Europe is known for its beautiful art and architecture and rich culture, but it is also home to some of Mother Nature's best creations. From massive ice caves to majestic cliffs, natural wonders dot the European Union. Here, we round up the most amazing gem in each country, natural wonders you should see on your next European trips. (MORE: ) One natural wonder no traveler should miss on a European tour is Ireland's spectacular that stretch for five miles along...

Photographer Svein Nordrum captured an optical illusion known as the Brocken spectre on top of a hill in Norway. (Caters News Agency) was on top of a misty Norwegian hill when he noticed an incredible optical illusion. The photographer took several pictures that captured the phenomenon, known as a Brocken spectre. "The phenomena occurred when I was on the top of a hill as I had the low November sun in the back and fog in the front below," Nordrum...

A woman walks through the Gagarin park in the center of Yakutsk, East Siberia. Sunday, Dec 6, 2015. It was -35°C and breathing vapors turn into ice around face. (Max Avdeev) Yes, it really is as cold as it looks in one of the coldest cities on the planet. Winters in Yakutsk are brutal—temperatures in this remote city in eastern Siberia can fall below minus 50 F. What does that really feel like? The air here is cold enough to...

Torres del Paine National Park, Chile The Cuernos (Horns) del Paine grab the early morning light in Chile's wild Torres del Paine National Park. Once the haunt of a few stalwart climbers, the park now draws more than 100,000 visitors a year. (Photograph by Gleb Tarro, National Geographic Your Shot) National Geographic has long been known for stunning travel photography, featuring incredible images of the world's best destinations, most fascinating cultures and majestic natural wonders. To wrap up 2015, they...

A photo taken on January 1, 2016 shows rooftops covered with snow after a snowfall at the old city of Istanbul. (Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images) A heavy snowstorm in Turkey has already taken the lives of at least four people,left hundreds of villages without power, closed hundreds of roads and stranded thousands of airline passengers. Slick and snowy conditions on the roads have proved deadly for drivers. Today's Zaman reported that in Istanbul, a driver lost control and skidded into three...

Grand Prize and Nature Winner: 'Dirt' Jaw-dropping, rare anti-cyclonic tornado tracks in open farm land narrowly missing a home near Simla, Colorado. (James Smart / National Geographic 2015 Photo Contest) A stunning photo of a tornado in Colorado was chosen as the grand-prize winner of the . The photo, titled “DIRT,” was shot by of Melbourne, Australia. It was selected from more than 13,000 entries to the prestigious competition. Last spring, Smart spent 15 days chasing storms with his brother...

Christ The Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro. (Airpano/Caters News Agency) World wonders such as the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu in Peru, and the Taj Mahal in India have been captured in photographs many times, but none of them captures the splendor and grandeur of these spectacular sites like the Russian-based photography group 's drone images. The panoramic photos on the AirPano website , zooming in on specific elements of the landmarks, which were selected via a process that received...

The 'new lava' from the Eldfell eruption of 1973, seen in Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland, 2014. (Peter Holliday) It's covered in glaciers but as home to around 30 active volcanic systems, Iceland is a land where fire literally meets ice. Most people around the world remember the famous 2010 eruption ofEyjafjallajökull volcano, which spewed a cloud of ash that crept across the European continent, shutting down airports and stranding hundreds of thousands of travelers for days. But in 1973, a volcanic eruption...

In March 1868 a 29-year-old John Muir stopped a passerby in San Francisco to ask for directions out of town. “Where do you wish to go?” the startled man inquired. “Anywhere that is wild,” said Muir. His journey took him to the Yosemite Valley in California’s Sierra Nevada, which became the spiritual home of Muir’s conservation movement and, under his guidance, the country’s third national park. “John the Baptist,” he wrote, “was not more eager to get all his fellow...

Nikolai Bocharov, 77, a member of the Cryophile winter swimmers club, rubs snow on his body as he sits on a snowdrift after bathing in the icy water of the Yenisei River in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, Nov. 15, 2015. (Ilya Naymushin/Reuters) Some people brave icy waters once a year by taking part in a polar plunge, the famous . And then are some people, like the members of Cryophile swimming club in the Siberian city ofKrasnoyarsk, who...

From an open helicopter window, photographer Dito Tediashvili managed to capture stunning aerials of Tusheti, a historic region located on the Greater Caucasus Mountains of Eurasian country Georgia. (Dito Tediashvili) Flying high, with his camera held through a helicopter window, photographer Dito Tediashvili braved the winter cold to take stunning aerial landscape photographs of Tusheti. Located in the northeast region of Georgia on the Great Caucasus Mountains, Tusheti is a popular destination for mountain and horse-trekking in the summer and...

The Frying Pan Tower is a Coast Guard Light Station located 34 miles off the coast of North Carolina. It has been turned into a bed and breakfast. (Frying Pan Tower / fptower.com) Overwater bungalows have become the , but while the Frying Pan Tower, which is perched 85 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, doesn't have an infinity pool or luxury amenities of the resorts in the Maldives, it offers all the ocean views and solitude one would need. Plus,...

Located in White, Georgia, went from being a general store that sold auto parts to one of the largest classic car junkyards in the world. Over ,many of which have not moved for more than 30 or 40 years. Over the course of time, nature has taken a grip on the old vehicles: trees are growing through them, with some even being lifted off the ground. "The only thing I ever knew was cars and trucks," . "I don't know...