Once upon a time, fishermen off of the Greek island of Siphnos noticed a glow under the Aegean Sea. When they trolled the spot they were amazed at what their nets brought up: a statue of the Virgin Mary.
The fishermen brought the Virgin Mary icon to Chryssopigi, a small seventeenth-century monastery church on Siphnos located at the end of a spit of land jutting out into the sea. The Virgin of the Golden Spring soon came to be regarded as the protector of the island.
The Virgin’s protective powers were evidenced several years later when pirates, who regularly made life miserable for residents of islands in the Aegean, stormed the Siphnos shore chasing a group of nuns who were on their way to the Chryssopigi monastery. The nuns prayed as they ran with the pirates close behind. As the nuns reached the church containing the Virgin there was a great rumble, the neck of land connecting the church to the main island split open, and the pirates fell into the sea.
And that’s how Siphnos came to be known as The Island of Miracles.
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Spot Cool Stuff is, shall we say, “challenged” when it comes to the visual arts. Drawing, painting, sculpting—we’re terrible at them all. No self-respecting museum would ever consider putting one of our artworks on display. No museum except for one: MoBA.
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This is the second of our two part overview of Thailand’s best islands. Continue on to read the whole article or click on one of the specific “best island” categories:
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Thailand has over 250 islands, from deserted specks of land to tourist havens with mega resorts to everything in between. Regardless of what you are looking for in a tropical island, chances are that Thailand has at least one to fit your tastes.
Here’s the first of our two-part rundown of Spot Cool Stuff’s favorite Thailand islands. Continue reading on or click on an island category that meets your fancy:
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Most people would not voluntarily live in the middle of a remote lava field. Artist César Manrique decided to build his dream house there.
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Japan is a modern country, famous for its electronics and technological prowess. Thankfully, a few little pockets of the old, traditional Japan remain. Such as the wonderful little village of Onta.
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When we first heard about a restaurant in Okinawa, Japan that was lodged on top of the remnants of an absolutely massive tree, and that customers went up to this restaurant by taking an elevator through said massive tree remnants, it immediately raised several questions for us:
What’s the story behind what must have been the largest tree in Japan? What happens to the restaurant when the ex-tree’s wood rots? How did they build an elevator through the tree? And how did the restaurant end up in the tree to begin with?
It turns out the answers to all those questions are essentially the same . . .
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Many of the historical myths and stories of Ireland involve fighting with England, Wales and Scotland. So it is with the legend of the Giant’s Causeway, which folklore says was built by the giant Finn McCool so that he could walk from Northern Ireland to Scotland to do battle with his nemesis. Supposedly, the battle didn’t go so well for Finn McCool; he retreated, tearing up the causeway as he went, except for the portion that exists today.
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