The Low Tatras National Park covers 1,101 square kilometres of central Slovakia and is home to the longest cave system in the country, over 300 kilometres of marked hiking trails, and the year-round ski resort of Jasná, the largest ski area in Slovakia and one of the most important in Central Europe. Designated as a […]
Categories: Mountains, National Parks, Nature, Nature, Slovakia, Wellness, Relax & Sports
Slovakia’s oldest zoo opened in 1955 in the shadow of Bojnice Castle, a fairy-tale Gothic castle that looks like it was lifted from a Disney film, and today ZOO Bojnice is the country’s most popular zoo with over 350 species housed across 41 hectares of wooded hillside in the Strážovské Vrchy mountains. Unlike many European […]
The Alcantara Gorge (Gole dell’Alcantara) is one of Sicily’s most dramatic natural sights, a deep, narrow canyon carved by the Alcantara River through spectacular hexagonal basalt columns formed by ancient lava flows from Mount Etna, creating a landscape of black volcanic rock walls that rise 50 metres above the rushing turquoise water. Located near Taormina […]
One million years ago, tectonic shifts created a shallow brackish lagoon in the heart of Andalusia that would become one of the most important nesting sites for the greater flamingo in Europe, a 1,364-hectare wetland where salt crystals float on the surface like a mirror and the pink of a million flamingo wings turns the […]
Categories: Lakes, Nature, Nature, Spain, Wellness, Relax & Sports
The Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina is 100 kilometres of Portugal’s wildest, most beautiful coastline and the best place in Europe to find a beach entirely to yourself, even in August. Stretching from Porto Covo in the Alentejo down to Burgau in the Algarve, this protected natural park encompasses cliffs that drop […]
The Seegrotte (Lake Grotto) in Hinterbrühl, Austria, is home to the largest underground lake in Europe, a surreal subterranean body of crystal-clear water, 60 metres below ground, formed when a gypsum mine flooded in 1912 and creating a spectacular underground world where visitors can glide across the lake’s surface by electric boat through vast, still […]
The Ruidera Lagoons (Lagunas de Ruidera) are a unique natural wonder in central Spain, a chain of 15 interconnected turquoise-blue lakes stretching for 30 kilometres along the Pinilla River valley on the border of Castilla–La Mancha, formed by travertine barriers that create a natural staircase of cascading pools reminiscent of Plitvice Lakes on a smaller, […]
Categories: Nature, Spain, Wellness, Relax & Sports
Penyal d’Ifac (Peñón de Ifach) is the smallest Natural Park in Europe, the 332-metre-high limestone monolith rising dramatically from the Mediterranean at Calpe on Spain’s Costa Blanca that is, despite its tiny 45-hectare size, one of the most biodiverse protected areas in Spain, home to over 300 plant species including several endemics found nowhere else […]
Categories: Nature, Spain, Wellness, Relax & Sports
Domica Cave is the largest cave in Slovakia and one of the crown jewels of the UNESCO-listed Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst World heritage site, a vast underground system on the Slovak-Hungarian border featuring magnificent flowstone formations, pagoda-like stalagmites, and a navigable underground river that visitors can explore by boat. Discovered in 1926 […]
Dobšinská Ice Cave is not just the largest ice cave in Slovakia. It is the first cave in Europe to have electric lighting, switched on in 1887, just a year after its public opening, and a full decade before most European cities had streetlights. The cave sits on the northern slope of limestone hill Duča […]