Drop a stone into the Cave of Swallows, and you can count several seconds before it lands. Known in Spanish as Sótano de las Golondrinas, this open-air pit cave in the Huasteca Potosina region of San Luis Potosí, Mexico, is often called one of the largest cave shafts in the world. It is a hole in a forested hillside that simply keeps going.
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| A caver starts the rope descent from the rim of Sótano de las Golondrinas, one of the world’s deepest open-air pit caves. |
Welwitschia mirabilis has divided opinions more than most plants. Nineteenth-century botanists found it ugly, even grotesque. Modern researchers see something else: a plant that has worked out how to live in one of the driest places on Earth and keeps going for centuries while doing it. It has only two leaves. Everything else about its story follows from this discovery.
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| Welwitschia mirabilis is an unusual desert plant native to Namibia, known for its long leaves and remarkable longevity. |
Most towns keep their public toilets out of sight. Pont-Aven, a small town in Finistère in Brittany, did the opposite. At the central crossroads beside the bridge, the public toilets occupy a decorative stone building perched over the river, and many visitors notice it before anything else. The building is dated to 1932.
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| The public toilets in Pont-Aven, a small town on the Aven River in Finistère, Brittany. |
Walk through the older streets of Hong Kong Island, and you will notice something strange. Big, full-grown trees stand on vertical stone walls, with roots hanging down the masonry like thick ropes. These are Hong Kong’s stone wall trees, and nobody planned them.
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| A stone wall tree on the old retaining wall at Forbes Street, near Davis Street, in Kennedy Town. |
Lake Amadeus is one of those places most people don't know about, even though it’s very large It sits about 50 km north of Uluru, out in the red centre of the Northern Territory, and runs for roughly 180 km. In places, it’s about 10 km wide. From the air, it looks like a long white streak laid across the desert. The European Space Agency has captured striking satellite images of the lake and its mix of sandy, rocky, and salty surfaces.
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| An aerial photograph of Lake Amadeus, the enormous salt lake between Uluru and Kings Canyon in Australia's Northern Territory. |
Wedding Cake Rock is a pale sandstone ledge on the coast of Royal National Park, south of Sydney. For a few years in the mid-2010s, it became one of Australia’s most photographed coastal landmarks. It stands above the Tasman Sea near Bundeena and can be reached on foot along the Royal National Park Coast Track. Today, the formation is fenced off, and visitors often wonder whether Wedding Cake Rock is closed and why.
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| Erosion has severely undercut Wedding Cake Rock’s pale sandstone formation, leaving the landmark unstable. |
Gol Gumbaz, in Vijayapura (formerly Bijapur) in northern Karnataka, is the mausoleum of Sultan Muhammad Adil Shah II, the seventh ruler of the Adil Shahi dynasty. He ruled from 1627 until 1656, and his tomb became one of the most ambitious architectural projects of his reign. The name combines the Dakhni words 'gol' (meaning round) and 'gumbaz' (meaning dome).
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| Gol Gumbaz, the 17th-century mausoleum of Sultan Muhammad Adil Shah, is renowned for its enormous dome and remarkable architecture. |
The jabuticaba is a Brazilian fruit tree that looks like a prank. In season, its dark purple fruits cover the trunk and the thick lower branches so tightly that the bark almost disappears. The tree is usually listed under the botanical name Myrciaria cauliflora, but current plant references treat that as a synonym and accept Plinia cauliflora instead, a point that confuses a lot of search results. Whichever name you use, the species is known in English as the Brazilian grape tree. This article explains what jabuticaba is, why its fruit grows on the trunk, what it tastes like, how people use it, and what to expect if you want to grow one.
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| Jabuticaba fruits grow directly on the trunk and older branches of the Brazilian grape tree, a distinctive feature of this South American fruit species. |
At first glance, Al Wahbah Crater looks almost unreal. A vast, pale basin lies inside dark volcanic terrain in western Saudi Arabia, roughly 2.3 kilometres across and about 250 metres deep. Its floor is covered in bright mineral deposits that contrast sharply with the dark lava fields around it. From the rim, the pale basin can look almost like a patch of snow in the desert, which helps explain why photographs of the crater travel so widely. The place is also a notable example of a landscape being misread. For years, its shape encouraged comparisons with meteorite impact craters. Geological evidence points to a different origin. This article covers where Al Wahbah Crater is, how it formed, what is known about its white floor, and what to consider before visiting.
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| Al Wahbah Crater lies in the Harrat Kishb volcanic field of western Saudi Arabia. Its enormous depression was formed by an explosive interaction between magma and groundwater. |
At first glance, Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens look like a wall that got out of control, with every surface covered in mirrors, colourful tiles, glass and bicycle wheels. In reality, it is a carefully constructed mosaic environment on South Street, created by artist Isaiah Zagar over many years. Following Zagar’s death in February 2026, the site stands as a lasting reminder of his imagination and the artistic community he helped shape in Philadelphia.
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| The front of Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens at 1020 South Street in Philadelphia, covered in the distinctive mosaic art of Isaiah Zagar. |
Drop a stone into the Cave of Swallows, and you can count several seconds before it lands. Known in Spanish as Sótano de las Golondrinas, th...
