submerged attractions in the country. 

UNDERWATER OBSERVATORY

photograph by Avishai Teicher

Want to scuba dive without getting wet? The Underwater Observatory Marine Park in Eilat offers just that. In addition to its aquariums with fascinating sea creatures, it also offers an underwater space for view the biodiversity of the Red Sea and its coral reefs. 

RED SEA STAR

Also in Eilat is a slightly different take on the underwater observatory, as here you can eat the fish, too. The Red Sea Star restaurant is located at the end of a pier and accessible by elevator. Below the water it offers 62 windows out to the sea to view the fish while dining, and the bar has its own periscope. 

ATLIT YAM

photograph by Hanay/Wikimedia

The remains of ancient structures also populate Israel's coasts, but perhaps none so mysterious as Atlit-Yam. Located near the village of Atlit, the ruins date back to 6900 BC and 6300 BC. These Neolithic remains include houses, wells, and even burial grounds, with skeletons including two of the earliest known examples of tuberculosis. Most curious is an arrangement of a stone semicircle of monoliths around a freshwater spring. Some have speculated this was the site of rituals involving water. As to why Atlit-Yam was abandoned, signs seem to indicate a devastating tsunami. 

The well (photograph by Hanay/Wikimedia)

SCUBA DIVING

photograph by iluxhave/Flickr user

For the intrepid, scuba diving in Israel is one of the best ways to appreciate its underwater topography. From the coral reefs of the Red Sea at Eilat, with its mild temperatures and clear waters, to the Mediterranean Sea with its caves and canyons, there is an incredible variety of options for underwater tourism. Keep an eye out for octopi and schools of fish, and even shipwrecks, for a stunning adventure in the submerged world. 

Atlas Obscura’s Israel Week is in partnership with Go Israel.com, your guide to Israel’s beautiful destinations and its many hidden wonders!

A visitor to a museum today is often confronted by an array of electronic gadgetry and interactive displays exhibiting the museum’s content in a manner that will appeal to our technology addicted society. However, amid all of the touch screens and HD animation, a form of museum exhibit that originated in the 19th century endures as a medium that still can dazzle viewers.

Invented in the 1820s by Louis Daguerre of daguerreotype photography fame, the diorama is a three-dimensional model of a realistic scene, frequently displayed against a painted background. Dioramas have been utilized to portray wildlife in natural habitats, historic events, famous battles, landscapes, or simply scenes of everyday life. Some of the most captivating exhibits in museum collections across the globe are miniature dioramas displaying people, places, and things in exquisite detail at a fraction of their original size.

Here is a sampling of five elaborate museum dioramas that present a miniaturized view of the world.

Fisher Museum
Petersham, Massachusetts

Diorama in the Fisher Museum (photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia)

In western Massachusetts, Harvard University owns and manages over 3,000 acres of land, aptly named the Harvard Forest, which it operates as a field lab and research center for the study of forestry.

In the middle of the forest, the Fisher Museum houses 23 striking dioramas depicting New England woodlands. Built by the Cambridge studio of Pittman & Guernsey, creators of many highly detailed dioramas, the models are incredibly lifelike scenes illustrating the history, development, and biology of the forest habitat.

Case 12 - Thinning a 60 Year Pine-Hardwood Stand (photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia) 

Case 12 - Hemlock White Pine Forest & Harvard Pond (photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia)

Case 5 - The Abandoned Farm Produces a White Pine Crop (photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia)

Case 21 - Forest Fire (photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia)

Case 1 - The Precolonial Forest (photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia)

Case 16 - Pruning White Pine (photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia)

Case 20 (photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia)

Case 13 - Hemlock & White Pine Forest & Harvard Pond (photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia) 

Australian War Memorial
Canberra, Australia

Part of the Battle of Lone Pine diorama in the Gallipoli Gallery at the Australian War Memorial (photograph by Bidgee, via Wikimedia)

The medium of the diorama is particularly well suited to the depiction of battles and military scenes. In vivid and sometimes gruesome detail, these miniature models help to convey to viewers the horrors of war.

Constructed in the 1920s, the dioramas of the Australian War Memorial document the experiences of Australian solders during World War I. Among the displays are harrowing scenes of trench warfare along the Western Front, cavalry charges, and of course, the clash between Australian and Turkish forces at Gallipoli.

In the bunkers (photograph by David Francis)

In the trenches (photograph by David Francis)

Diorama of the Australian Front (photograph by Christopher Neugebauer)

Horseback charge (photograph by David Francis)

Battlescene (photograph by Christopher Neugebauer)

Throwing a grenade (photograph by Christopher Neugebauer)

Naval battle (photograph by Christopher Neugebauer)

Derancourt Diorama (photograph by Ian Sutton)

Ringling Circus Museum
Sarasota, Florida

photograph by Zinnia Jones

If you are going to make a diorama of the Greatest Show on Earth, it had better live up to the billing. Howard C. Tibbals did just that, working for over 50 years to create a model circus that covers 3,800 square feet and contains over 44,000 pieces.

Displayed in the Tibbals Learning Center at the Ringling Circus Museum, Tibbals’ model is dubbed “the world’s largest miniature circus.” Although Tibbals called his creation the “Howard Bros. Circus” because he was denied permission to use the Ringling name, his diorama is an exact recreation of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey traveling show from the years 1919-1938.

The diorama features thousands of human figures, hundreds of animals, eight large tents, side stages, vehicles, concession stands, and a railroad yard complete with models of the train cars that brought the circus from town to town.

photograph by Zinnia Jones

photograph by Zinnia Jones

photograph by Zinnia Jones

photograph by Zinnia Jones

photograph by Mingo Hagen

photograph by Zinnia Jones

photograph by Zinnia Jones

photograph by Zinnia Jones

Jaca Citadel Military Miniatures Museum
Jaca, Spain

via Jaca Citadel Miniatures Museum

The Jaca Citadel is an imposing pentagon-shaped fortress located in northeastern Spain. Built in the 16th century to defend against invasion by the French, the Citadel today is home to one of the world’s most impressive collections of military dioramas.

The Military Miniatures Museum originated from the efforts of one man, Carlos Royo-Villanova, who amassed over 32,000 miniature soldiers representing armies from all over the world and across a wide range of historic periods. The collection was moved to the Citadel in 2001, and the soldiers are now displayed throughout twenty three dioramas depicting miniaturized recreations of battles and armies spanning from ancient Egypt to the 20th century.

via Jaca Citadel Miniatures Museum

via Jaca Citadel Miniatures Museum

via Jaca Citadel Miniatures Museum

Heichal Shlomo Museum
Jerusalem, Israel

photograph by Deror Avi

Chronicling 4,000 years of history is not an easy task, even when done in a miniaturized form. At the Heichel Shlomo Museum in Jerusalem, a series of thirty dioramas tell the story of the Jewish people from Abraham’s journey to Canaan up through the establishment of the State of Israel.

Created by British artist David Stokes in 1958, the dioramas are displayed in glass cases ranging in size from two and half to five feet in length. An enormous crowd of one-inch tall figurines depict such epic biblical scenes as the parting of the Red Sea, Joshua’s triumph at the battle of Jericho, and the Revelation on Mount Sinai. 

photograph by Deror Avi

photograph by Deror Avi

photograph by Deror Avi

photograph by Deror Avi

photograph by Deror Avi

Discover more of the world's most dramatic dioramas on Atlas Obscura >

Atlas Obscura’s Israel Week is in partnership with Go Israel.com, your guide to Israel’s beautiful destinations and its many hidden wonders!

Old & Newer in Israel (all photographs by Julian Tash)

Israel is a convergence of old and new, a place where millennia of culture, history, and architecture interact with the modern. Few cultures better exemplify this temporal exchange, and the challenges and culture that surround it, than the Charedim.

In part defined by its heavy emphasis on tradition, the Charedi movement of Judaism is subsequently quite nuanced, and not well-known to outsiders. Through the exploration of places that Charedim (the plural of practitioners) find important, one can begin to discover Charedi Judaism. One such place being Mea Shearim, one of the oldest of Jerusalem's neighborhoods.

The Mea Shearim neighborhood was named after a biblical verse in Genesis: "Isaac sowed in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundredfold (מאה שערים, mea shearim); God had blessed him."

Additionally, Mea Shearim is also used in Hebrew to mean one hundred gates, which the community supposedly once had. Charedi culture has developed distinct customs in Mea Shearim. The Charedi Jews often elect to limit their exposure to mainstream Israeli culture because of value conflicts (such as the depiction of women in the media). As such, many Charedi Jews choose not to use radios, television, or computers. Charedim, instead, put posters on the walls of their streets.

These announcements in Yiddish and Hebrew communicate a wide range of information, from obituaries to newly released books. Other notices ask visitors to respect Charedi customs. In Mea Shearim, the posters request that tourists not travel in conspicuous groups, and that women wear modest clothing, referred to as tzniut or, for European Jews, tznius. Many Jews in Mea Shearim also won’t touch people of the opposite gender, so don’t be offended if someone won’t shake hands with you. 

Don’t let these things deter you from a visit! There are many interesting people open to meeting visitors, as well as shops that sell a range of things from books and Judaica to pizza. If you are in town for Shabbat (Friday night) you can attend something called a tisch.

Yiddish for table, a tisch is a wildly popular event during which Charedim sing nigunim — wordless songs — and zemirot, or hymns. The head Rabbi of the community sits at the front of the table and gives speeches on Torah subjects, in addition to leading songs.The size of these range from intimate gatherings to events that are so large there are bleachers to accommodate the number of people attending. Women typically observe the tisch in a separate room.

Charedim constitute a small, but important, part of the Israeli population, and are one of the many ways in which past and present interact to form a unique culture. Through these photographs, you can journey there visually, but only through visiting first-hand can you discover how this overlooked, insular place can actually be quite open.

All photographs by the author.

Atlas Obscura’s Israel Week is in partnership with Go Israel.com, your guide to Israel’s beautiful destinations and its many hidden wonders!

Atlas Obscura’s Israel Week is in partnership with Go Israel.com, your guide to Israel’s beautiful destinations and its many hidden wonders!

Art by Klone in Israel (photograph by Carlos Rodríguez Torre)

Concentrated in Tel Aviv but spreading across the country, the street art of Israel is an artistic public form for dialogue. In a place where communication can be severed across different communities, the street art is seen by everyone, and can add vibrancy to the cityscape. Here are five street artists currently practicing in Israel. 

Know Hope

Know Hope mural in Tel Aviv (photograph by Carlos Rodríguez Torre)

Tel Aviv-based Know Hope captures the small struggles of the everyday with paste-up figures in striped clothes clutching hearts. These are often created on found paper and mixed with scraps of wood, as if they emerged from the refuse of the street. Know Hope also juxtaposes these with large-scale murals and scrawled messages, such as in the below image which reads: "And these stress marks on the paved pavement bear minor symphonies."

Know Hope street art in Tel Aviv (photograph by Yaffa Phillips)

Zero Cents

Zero Cents in Tel Aviv (photograph by Yaffa Phillips)

Work by Tel Aviv-based Zero Cents is immediately recognizable with its unnerving, hand-drawn style. Jittery figures with teeth like marshmallows are sketched in murals that match the grittiness of the walls. 

Ame72 & Zero Cents in Tel Aviv (photograph by Yaffa Phillips)

Klone

Mural by Klone in Tel Aviv (photograph by Yaffa Phillips)

The Ukraine-born, Israel-based Klone mostly creates his surreal animals from paint, paste-ups, and stickers. These "predators" include a repeating image of a strange fox, with fangs but gentle eyes. 

Work by Klone in Tel Aviv (photograph by Majento/Flickr user)

Ame72 

photograph by Nina Jean

The playful designs by Ame72 has been appearing in Tel Aviv for years, with the most common of his stencil works the Lego people. They're often combined with messages that comment on politics, the business of life, or just add some whimsy to the city streets. 

photograph by Carlos Rodríguez Torre

Foma <3

photograph by Carlos Rodríguez Torre

One of the few female street artists practicing in Israel is Foma <3. Her paste-ups are figurative representations of people with lines in black and white, and in another ongoing series she shows herself in a white mask. 

Foma <3  at center with work by Know Hope & Klone (photograph by Michael Keating)

Atlas Obscura’s Israel Week is in partnership with Go Israel.com, your guide to Israel’s beautiful destinations and its many hidden wonders!