Europe

12 Divine Chocolate Shops

Is chocolate good for you? Researchers, conducting highly scientific studies, have found chocolate beneficial in preventing a plethora of ailments including cancer, stroke and heart disease. But Spot Cool Stuff has a more simple theory:

If it makes you smile, it’s health food.

In honor of National Smile Month—and to the dismay of dentists everywhere—here’s our look at 12 wonderful chocolate shops. We hesitate calling them the “best” chocolate shops given how there are easily 60 or more stores that we could have included on this list. All the shops we did include are superlative in some way.

Note that this overview is a companion piece to our equally dentist-horrifying review of the world’s best candy shops.

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Take A Fantastic Voyage
Through the Human Body

Your kids can bounce up and down on the rubber tongue

Sure, you could learn about inner functionings of the human body by reading an anatomy book. Or you could learn the Spot Cool Stuff Way: By walking through a giant 35 meter (115 feet) tall replica of the human body at the Corpus Science Museum in the Netherlands. Intrigued?

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Go Skiing (But Not On Snow)

While skiing the dunes, sand will get inside your clothes. And it will go to places you very much would rather it wouldn’t

Ski bums, do not despair when the weather warms at your travel destination. Though the snow may vanish, your opportunity to partake in downhill skiing and boarding needn’t.

Here’s a Spot Cool Stuff look at three non-snow ski surfaces and where to enjoy them:

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5 Temples & Monasteries
on Perilous Cliff Sides

To monks, the monastery represents the victory of good over evil. To travelers, it represents the victory of architecture over gravity.

Spot Cool Stuff previously reviewed five towns on cliff sides—villages where drinking and driving . . . or drinking and walking . . . or simply walking could be especially perilous.

Following up on that, here are five religious buildings—a shrine, temple, church and two monasteries—built at a cliff’s edge. Gazing down the rocky drops from these structures, and out upon the magnificent vistas they offer, and perhaps one can’t help but believe in God.

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Yo, Cool and Cozy In-Airport Hotel

Take a modern, stylish boutique hotel. Then automate its check-in process. Then shrink down its rooms. Then place this hotel inside the terminal of a busy airport. What you’ll get as your result is Yotel—Spot Cool Stuff’s favorite chain of airport-only accommodations.

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The World’s Best Hostels 2011 (Part II)

This is the second of our two-part look at the world’s best hostels, budget hotels and inexpensive guest houses as chosen by the users of the Hostelbookers website. Scroll down or click on the region you are interested in:

Part I Part II
Africa Europe
Asia Oceania
Canada South America
Caribbean/Mexico United States

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The Museum of Hair

Albert Einstein, Troy Polamalu, Gwen Stefani and Donald Trump would love it. Those with chaetophobia (a fear of hair) would consider it hell. Our readers inclined towards Spot Cool Stuff’s odd travel attractions would find it so bad that it’s good.

It’s the Museum of Hair in Avanos, Turkey.

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The All-Suite, All-Cat Hotel

The Longcroft Hotel, north of London, features fine gourmet dining. Its staff provides five-star service. Every room in the hotel is suite—rates are as low as £15 per night! And if you are reading this you are absolutely not allowed to stay there.

That’s because the Longcroft Hotel is for cats only.

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