In a hidden corner of Europe, the Radovna River pours off the Julian Alps to carve out the Vintgar Gorge with crystal clear water. A mile-long walkway with towering limestone cliffs on either side is your access.

Nearby is the gorgeous Lake Bled, with Bled Castle suspended atop a shoreline cliff.  The medieval village of Piran, built on a spit of land projecting into the Adriatic Sea and encircled by a white sand beach is a short drive away.  Ljubljana is one of Europe’s most utterly charming capital cities.

Most people have only heard of Slovenia as the birthplace of First Lady Melania Trump, but those who have been here understand it is one of the most entrancing countries on the European continent – pristine beauty, spotless environment, friendly and hospitable people, safe and very well-run.  Whenever your next visit to Europe may be, try to include a few days or week or so here.  You’ll never run out of fascinating things to do.  A stroll through the Vintgar Gorge is an example out of so many.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #19 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In the remotest center of the Sahara Desert lies an unknown, unexcavated mysterious lost city known as Djado.  No one knows who built it or when.  Lying on the ancient Roman trade route from the Saharan salt mines of Fachi and Bilma to the Mediterranean, the Djado oasis flourished for a thousand years (the 1^st Millennium AD), but has been forgotten and abandoned for many centuries.

The only people who live near Djado in the vast desert wasteland where Algeria, Libya, Chad, and Niger come together, are the wandering Toubu nomads with no permanent settlements.  It is an indescribable experience to explore such a wondrous lost city right out of an Indiana Jones movie that you have all to yourself.    (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #17, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

It is a profoundly somber experience to stand here on this abandoned weed-strewn airstrip.  For this is Runway Able on Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas, where 75 years ago today, on August 6, 1945, a B-29 nicknamed Enola Gay piloted by Capt. Paul Tibbets took off with Little Boy in its bomb bay bound for Hiroshima – and three days later on August 9, a B-29 nicknamed Bockscar piloted by Maj. Charles Sweeney flew off with Fat Boy in its bomb bay headed for Nagasaki.

This lost bit of tarmac is the most consequential airstrip on earth.  Be prepared for a deep complex of swirling emotions if you ever stand here yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #14 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

When Marco Polo crossed the Tien Shan mountains and reached the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar in 1273, he faced an enormous desert of endless dunes called the Takla Makan, meaning “You go in, you don’t come out.”  To avoid this fate, the Silk Road at Kashgar splits in two – above to the north of the dreaded sand sea via the oases of Aksu and Turfan, and underneath to the south via the oases of Yarkand, Khotan, Charchan and Charklik.  The two routes came together beyond Lop Nor, the eastern extension of the Takla Makan, at the oasis of Dunhuang.

His father Niccolo and uncle Maffeo had earlier taken the northern route to first meet Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan, but now with Marco they took the southern route.  They traveled in caravans of two-humped Bactrian camels, often crossing dunes on the edge – just like the photo you see.  In 2008, I retraced Polo’s route along the southern route – part of it by motorized hang glider. He would be fascinated, I’m sure, to see what a camel caravan looks like from the air! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #13 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

We’re all familiar with the famed Rock of Gibraltar, huge and imposing from the outside – but inside the Rock itself is the enormous St. Michael’s Cave with fantastical formations colorfully illuminated.  For millions of years, rainwater created fissures in the Rock’s limestone widening into huge caves with the steady drip of mineralized water creating massive stalactites hanging from cave ceilings and stalagmites rising up from cave floors.  A phantasmagorical experience.

Gibraltar has been a British territory since 1713 when Spain ceded it in the Treaty of Utrecht.  Thus also high up inside the Rock are the Great Siege Tunnels the British dug then lined with cannon emplacements to defeat Spain’s attempt to seize Gibraltar in the 1780s.  Walking through the tunnels, you peer below looking down where the Spaniards and their French allies were vainly dug in – and where there is now an airplane runway stretching across the isthmus.

That’s just a glimpse of what to discover visiting Gibraltar, as there’s so much more!  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #12, photo ©Jack Wheeler)