Hotel de Glace (Ice Hotel), Quebec, Canada

Hotel de Glace near Quebec City, Quebec, Canada is the first ice hotel in North America.



The Ice hotel opened on New Year's Day in 2001. For its first year it was located in Montmorency Falls Park, which is on the outskirts of Quebec City,  with plans right from the beginning to move to the nearby Duchesnay resort for its next year, where it has been built ever since.

The hotel is located 5 km north of Quebec City, on the first slopes of the Laurentian mountains, in the Charlesbourg borough. It is the first ice hotel in North America and is built each December for an opening date in early January. The hotel has a four-month lifespan each year before being brought down in April. It had 22 beds when it first opened in 2000. In its last iteration it had 85 beds, all made of ice but lined with deer furs and covered with mattresses and Arctic sleeping bags. Only the bathrooms are heated and located in a separate insulated structure.

It takes about a month and a half to build with 60 workers. The Hotel makes its own snow using a special mixture to adjust the humidity. It is built with metal frames, it is allowed to harden for a few days, and then the cranes are removed. The hotel is made of 15,000 tons of snow and 500,000 tons of ice and the walls are up to four feet thick.



The hotel is usually made (the architecture and size may vary from season to season) in arches over rooms with 16 foot (5 m) and larger and higher spaces for one art galleries a club dubbed the N'Ice Club, an "Ice Café" and a 60-foot slide. The walls are over 4 feet (1.2 m) thick on average. All furniture is made of ice. In addition to using ice glasses as in the Kiruna ice hotel, the bar (and room service) also serves cold cuts on ice plates.

Amenities include a nightclub, movie theater, indoor heated washrooms and outdoor hot tubs.



The hotel has been described as a "tourist hotspot" and is backed by Quebec's tourism department. For its first year, it costs $350,000 to build, including $125,000 from the Quebec government.



There is a chapel where weddings are celebrated. The Ice Hotel has been described as one of the "10 dream wedding locations.

Eighteen weddings were conducted for the 2003 season, and the Ice Hotel had its first same-sex wedding in February 2005, after same-sex marriages became legal in Quebec in April of the previous year.

Official Hotel Website

Stonehenge, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

Princess Juliana International Airport, Saint Maarten

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAfQwDizpRo

Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is among the top 10 tallest buildings in the world. At 451.9 meters (1,482.6 ft), The Petronas Twin Towers was considered the tallest building from 1998 to 2004 when measured from the base to the antenna/spire.

The tower was made by an Argentine–American Architect named Cesar Pelli. The tower was completed in the year 1998. It was built on the race track of the Kuala Lumpur. The site has a depth of the bedrock and hence, the towers were built on the deepest foundation.



The World Trade Center had 110 floors where as the Petronas Twin Towers only has 88 floors to it and is made up of concrete, steel and glass and is true reflection of the Muslim religion in Malaysia. Since it was very costly to import large amount of steel, the towers were made out of radical design that had super strength and reinforced concrete. This type of concrete is said to be more reliable in terms of its strengths and makes the building two times as heavy as the base as compared to the normal steel. At the bottom of the towers, one can find great shopping malls and one can find almost everything in it. The Petronas Twin Towers is a must see site if you visit Malaysia. The towers are based on the simple Islamic architecture where every floor is based on an eight point star. It is spread in a total area of 100 acres.

Water Park, Peru

Rock Islands of Palau

A boat speeds through the otherwise quiet waters of Palau's Rock Islands. Located in the western Pacific, this Micronesian archipelago is made up of more than 250 islands. Tourism is the country's main industry; its rich marine environment invites snorkeling, diving, and lounging.

Tennis Court at Burj Al Arab Hotel

The world’s highest Tennis court stands atop the fourth highest and the only 7 stars hotel in the world, Burj Al Arab in Dubai. The tennis court is circular in shape ,and also doubles as a helipad, hovering 1000 feet above the Arabian gulf.



In preparation for the Dubai Duty Free Men’s Open, On February 22, 2005, the Burj al Arab hosted Andre Agassi and Roger Federer to play a match on their helipad tennis court before heading to the $1 million championship. The tennis legends couldn’t resist the temptation to have a friendly ‘hit’ on the world’s most unique tennis court.



Burj Al Arab is the world’s most luxurious hotel, standing 321 meters high on a man made island, it was Designed by Tom Wright and completed in 1999. The hotel’s helipad, which is situated 211 meters high covers a surface area of 415 square metres.

Nā Pali Coast, Hawaii

Kaua'i's stunning Nā Pali coastline is a familiar sight, immortalized in movies such as Jurassic Park, King Kong, and South Pacific. Some visitors kayak the 15-mile stretch of fluted cliffs, sea caves, and scalloped beaches during the calm seas of summer; others make the trip in "extreme" rafts, outboard-powered assault craft that can surmount almost any sea.

Trollstigen, Norway

Eleven hairpin turns send Trollstigen—the Troll's Footpath—winding back and forth along steep mountainsides in Norway. The mountain road, now a national tourist route, took eight years to construct and was opened in 1936 by King Haakon VII. Snow closes the road in winter and spring.

Angel Falls, Venezuela

Water plunges more than 2,600 feet over the edge of the Auyantepui mountain in Canaima National Park. With a total height of more than 3,200 feet, Kerepakupai Vená, also known as Angel Falls, is the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world.

Pamukkale, Turkey

Tourists soak in mineral-rich spring water at Pamukkale, Turkey. What looks like snow behind them are terraces made of travertine, a type of limestone deposited by the springs. Tourism is a major industry for this area of southwestern Turkey.

Gouda Cheese Market, Netherlands

Wheels of Gouda cheese take center stage at the traditional cheese market in Gouda, a city in the western Netherlands. Held weekly, the market attracts locals and tourists alike.

 

 

Mahabalipuram, Chennai, India

Switzerland

Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, Maldives

Ithaa is the very first undersea restaurant in the world located 5 metres (16 ft) below sea level at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island in Alif Dhaal Atoll in the Republic of Maldives. The 5-by-9-metre (16 by 30 ft) mostly acrylicstructure has a capacity of 14 people and is encased in R-Cast acrylic with a transparentroof offering a 270° panoramic underwater view. The restaurant was designed and constructed by M.J. Murphy Ltd. - a design consultancy based in New Zealand - and was opened on April 15, 2005. Food served in the restaurant has evolved over the years and is now best described as contemporary European with Asian influences.

Ithaa's entrance is a spiral staircase in a thatched pavilion at the end of a jetty. Thetsunami which followed the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake topped at 0.31 metres (1 ft 0 in) below the staircase entrance, and caused no damage to the restaurant.

Great Blue Hole, Belize

The Great Blue Hole is a large submarine sinkhole off the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 70 km (43 mi) from the mainland and Belize City. The hole is circular in shape, over 300 m (984 ft) across and 124 m (407 ft) deep. It was formed during several episodes of quaternary glaciation when sea levels were much lower - the analysis of stalactites found in Great Blue Hole shows that formation took place 153,000, 66,000, 60,000, and 15,000 years ago. As the ocean began to rise again, the caves were flooded. The Great Blue Hole is a part of the larger Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, aWorld Heritage Site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).


This site was made famous by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who declared it one of the top tenscuba diving sites in the world. In 1971, he brought his ship, the Calypso, to the hole to chart its depths.^[5] Investigations by this expedition confirmed the hole's origin as typical karstlimestone formations, formed before rises in sea level in at least four stages, leaving ledges at depths of 21 m (69 ft), 49 m (161 ft), and 91 m (299 ft). Stalactites were retrieved from submerged caves, confirming their previous formation above sea level. Some of these stalactites were also off-vertical by 5°^[1] in a consistent orientation, thus indicating that there had also been some past geological shift and tilting of the underlying plateau, followed by a long period in the current plane.

Initial measured depth of Great Blue Hole was 125 m (410 ft) which is the most often cited depth up to this day. An expedition by the Cambrian Foundation in 1997 measured the hole's depth as 124 m (407 ft) at its deepest point. This difference in measurement can be explained by ongoing sedimentation or by imprecision in earlier measurements. The purpose of this expedition was the collection of core samples from the floor of the Blue Hole and documentation of the cave system. To accomplish these tasks, all of the divers had to be certified in cave diving and mixed gases.

This is a popular spot amongst recreational scuba divers, who are lured by the opportunity to dive in crystal-clear water and meet several species of fish, including giant groupers, nurse sharks and several types of reef sharks such as the Caribbean reef shark and the Blacktip shark. Other species of sharks, like the bull shark and hammerheads, have been reported there, but are not regular sightings. Usually, dive trips to the Great Blue Hole are full-day trips, which include one dive in the Blue Hole and two further dives in nearby reefs. Recently diving has also been offered from the island Long Caye in the Lighthouse Reef only a couple of miles away from the Great Blue Hole. They offer 2 dives in the Blue Hole: North side and South side.

Wagah border ceremony

The Wagah border closing 'lowering of the flags' ceremony is a daily military practice that the security forces of India (Border Security Force) and Pakistan (Pakistan Rangers) have jointly followed since 1959. This ceremony takes place every evening before sunset at the Wagah border, which as part of the Grand Trunk Road was the only road link between these two countries before the opening of the Aman Setu in Kashmir in 1999. The ceremony starts with a blustering parade by the soldiers from both the sides, and ends up in the perfectly coordinated lowering of the two nations' flags.^[2] It is called the beating retreat border ceremony on the international level. One infantryman (Jawan) stands at attention on each side of the gate. As the sun sets, the iron gates at the border are opened and the two flags are lowered simultaneously. The flags are folded and the ceremony ends with a retreat that involves a brusque handshake between soldiers from either side, followed by the closing of the gates again. The spectacle of the ceremony attracts many visitors from both sides of the border, as well as international tourists.

Bolgheri, Italy

Mustang Province, Nepal

Dusk falls over the temples and homes of Tsarang, once the region’s most important town. In Mustang, where the centuries have not disrupted the traditional rhythm of life, the caves offer clues to a time when the remote Himalayan kingdom was a hub linking Tibet to the rest of the world.

Machu Picchu, Peru

Lost to most for 400 years under the encroaching jungle of the high Andes,Machu Picchu’s magic was rekindled after iconic explorer Hiram Bingham rediscovered it in 1911 and brought it to the modern world. A century later it is still astounding, evoking wonder for the Inca kings and their opulent retreat in the high mountains, a stupendous sanctuary wrapped by surrounding mountains, plunging valleys, and ever swirling clouds. Even the llamas seem to be able to hear their ghosts. The stone houses and avenues, the plazas and sacred sites all speak to us of life still present but unseen.