10 Most Beautiful Lakes of the World

 1. Crater Lake – Oregon, U.S.A.

This lake is also the production of a massive volcanic eruption around 8,000 years ago. This lake is considered one of the deepest lakes in the world.

2. Lake Toba – Sumatra, Indonesia

Lake Toba is the phenomenal result of a super volcanic eruption that took place around 70,000 years before and put long lasting effects on the global weather. The lake is extremely pretty and home to countless species of under water world and plants. The lake also has an island made up of underground magma movement.

3. Lake Assal – Djibouti

Lake Assal of Djibouti is famous for having the most saline body of water in the world. The shores of the lake constitute the lowest point in Africa. There are hot water springs too that help pushing the profitable minerals in the lake water.

4. Taal Lake – Luzon, Philippines

This  is a highly sensational lake in Philippines in the province of Batangas. Many visitors come here and ride on horseback to go to the Volcano Island.

5. Plitvice Lakes – Croatia

This is a very breathtaking and scenic chain of sixteen lakes of Croatia, close to the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This area is a major national park and also included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is said that water of this lake changes its color whole year. There are waterfalls, caves, forests all around and natural dams that really adds more to the beauty of the place.

6. Lake Baikal – Siberia, Russia

Lake Baikal is the world’s oldest, deepest and largest store of freshwater. Another amazing fact is that this lake has world’s one-fifth of the freshwater on the whole planet. There are many species of plants and animals.

7. Heaven Lake – China and North Korea

This is another beautiful lake straddling the border between China and North Korea. An amazing fact about this lake is that locals have seen a strange lake monster for over a century. The place is so beautiful that it’s really like a heaven just like its name.

8. Lake Atitlan – Guatemala

This beautiful lake was formed 84,000 years ago as a result of severe volcanic eruption. Tourists also come here to visit in large number.

9. Lake Titicaca – Bolivia and Peru

This lake is considered to be one of the world’s most beautiful lakes. Lake Titicaca is located in the Andes, near border of Bolivia and Peru. This lake is 3.8 km above the sea level. The beauty of the lake is so breath taking and stupendous that it seems to be unreal. This is the most voluminous and navigable lake of South America. The lake has many shoreline villages and beautifully located islands.

10. Pitch Lake – La Brea, Trinidad

This is another beautiful lake in the town of south west Trinidad. This lake was discovered by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1595.The lake is a known tourist attraction now. This lake is famous for some bizarre facts related to it. It is believed that this lake is situated on the confluence of two fault lines as a result of which oil sediments comes on the water surface that after being evaporated, creates asphalt.

Mud Festival in South Korea

       Boryeong Mud Festival

With a Festival to Celebrate just about everything from Fireflies and Ice Fishing to Bullfighting and Bodypainting, there’s no shortage of Mass Festivities occurring at any given time in South Korea. 

But perhaps no other event rivals the country’s Boryeong Mud Festival in terms of international Attendance, Government spending and Good Clean (or should we say Dirty) Fun. 

Get ready to get Muddy, as Culture Trip fills you in on how to make the most of your Trip to the Country’s Muddiest Celebration.

Inside the Statue of Liberty

 French Sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi designed the Statue of Liberty, which was a gift from France to the United States. 

The Statue of Liberty was completed on October 28, 1886. 

Towering over Liberty Island in New York, the Statue of Liberty was a finalist in the campaign to choose the New 7 Wonders of the World.

Huacachina

 Only 5 km from Ica lies the desert oasis of Huacachina. It is a small lake with medicinal water, lying in the middle of a spectacular sand desert which make You think you are in the Sahara.

Beautiful Bishop’s Castle - Medieval Castle in Cowboy Country

Colorado, San Isabel National Forest – the heart of what many call Cowboy Country. Yet stray of the beaten path and you come across Bishop castle – a 160-foot high structure that weighs in at an estimated 50 thousand tons. Incredibly, it is the work of a single man – Jim Bishop. Strangely though, if you are a tourist to the state, you will not find a mention of Bishop Castle on any official brochure.

That’s a shame because the place is magnificent. You might be forgiven that for believing that you had stumbled upon the home of the Colorado branch of the Addams family or perhaps a set mock up for a Tolkien inspired movie. With the wrought iron, dragon’s head and formidable masonry it even has the look of a post apocalyptic stronghold for survivors. Yet it is a family home.

The castle, although a home, is open to the public all the year round. All you have to do to visit it to sign a guest book, releasing Mr Bishop from any liability if you plummet one hundred and sixty feet to the ground or something falls on your head from a similar height. There is no insurance at the castle – as it is effectively a working construction site. Like many other castles of history, this one you enter at your own peril.

However, you won’t be cast in to the dungeon or hang, drawn and quartered at the baronic whim of Jim Bishop. A 90 minute drive away from Colorado Springs, the castle is still in the process of construction and donations are most welcome. It is certainly an ambitious project and must have cost a great deal. It is made of local stone which Bishop quarried from the adjoining national forest land (with permission).

The castle is full of eye catching features. The extensive wrought iron suspension bridges and walkways that grip its towers give it an air of eccentricity and creeping functionality, of ideas tossed back and forth and of a history that belies the fact that construction only started in the last year of the 1960s.

Perhaps the most noted feature is the dragon’s head which sits atop the castle. You can imagine a medieval metal worker hammering the sheets of iron in to this shape but it is in fact made from recycled hospital meal trays. This wonderful feature has utility though – the smoke from the fireplace comes out of the dragon’s nostrils.

The owner, Jim Bishop, had not envisioned this structure from the get go, however. At the tender age of fifteen he bought the land – not quite three acres – with the idea that he would build a family cabin. Over forty years later the cabin has grown somewhat – to the more than occasional chagrin of the local authorities.

However, it is easy to imagine the glee that many visitors (if not the Bishop family themselves) feel when they catch sight of the castle for the first time. It is like the adventure playground that should have been built in your neighborhood in your youth. To say that there is plenty of clamber space is one of life’s great understatements.

The interior is something else too. Stained glass gives the heart of the castle a warm glow. If a state displaced Dorothy was visiting she would surely know that she wasn’t in Colorado anymore. The light which cascades in to the castle through its enormous windows, many of which are stained, bathes it in the kind of light you might associate more with cathedrals than with castles.

Mr Bishop is well known in the nearby town of Pueblo as, to put it mildly, something of an anti-government eccentric. Yet while some construct bunkers (which frankly shows a lack of imagination), Jim Bishop has built a castle. Although his father helped for the first year or so of the project, since then it has been his hands alone which have shaped the place.

Zoning laws have meant that Mr Bishop and the State of Colorado have not always seen eye to eye. This is the major reason that the castle does not feature in any travel brochures for the area – and the unease between man and government can be seen on many displays at the castle.