This Italian Church Has a 500-Year-Old Crocodile Hanging from the Ceiling

The Santuario Della Beata Vergine Maria Delle Grazie, in Italy’s Lombardia region, is an old church famous for having a real taxidermied crocodile hanging from the ceiling.

What’s the last thing you expect to see when you look up in a church? Granted, there are plenty of interesting answers one can think of, but ‘a crocodile’ definitely ranks up there with the quirkiest of them. But if you travel to the small municipality of Curtatone, in Lombardia, Italy, you’ll find a church with a five-century-old crocodile hanging from the ceiling. It’s a peculiar sight, to say the least, but one that has been around for as long as anyone can remember. How the croc wound up at the Santuario Della Beata Vergine Maria Delle Grazie is, and will probably remain a mystery, but its purpose had been linked to religious symbolism.

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Pakistan’s Famous Chained Tree Has Been Under Arrest for Over a Century

The Chained Tree of Peshawar, in Pakistan, has been under arrest since 1899, when a British officer decided to teach it a lesson for moving away from him. It has remained chained ever since.

125 years ago, a drunk British officer by the name of James Squid performed one of the most bizarre arrests in history in Landi Kotal, a town near the Torkhan border. Convinced that the tree was trying to get away from him as he struggled to approach it, Squid ordered it chained to the ground and placed under arrest. The chains have remained in place ever since, and a plaque tells the story of the arrest for curious tourists.

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Tokyo Cafe Caters Exclusively to Negative People

Mori Ouchi, a cozy cafe in Tokyo’s laidback Shimokitazawa district, is famous for only catering to pessimists and people with a generally negative mindset.

Negative people tend to get a bad rep and are constantly told to be more positive, but, if you think about it, is there really anything wrong with being negative? The founder of Mori Ouchi, a small cafe in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo, certainly doesn’t think so. A self-described gloomy person, he got the idea for like-minded people over a decade ago but only decided to open it three years ago, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The man had always felt like negative people were more sensitive and more easily hurt than others, so he created a space dedicated exclusively to them.

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Poll na bPéist – Ireland’s Naturally Rectangular Rock Pool

Inishmore, the largest of Ireland’s Aran Islands, is home to a remarkable natural wonder, a rectangular pool cut so straight into limestone that it looks man-made.

Also known as “The Wormhole” or “The Serpent’s Lair”, Poll na bPéist is a natural water basin with an edge length of approx. 10 by 25 meters within a stone formation. It can only be accessed by walking along the cliffs south of the ancient site Dún Aonghasa, but in recent years it has become famous for hosting the renowned Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. The most fascinating thing about Poll na bPéist is its remarkable rectangular shape, which has led many to question its natural origins and sparked several theories, including that it is the work of an ancient civilization.

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Guiyang White House – China’s Largest And Most Mysterious Mansion?

The so-called ‘Guyiang White House’ is a gigantic structure located in the posh Huaguoyuan Wetland Park area of Guiyang City, in China’s Guizhou Province. It has gone viral as China’s largest mansion, but you can’t believe everything you read online…

Featuring an architectural style usually observed in European palaces and museums, the Guiyang White House has become one of the most iconic sights in the Chinese city of Guiyang. Although many have described it as ‘kitsch’, ‘over-the-top’, and overly opulent’, there is no denying the eye-catching appeal of this megalithic structure, both during the day and at night, when it is illuminated by countless light installations. The structure got its name because of its white exterior and Western architectural influences, but when it comes to size, it actually dwarfs its Washington namesake. The entire complex, including the artificial pond in front of the edifice, is said to cover an area of ​​18.3 million square meters.

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South Korea’s Majestic 860-year-Old Ginkgo Tree

Every year, in late autumn, thousands of people flock to Bangyeri, a village in Gyeongsang, South Korea, to witness the beauty of a majestic 860-year-old ginkgo biloba tree.

The secular Wonju Bangye-ri Ginkgo Tree is a national monument of South Korea famous for its impressive crown which currently covers a perimeter of around 17 meters. At around 32 meters tall (104ft), it is not even the Asian country’s tallest ginkgo tree, but the way its branches are spread out makes it one of the most visually impressive trees on Earth. In South Korea, the Bangye-ri Ginkgo Tree is often called the world’s most beautiful tree.

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Impressive Road to Bali Beach Divides Internet

A road leading to Bali’s Pandawa Beach that seems to split an entire plateau in half has sparked a heated online debate about the practicality of the project and its effect on local wildlife.

Featuring fine white sand and crystal-clear water, the picture-perfect beach of Pandawa was already one of Bali’s most beautiful seaside destinations, but the road dug into the limestone cliffs separating the beach from the rest of the island really catapulted it into the top tourist destinations on the island. Until only a decade ago, Pandawa Beach was only popular among locals, as the limestone cliffs secluded from foreigners’ eyes were notoriously hard to traverse. However, everything changed in 2012 when a road leading down to the beach was created by cutting through the cliffs. Today, that road has itself become somewhat of a tourist attraction in its own right, but also the topic of a heated debate.

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Coppelia Park – The World’s Largest Ice Cream Parlor

Located in Havana, Cuba, Coppelia Park is the world’s largest ice cream parlor. Also known as the ‘Ice Cream Cathedral, it serves around 30,000 customers per day and up to 600 at a time.

Built in 1966, Cuba’s ‘Parque Coppelia consists of a two-storey domed pavilion inspired by Oscar Niemeyer’s iconic Cathedral of Brasilia outside which people queue for ice cream every single day, and a lush park complete with hundreds of tables where up to 1,000 people can enjoy the frozen treats at a time. The story goes that Fidel Castro ordered the building of Coppelia Park shortly after the success of his Communist revolution. He reportedly ordered twenty-eight containers of ice cream from American producer Howard Johnson’s, and upon tasting it decided to respond by creating something bigger and better, but cheap enough that anyone could afford. His idea was a huge hit, and to this day thousands of people continue to enjoy subsidized ice cream at Coppelia Park, the world’s largest ice cream parlor.

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Pyramid-Shaped Mountain in Antarctica Sparks Online Conspiracy Theories

A pyramid-shaped peak in Antarctica’s Ellsworth Mountain range has been fueling all sorts of conspiracy theories involving aliens and ancient civilizations for at least seven years.

Satellite images of a pyramid-shaped mountain peak in Antarctica first appeared on the internet in 2016. Measuring 2 kilometers square in each direction at its base, a design reminiscent of Egyptian pyramids, the geological structure instantly became the inspiration to all sorts of online conspiracy theories. Some claimed that it had been built by an ancient civilization 10,000 years ago when Antarctica was warm, while others said that it was the work of aliens. But while it’s true that a naturally-occurring pyramid of that size seems unlikely, geologists would tell you that this is actually just that, a mountain that happens to look like a pyramid.

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Dresden’s Massive Tobacco Mosque – A Story of Deception

The German city of Dresden is famous for the Baroque architecture that runs along the banks of the Elbe River, but there is one exception that stands out like a sore thumb – the iconic Yenidze building, aka the ‘tobacco mosque’.

Featuring clear oriental architectural elements of mosques and the famous Alhambra Palace of Granada, the Yenidze has been towering over Dresden’s Friedrichstadt neighborhood for over a century. At 62 meters (203 ft) tall, featuring 600 windows of various styles, and boasting an impressive glass dome, it would be one of the largest mosques in the world, but despite its appearance, the Yenidze is not, and has never been a mosque. For most of its existence, the Yenidze has operated as a tobacco factory and its unusual design was chosen both as homage to the Oriental origin of the tobacco processed here, but also a clever way to vend the rules on architectural restrictions in Dresden’s city center.

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The World’s Largest Roundabout Has a Circumference of 3.4 Kilometers

The Putrajaya Roundabout in the administrative capital of Malaysia holds the Guinness record for the world’s largest roundabout. It measures 3.4km in circumference and features 15 entry/exit points.

Located in the heart of Putrajaya, the administrative capital of Malaysia, the Persiaran Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Roundabout, aka Putrajaya Roundabout, is one of the most unusual attractions in the Southeast Asian country. It was designed by renowned Malaysian architect Hijjas Kasturi and inaugurated in 2003. A feat of modern infrastructure engineering, the world’s largest roundabout is built around Istana Melawati, the second-largest palace of Malaysia’s Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the Putra Perdana Landmark, and a luxurious five-star hotel. It is also the main access point to Putrajaya’s major attractions, including the prime minister’s green-domed office complex and the city’s enormous mosque.

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Kingsley Lake – The World’s Most Circular Lake

Lakes come in all shapes and sizes, but when it comes to roundness, you won’t find a more naturally-occurring body of water than Florida’s Kingsley Lake, aka Silver Dollar Lake.

Kingsley Lake is a popular summer destination in Florida’s Clay County, as well as one of the best bass fisheries in the entire state, but few know that what truly makes this place special is its unusually round shape. The thing is, you can only truly see how round the lake is from high above, which is why its nickname, Silver Lake, was actually coined by airplane pilots flying over it. It’s important to note that Kingsley Lake is not a man-made body of water, but a naturally occurring one which reportedly formed as a sinkhole.

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Famous Apartment Building Is Located in the Middle of a Busy Overpass

‘Number 28 on Yongxing Jie’ is an unusual attraction in Guangzhou, China which consists of an eight-storey apartment building surrounded by a busy overpass.

The story of ‘Number 28 on Yongxing Jie’ can be traced back to the year 2008, when a number of buildings in the Haizhu District of Guangzhou were scheduled for demolition in order to make room for a new road. While most of the residents reached an agreement with developers and decided to sell their homes and relocate, three residents of a now-famous yellow apartment building drove a harder bargain, refusing to abandon their homes unless their demands were met. In the end, developers decided to abandon negotiations and instead build an overpass around the building. Today, the story of the ‘encircled’ building is known as Guangzhou’s most tenacious holdout against infrastructure developers.

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This UK Farm Is Located in the Middle of a Motorway

Stott Hall Farm is the only farm in the world built right in the middle of a busy motorway, with crash barriers and a fence around it to keep livestock in and out-of-control vehicles out.

The M62 motorway connecting the cities of Liverpool and Hull in Northern England is famous for having an inhabited farm right in the middle of its roadways in Calderdale.  The unique farm is one of the ten best-known sights on the UK motorway network, and there are various stories and myths about its existence, the most popular of which claim that the motorway was split because the owners, Ken and Beth Wild, refused to sell. These stories would have you believe that Stott Hall Farm is essentially a ‘nail house’ the likes of which we’ve featured several times in the past. However, the reality of this infrastructural oddity is very different.

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Mmabatho – Probably the World’s Weirdest-Looking Stadium

South Africa’s Mmabatho Stadium is famous for its unusual design, which features elevated stands that don’t actually face the pitch but other stands.

Built in 1981, during the apartheid era, Mmabatho Stadium is often cited as an example of impractical architectural design. It was commissioned by Lucas Mangope’s government which ruled the Bophuthatswana Bantusan and designed by Israeli architect Israel Goodovitch and engineer Ben Abraham. They came up with an unconventional concept that went against pretty much every basic principle of stadium design, and not in a good way. However, authorities apparently loved the idea and went ahead with the construction. After it was inaugurated, it didn’t take long for people to realize that its weirdly elevated stands didn’t offer the best view of the action on the pitch and actually required them to turn their heads to the side in order to watch the match.

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