5. Banaue Rice Terraces
Philippines
The Banaue Rice Terraces are 2000-year old terraces that were carved into the mountains of Ifugao in the Philippines by ancestors of the indigenous people. The Rice Terraces are commonly referred to by Filipinos as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. It is commonly thought that the terraces were built with minimal equipment, largely by hand. The terraces are located approximately 1500 meters (5000 ft) above sea level and cover 10,360 square kilometers (about 4000 square miles) of mountainside. They are fed by an ancient irrigation system from the rainforests above the terraces. It is said that if the steps are put end to end it would encircle half the globe. Locals to this day still plant rice and vegetables on the terraces. The result is the gradual erosion of the characteristic “steps”, which need constant reconstruction and care.
4. Sigiriya
Sri Lanka
Sigiriya (Lion’s rock) is an ancient rock fortress and palace ruin situated in the central Matale District of Sri Lanka, surrounded by the remains of an extensive network of gardens, reservoirs, and other structures. A popular tourist destination, Sigiriya is also renowned for its ancient paintings (frescos), which are reminiscent of the Ajanta Caves of India. The Sigiriya was built during the reign of King Kassapa I (AD 477 – 495), and it is one of the seven World Heritage Sites of Sri Lanka. Sigiriya may have been inhabited through prehistoric times. It was used as a rock-shelter mountain monastery from about the 5th century BC, with caves prepared and donated by devotees to the Buddhist Sangha.
3. Tower of Hercules
Spain
The Tower of Hercules is an ancient Roman lighthouse on a peninsula about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the centre of A Coruña, Galicia, in north-western Spain. The name Corunna is said to be derived from the ancient column. The structure is 55 meters (180 ft) tall and overlooks the North Atlantic coast of Spain. It is almost 1900 years old, was rehabilitated in 1791, and is the oldest Roman lighthouse still used as a lighthouse.
2. Toruń
Poland
Toruń is a city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. The medieval old town of Toruń is the birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus. The first settlement in the vicinity is dated by archaeologists to 1100 BC. During medieval times, in the 7th-13th centuries, it was the location of an old Polish settlement, at a ford in the river. The Teutonic Knights built a castle in the vicinity of the Polish settlement in the years 1230-31. In 1263 Franciscan monks settled in the city, followed in 1239 by Dominicans. In 1264 the nearby New Town was founded. In 1280, the city (or as it was then, both cities) joined the mercantile Hanseatic League and was soon turned into an important medieval trade centre. As you can see from the photograph above, it is a beautiful medieval city and well worth visiting.
1. Ajanta Caves
India
The Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, India are rock-cut cave monuments dating from the second century BC, containing paintings and sculpture considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art and universal pictorial art. By AD 480 the caves at Ajanta were abandoned. During the next 1300 years the jungle grew back and the caves were hidden, unvisited and undisturbed until the Spring of 1819 when a British officer in the Madras army entered the steep gorge on the trail of a tiger. Somehow, deep within the tangled undergrowth, he came across the almost hidden entrance to one of the caves. Exploring that first cave, long since a home to nothing more than birds and bats and a lair for other, larger, animals, Captain Smith wrote his name in pencil on one of the walls. Still faintly visible, it records his name and the date, April 1819.
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