Slovenia contains over 300 known waterfalls across its 20,273 square kilometres, a density matched by few countries in Europe, and the Savica Waterfall in Triglav National Park is the most famous of them all, a 78-metre double cascade that plunges into an emerald pool at the head of the Soča Valley, a place where the […]
A walkway suspended over a roaring alpine river, carved into the vertical walls of a gorge over 15 metres high, was originally built in 1875 to make a geological wonder accessible to tourists who arrived by the new railway to the spa town of Bad Hofgastein, and today the Liechtenstein Gorge is still one of […]
The Serra de Tramuntana, running for 90 kilometres along the north-west coast of Majorca, is a UNESCO World heritage cultural landscape where dry-stone terraces climb impossible slopes, ancient olive trees with trunks a metre thick grow from rock, and a network of stone pathways dating back to the Arab occupation connects mountain villages that have […]
Categories: Islands, Lakes, Mountains, Nature, Nature, Spain, Wellness, Relax & Sports
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
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 […]