Serious hidden treasures from Cleopatra's palace lie beneath the waters of the Mediterranean, off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. And a proposed underwater museum will showcase these sunken wonders if UNESCO determines that the project is feasible.
Cleopatra's palace was built on an island in one of the largest human-made bays on the planet. Earthquakes unfortunately submerged her opulent lair until the 1990s when archaeologist-divers found the thousands of precious objects.
The museum could be truly astounding, showing off 26 sphinxes, statues bearing gifts to the gods, Roman and Greek shipwrecks and pieces of the Pharos of Alexandria lighthouse--one of the seven ancient wonders of the world.
We admit we don't know everything about every destination in the whole world, but we sure are surprised that we hadn't heard of the Chocolate Hills until now. They're found in Bohol in the Philippines and have hit the headlines because they're in the running to be one of the new Natural Wonders of the World.
But before you book your ticket, don't get too excited: They're not actually hills made of chocolate, as we'd hoped. Instead they are a weird set of over 1,200 cone-shaped hills, all of a similar size, and because the green grass that covers them turns brown during the dry season, they were named the Chocolate Hills.
Two of the chocolate hills have resorts on them, and at one there's a special viewing station which is part of the Chocolate Hills Complex. They've also got a hostel, swimming pool and a restaurant: Here's hoping their menu features lots of chocolate.
With more than ten months of voting left until the shortlist for the Seven Wonders of Nature is made, the leading contenders at the moment are Cox's Bazar Beach (pictured) and the Sundarbans Forest, both in Bangladesh. More recognizably, Vietnam's Halong Bay is sitting in the number three spot, while better known landmarks like Mount Fuji, Niagara Falls and the Great Barrier Reef languish outside the top ten.
Not that there's anything wrong with Bangladeshi beaches, but perhaps the voting system might still be a bit out of whack?
Whether you consider the New 7 Wonders project a stroke of marketing genius, a selfish farce or a magical way of recognizing the modern world's most important tourism sites, you'll probably be surprised to learn that the majority of votes were cast by children in the developing world.
Leading up to the big announcement on 07-07-07, participants the world over could vote for the likes of Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China to make the list of the world's New 7 Wonders. Votes could be cast by internet, SMS or phone. Europe, the US and Oceania practically ignore the whole rigmarole while Mali (home to nominated-but-unsuccessful-wonder Timbuktu) voted more in one week than Germany did the whole stretch of the contest.
Just why the organizers have released these voting statistics now isn't quite clear. Perhaps they think that we'll all go soft and gushy to hear it was the under-18s who really voted up a storm; but shouldn't the people who've had a chance to see and appreciate a few of the wonders be the ones to vote?
We like to think that Machu Picchu really is a great destination, not to be detracted from just because it wound up on the biased and strange New 7 Wonders list. So it shouldn't come as any surprise to hear that tourist numbers to Peru's famous Inca ruins are rising rapidly.
Unfortunately we're not sure if this is a good thing. With tourist numbers constantly rising in the past decade--they'd already reached 400,000 a year in 2003, and 850,000 are predicted this year--they'll soon reach the one million a year mark. Disregarding peaks in tourist traffic, that means on average we'll have to share Machu Picchu with another 3,000 cameras and backpacks on the day we visit, and that makes a remote scenic ruin turn into something of a tourist trap.
It seems we're not the only ones who have been a little cynical about the New Seven Wonders of the World project, in which a Swiss guy and his associates got to spend a couple of years traveling the world before announcing the result of the (heavily South-American-biased) vote and declaring seven sights the best of the modern world.
Now they've started the New 7 Wonders of Nature project, along similar lines, but something we read from Yemen this week has got us even more concerned. Discussing the nomination of Yemeni island Scootra, the Yemen Times explained that people can vote for Scootra (and other nominees) to make the final list, and:
The first vote will be free and then any additional votes may be acquired through payment to NOWC organization [the for-profit arm in Switzerland].
At least we know how we can get our favorite natural spot to win now.
The much-hyped New 7 Wonders of the World project finally reached a conclusion on the weekend. In Portugal, symbolically on 07-07-07, the results of 100 million internet and text message votes decided the modern version of the 7 Wonders of the World.
So congratulations are in order for Petra, Jordan; Machu Picchu, Peru; the Statue of Christ the Redeemer, Brazil; the Chichen Itza pyramid, Mexico; the Roman Colosseum, Italy; the Taj Mahal, India; and the Great Wall of China. They now have one more promotional tag. Significant losers included the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and the Sydney Opera House.
If you've been under a big rock the past year or so and feel like you've missed out, don't fret. The organizers have obviously realized they're on to a good thing--there's a lot of travel involved in a project like this--so now the quest to find the New 7 Wonders of Nature begins.
Results of the The New 7 Wonders promotion are getting closer: on 07.07.07 (yep, that's July 7 this year), the big announcement will be made in Lisbon about which seven tourist sights should expect an environment-destroying boost in visitor numbers in the coming years. If you want to get into the spirit of world wonders before then, you can always listen to the official New 7 Wonders of the World song.
That's right--such a song exists. British band The Dolmen sing a sentimental try-hard tune with lines like "Dreaming as children/On the threshold of history" and a chorus repeating "New 7 Wonders of the World" a couple of times to often. Don't say we didn't warn you.
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by Dan Gould
