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)

Built 1,000 years ago on the edge of a cliff hundreds of feet above the sea on the island of Bali, the sacred temple of Ulu Watu is one of the holiest places of worship for the Balinese people. They have retained their unique form of Balinese Hinduism for millennia that incorporates their original animism, ancestor worship, and reverence for Buddhist saints or Bodhisattva. This has resulted in a spiritual warmth and gentle friendliness matched by few other places on earth. It is little wonder so many who come here consider Bali to be a worldly paradise. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #108 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

August, 1971. Here is where the Ancient Greeks believed their 12 Olympian Gods lived, on the summit of the highest peak of Olympus – Mytikas at 9,571ft/2,918m. There are 52 jagged prominences of Olympus, but if you want to commune with Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, Athena and the rest, this is where you go.

It takes just two days: morning drive from Athens (4 hrs) to Litochoro, then the roadhead at Priona (2,500ft). Afternoon hike of some 3 hours through pretty pine forests to the comfortable Spilios Agapitos refuge (6,700ft) for dinner and a bunk bed overnight. You’re up at dawn for a strenuous but not technical climb up to Skala peak at 9,400ft. In my photo, you’re looking at Mytikas from Skala. It’s a Class B rock scramble – no ropes or gear, but this shouldn’t be your first mountain rodeo. Be careful!

I was by myself at the Mytikas summit and no selfies in those days, so I said my greetings to the gods, and I was back down at the refuge by lunchtime. You’ll be back at the Plaka below the Acropolis in Athens for ouzo and dinner. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #45 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The horrifically heroic Battle of Tarawa was fought November 20-23, 1943, with the US Marines determined to take the entrenched Japanese – which they did, both sides suffering ghastly losses. The Marine amphibious force assaulted the Japanese garrison on the small island of Betio in Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Islands – now the country of Kirimati.

The spearhead of the assault was led by the Marine’s Charlie Company, 1st Corps Tank Battalion and its M4-A2 Shermans on what was codenamed Red Beach. One particular Sherman sank a few yards offshore and lies there to this day. It’s easy to wade out and clamber upon it, as these friends of mine did when I brought them there in 2016.

We hear a lot about “climate change” causing “the oceans to rise.” But as you can see, the sea level at Tarawa has been the same for the past 77 years. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #124 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The best place to see Roman ruins is not in Rome or anywhere in Italy. It’s in Africa – specifically on the Mediterranean coast of Libya. This is the Roman theatre at Sabratha built in the 1^st century BC. Over 2,000 years old, it’s still mostly intact. Starting as a Berber village, the Phoenicians founded the city as Sabrat by 500 BC. Then came the Greeks, then the Carthaginians, and after the Punic Wars came Rome.

The Libyan coast was a lush fertile place back then. So much so that Sabratha and the other major Roman city nearby, Leptis Magna, produced several million pounds of olive oil per year – sale of which to Rome enabled them to achieve great wealth. It’s a shame that Libya remains today in chaotic civil war. Hopefully the day is not off when experiencing Rome’s most magnificent remains will be possible here again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #79 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

It would be hard to find a more exotic restaurant than The Rock, perched on a coral outcropping off Michanwi Pingwe beach on the east coast of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean.  Start off with what I found to be the world’s best (and largest) piña colada, then tuck in to marvelous fresh caught grilled lobster along with an excellent French chardonnay.  Finish with coconut tiramisù and a large cup of great Tanzanian coffee.  Rebel and I will always fondly remember our experience here – and so will you should you ever visit the extraordinary island of Zanzibar.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #287, photo ©Jack Wheeler)