beautiful place Resting up in Rocamadour - travel place in Rocamadour

Resting up in Rocamadour Gazing down the lush Alzou river valley at the vertical village of Rocamadour, you won't be surprised to hear that this medieval French town is a holy site.

The gorges of south-west France are home to numerous beautiful historic hamlets built along and on top of their steep rocky walls. But Rocamadour is special, as it is a stop for thousands of pilgrims on the Way of Saint James, part of a Unesco-recognised traditional route through France and Spain that attracts both religious and secular travellers - the Camino de Santiago.

The town's cliff-top sanctuary and the black-painted Madonna statue are said to have healing powers. On a more down-to-earth note, the village is also known for the delicious, locally crafted goats' cheese to which it lends its name.

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Peak cosiness in the Pyrenees When snow blankets the slopes of the Pyrenees, the mountain range which forms a natural border between Spain and France, Benasque is a cosy place to take shelter. There's lots to enjoy in this charming Spanish village, which boasts beautifully preserved Romanesque and Renaissance manors and churches along its narrow cobblestone streets.

Historic buildings aside, most visitors come here for outdoor adventure. Surrounded by the highest peaks of the Pyrenees, the Benasque Valley also gets a hefty dollop of snow and, as a result, is a popular skiing destination.

The valley is also home to several museums, including one dedicated to the Pyrenean chamois. This local goat-antelope was once hunted to near extinction, but its population is on the rise, thanks to conservation efforts.

Welcome to Abu Simbel in Egypt and the Great Temple of Ramesses II

It's not always sunny here… …but when it is, it's pretty spectacular. Welcome to Abu Simbel in Egypt and the Great Temple of Ramesses II, positioned on the orders of that powerful pharaoh so that the inner sanctum (the small room at the very back of this image) is lit by the sun only twice a year.

On 22 February and 22 October (thought to be Ramesses' coronation and birth dates), the first light of dawn illuminates the sanctuary and three statues: one of Ramesses, one of the sun god Ra and one of the chief god Amun. A fourth statue depicting the underworld figure Ptah is permanently shrouded in shadow.

The temple is one of a pair resting on Lake Nasser's shores - the other honours the pharaoh's wife, Nefertari. When the Nile was dammed to create the lake in the 1960s, the whole complex was painstakingly moved to higher ground. While it's unclear if the relocation slightly altered the original timing of the Great Temple's solar alignment, tourists still descend in droves on the site every six months to witness the luminous event

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A view toward El Peñón de Guatapé in Colombia. Our image captures a panorama of the Embalse Guatapé, a large reservoir dotted with forested islands in central Colombia. Rising in the distance is an icon of the area, the stone monolith known as El Peñón de Guatapé ('The Rock of Guatapé').

 

From this distance you may just be able to make out what looks like white laces running up the far right side of the monolith. That’s actually a staircase built into a gap in the rock, which holds some 649 steps from its base to its peak. From the top, the view across the reservoir and town of Guatapé is spectacular.