Samir S Patel's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
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Hobart, New York

Hobart Book Village

This small Catskills village has six independent bookstores and more bookshops than restaurants.
Colborne, Ontario

The Big Apple

This giant roadside fruit is home to an array of apple-based treats.
Vernon, France

The Old Mill of Vernon

A quaint medieval millhouse hovers surprisingly above the waters of the Seine.
Hauterives, France

Le Palais Idéal

This whimsical castle of grottoes was the labor of love of a French postman, and one of the greatest achievements of outsider architecture.
Genoa, Italy

Monteverde Angel

The "Mona Lisa" of funerary art.
Qaradagh, Azerbaijan

Neft Dasları

Complete town of 5,000 living out at sea on the world's first offshore oil platform.
New York, New York

Electric Lady Studios

Jimi Hendrix's legendary recording studio in Greenwich Village.
Paola, Malta

Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum

This subterranean necropolis holds three floors of antler-dug grave caves.
Moyenne Island, Seychelles

Moyenne Island

A newspaper editor turned this abandoned island into a tortoise nature preserve that's now the world's smallest national park.
Simrishamn, Sweden

Prästens Badkar (The Priests Bathtub)

The world's only above water sand volcano, believed to once be the bathtub of a priest.
Cumbria, England

Hardknott Roman Fort

One of the highest Roman forts in Britain is set amid dramatic scenery on a notoriously difficult road.
Margate, England

Margate Shell Grotto

Grotto replete with mystical designs laid out in glued shell mosaics.
Andria, Italy

Castel del Monte

Geometry and mystery come together in an epic show of octagonal masonry.
Queens, New York

The Alley Pond Giant

The oldest living organism in New York City. Maybe.
Fez, Morocco

University of Al-Karaouine

The oldest known university in the world is in Fez, Morocco.
New Orleans, Louisiana

FLOAT House

An architectural experiment in the Lower Ninth Ward, this row house is capable of floating as high as the Katrina floodwaters.
Santa Pau, Spain

Hermitage of Santa Margarita Crater

Religious dwelling in a Spanish volcano.
Wilson, North Carolina

Whirligig Park (Formerly Acid Park)

A piece of outsider public art accompanied by a strange urban legend.
La Pobla de Lillet, Spain

Artigas Gardens

Famed architect Antoni Gaudi built this generous thank you gift to a friendly host who housed him during a job.
Gruyères, Switzerland

H.R. Giger Museum

The bizarre visions of H.R. Giger, tucked away in a Swiss medieval city.
Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe

Fort Delgrès Memorial

A stone circle on the slopes of a Caribbean volcano commemorates the leader of an anti-slavery uprising.
Schnals, Italy

Campanile di Curon

Bell tower juts out from a village buried under a lake.
Rye, Colorado

Bishop Castle

The largest self-built castle in the U.S., six decades in the making.
Irbene, Latvia

Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Center

This impressively complicated radioastronomy research center was once a tool of Soviet spies.