u/AccidentallyWA

📍 South Sardinia, Italy | Photo by: Matteo Battiston

Full Story Here

"By the time the Ancient Romans were constructing vast mines in Sardinia in 226 BC, mining had already taken place on the mineral-rich island for thousands of years. Cutting into the ore-laden rock, miners for centuries supplied Europe and beyond with coal, zinc, and silver. The process of getting the fresh rock transported across empires had always been difficult—until 1924..."

📍 Minneapolis, Minnesota | Photo by: Adam Schulz

Full Story Here

"When six mosaic artisans finished a commission at the Vatican in 1909, they didn’t retire. Designer Charles Lamb recruited them to spend the next three years fabricating, then installing, 10 million tesserae inside a cemetery chapel in Minneapolis: a Byzantine masterpiece that experts say couldn’t be replicated today..."

📍 Sierra Madre, Califronia | Photo by: Holly O'Callaghan

Full Story Here

"Before audiences swooned over silent film stars, the building housed the Burgien Brothers’ furniture emporium..."

📍 Venice, Italy | Photo by: Alex Galmeanu 

Full Story Here

"In a city where most palaces emerge from water without pavement, Palazzo Tetta stands at the fork where Rio de Santa Marina splits into two canals, quite literally getting more canal than it bargained for. Three sides of water. In Venice. Where most everyone else only gets one. Consider it the overachiever of Venetian real estate..." 

Szczecin, Poland | Photo by: Aleksander Malachowski

Full Story Here

"By late September 1945, enrollment at Szczecin’s first Polish school exploded from thirty-six students to 300. Many arrived barefoot and hungry, speaking barely any Polish. Children aged 7 to 14 shared the same desks because there was nowhere else to put them. By December, the school was serving 1,200 meals per day, turning a classroom into a canteen..."

Chamrousse, France | Photo by: Julie Cherki

Full Story Here

"Most alpine lakes freeze over in winter and become skating rinks or photo ops. At Lacs Robert, 2,000 meters up in the French Alps, they become dive sites. DiveXtreme’s wooden hut serves adventurers who plunge beneath 50 centimeters to 2 meters of ice..."

📍 San Francisco, United States | Photo by: Cosma

Full Story Here

"Along with steep hills that would make any manual driver nervous, the City by the Bay is also known for its ladies—-Painted Ladies, that is. Famous for their cheerful colors, this row of seven Victorian homes is one of the most iconic images of San Francisco, though their colorful futures weren’t always so bright..."

📍 Copenhagen, Denmark | Photos by: Accidentally Wes Anderson

Full Story Here

"The University of Copenhagen has been keeping track of its books since the late 15th century, when early collections began forming through donations from scholars and clergy. Over time, that growing body of work became one of Denmark’s oldest academic library traditions and the backbone of its university life..."

📍 Tromsø, Norway | Photo by: Sara Kuprowska

Full Story Here

"When 18-year-old Margit Løkke opened a newspaper kiosk in Tromsø’s main square in 1911, she couldn’t have predicted it would survive two World Wars and eventually transform into Norway’s smallest bar..."

📍 Cornwall, United Kingdom | Photos by: Tom Fake

Full Story Here

"One Penzance councillor saw a choice between building a swimming pool and improving the town’s water supply. Another predicted Captain Frank Latham’s proposal would become “the biggest white elephant Penzance has ever had.” They were spectacularly wrong..."

📍 Amsterdam, Netherlands | Photo by: Vincenzo Parlati

Full Story Here

"These slightly squiggly dancing houses were built in the seventeenth century along the mesmerizing canal rings of Amsterdam. Their construction played an important role in the city’s civic layout, and they have since become an iconic feature of the town..."

📍 Oceanside, California | Photo by: Paul Fuentes

Full Story Here

"Shortly after the town layout was completed in 1883, Oceanside, California, was marketed as a seaside resort. A book titled Oceanside was even published, with a doctor’s decree: “The invalid finds health and bright spirits, the pleasure seeker finds variety and amusement.” Investors bought up land along the beach, and visitors arrived in droves, quickly leading to a housing shortage..."

📍 Belfast, Northern Ireland | Photo by: Elizabeth Nixon

Full Story Here

"Before thirty finely fitted shops rose under a glazed iron roof in 1880, the site at 13 Donegall Place belonged to Dr. James McDonnell, a man taught to play the Irish harp by the blind harper Arthur O’Neill..."

📍 Saturnia, Italy | Photos by: Accidentally Wes Anderson

Explore the full Italy Adventure guide HERE! 🇮🇹

📍 Bielsko-Biała, Poland | Photo by: Aleksander Malachowski

Full Story Here

"In 1938, a pack of taxi drivers captured notorious Silesian bandit Nikifor Maruszeczko at the Black Eagle Hotel. After years on the run, one of Poland’s most wanted criminals was finally cornered over dinner. It was a fittingly dramatic chapter for a building that had already welcomed emperors and generals..."

📍 Los Angeles, Califronia | Photo by: Elizabeth Daniels

Full Story Here

"Amid the glitz and glamour of early Hollywood, the stunning Eastern Columbia Building became a star unto itself. Built in 1930, the thirteen-story Art Deco building was constructed in the Broadway Theater District of Downtown Los Angeles. One of the city’s most photographed buildings, it is considered the greatest surviving example of Art Deco architecture in L.A."

📍 Samcheok, South Korea | Photo by: 황대현

Full Story Here

"The lifeguard stand at Maengbang Beach wears a permanent grin, watching over swimmers with the kind of relentless cheerfulness only an inanimate object can muster. It has become one of the beach’s most photographed structures, and for good reason: nothing says “safe swimming” quite like a giant yellow smiley face staring you down from the shoreline..."

📍 Aguascalientes, Mexico | Photo by: Jimmy De Alba

Full Story Here

"Parque J. M. Romo was created by Jesús María “Chito” Romo (1918–1990), the founder of a thriving multinational manufacturer of everything from clothes hooks to supermarket check-out equipment. Born the fifth of ten children in Jalisco, Mexico, Chito began working after elementary school. At the age of twenty-one, he started the company, which began as a nickel-plating workshop, with just 3,000 pesos."

📍 Buenos Aires, Argentina | Photo by: Marco Fratus

Full Story Here

"On Christmas Day 1936, his church hosted the baptism of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the most influential and beloved Argentine-born, Italian adopted figure of all time. (More accurately, Argentine-born, Vatican City–elevated.) In this vital space, Jorge was given the sacrament that welcomed him into the Catholic Church."

On the island of Læsø, centuries of salt-making left almost no trees behind. So while the men were away at sea, the women found an unlikely solution along the shoreline - gathering and drying eelgrass, they weaved it into thick, shaggy roofs that have protected these homes for hundreds of years.

🇩🇰 Check out the full salty story HERE!