tankcolin's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
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Bovington, England

Clouds Hill

This historic home of the author of Lawrence of Arabia, has a history of literary celebrities and monogrammed sleeping bags.
Osmington, England

Osmington White Horse

Want to properly offend a king? Sculpt a giant hill figure in chalk of him riding out of town.
Dorset, England

Abbotsbury Swannery

The world's only managed flock of mute swans was established as a factory for monk meat but is now an adorable sanctuary.
Charmouth, England

Charmouth Beach

Cliffs full of fossils at the portal to England's Jurassic Coast.
Ottery Saint Mary, England

The Tar Barrels of Ottery St. Mary

Flaming barrels of tar race through these village streets on Bonfire Night, a tradition that dates back centuries.
Exmouth, England

A La Ronde

Two women with a flair for both adventure and artful clutter created this singular round home.
Starcross, England

Starcross Engine House & Brunel’s Atmospheric Railway

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of the great Victorian engineers, was the driving force behind the short-lived atmospheric railway.
Devon, England

Hound Tor

Legend says these rocks used to be hunting dogs, a story that may have inspired Sherlock Holmes' most famous case.
Clovelly, England

The Sledges of Clovelly

Wooden sleds have replaced donkeys to cart goods around this utterly charming car-free village.
Cornwall, England

St Michael's Mount

A island reachable by a causeway at low tide is possibly one of the earliest Western European locations to be identified in text.
Tintagel, England

Tintagel Castle

A fantastic castle rumored to be the birthplace of King Arthur.
Tintagel, England

Tintagel Post Office

A whimsical cottage from the 1300s with a preserved Victorian-era post office inside.
Devon, England

Buckfast Abbey

This historic Benedictine monastery brews a booze so toxic that it has often been blamed almost singularly for Scottish hooliganism.
Devon, England

Berry Pomeroy Castle

A ruined castle has more than its fair share of legends and ghost stories.
Looe, England

The Monkey Sanctuary

A wonderful safe haven founded in the 1960s to rescue endangered monkeys from the pet trade.
Dinant, Belgium

The Charles de Gaulle Saxophone Bridge

A whimsical bridge uses saxophones to pay tribute to two great men and the European Union.
Ghent, Belgium

Gravensteen

This fairytale castle was built as a show of power but was nearly torn down thanks to its history of torture.
Ypres, Belgium

Menin Gate Memorial

A moving memorial to the fallen and missing from WWI trenches.
Ypres, Belgium

Sanctuary Wood Museum

A rare example of World War I trenches from the British front.
Sainte-Mère-Église, France

Private John Steele Monument

An effigy of a trapped paratrooper dangles from a Normandy church to commemorate one remarkable D-Day event.
Bayeux, France

Bayeux Tapestry

This enormous "cloth of the conquest" depicts the Norman invasion of England in mind-blowing detail.
Cricqueville-en-Bessin, France

Texas Marker at Pointe Du Hoc Bunker

The Lone Star plaque hangs in a bombed-out bunker in Normandy to honor a Texan colonel's heroic actions on D-Day.
Arromanches-les-Bains, France

Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches

Remains of the artificial harbours invented for the Allied invasion of Normandy can still be seen at sea.
Falaise, France

Château de Falaise

The birthplace of the ferocious William the Conqueror, this castle is awash in medieval history.