We all grew up with stories based on myths. Thanks to books, films and other works of art, images of these mythical places have formed in our minds. But not all of them are just a figment of the author's imagination. Many famous legends are associated with real places on the globe.
Yes, some of them are far away, and it can be difficult to get to them from a financial point of view, but it is quite possible to see them physically, at least from a monitor screen.
These are these fabulous places where myths turn into reality.
Mount Olympus (Greece)
The famous Mount Olympus is located on the border of Greece and Macedonia and rises 2.9 km above sea level. According to ancient Greek mythology, 12 main Gods lived at the top of Olympus, and many important events in myths took place there.
The mountain has a dozen different peaks. The highest and most atmospheric is Mitikas - it is often covered with fog and is associated with Zeus.
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Ruins of Troy (Turkey)
For a long time, historians believed that the legendary Troy, sung in the works of the ancient Greek poet Homer, was a fictional place. But in the late 1860s, German archaeologist Hermann Schliemann discovered the alleged ruins of Troy while excavating the Hissarlik Hill, located in the modern Turkish province of Canakkale. In 1998, the site was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Loch Ness (Scotland)
The first stories of a monster living in Loch Ness near present-day Inverness in the north of Scotland date back to the 6th century. The aquatic beasts featured prominently in Celtic and Pictish mythology, and since the 1903s, grainy photographs of a creature resembling a dinosaur or a snake began to appear in the media, and legends of the Loch Ness monster were reborn.
Gloomy and deep, surrounded by hills with ancient castles, the lake, as if indeed, keeps some kind of secret.
Hobbiton Village (New Zealand)
The action in Tolkien's trilogy "The Lord of the Rings" takes place in the fictional world of Middle-earth. Tolkien was an Englishman, but the film used landscapes of New Zealand and artificial scenery built there. So, the village of Hobbiton still stands in Matamata on the North Island and is open to the public. On the same island is Mount Ngauruhoe, which is represented in the film as Mount Orodruin.
Sherwood Forest (England)
Sherwood Forest, known for the legend of Robin Hood, is located near the village of Edwinstowe in the English county of Nottinghamshire. Today it is a 400 hectare nature reserve, but in the Middle Ages the forest was much larger.
Legends about the robber Robin Hood, who gave all the loot to the poor, appeared in the 13th century and have survived to this day thanks to folklore. Films and TV series about this hero, filmed in recent years, have made Sherwood Forest a popular tourist destination.
Shangri-La (China)
The English writer James Hilton, in his novel The Lost Horizon, published in 1933, described the fictional city of Shangri-La. After the book was published, readers began to speculate about which place inspired the author and served as the prototype of the city. According to the most popular theory, this is a county in the Chinese province of Yunnan, where Tibetan temples are combined with picturesque nature. Previously, it was called Zhongdian, and in 2001 it was renamed Shangri-La in order to attract tourists familiar with the writer's work.
Tohno (Japan)
In the northeast of the Japanese island of Honshu, in Iwate Prefecture, is the city of Tohno, nicknamed the "City of Folklore" for its rural landscapes, traditional culture and the tales of the writer Kunio Yanagita. Every February, Tono hosts a folklore festival, but its main venues are open all year round.
Tintagel Castle (England)
The medieval castle of Tintagel in Cornwall in the southwest of England is often associated with the legend of King Arthur, although in real history it was rented by an Earl named Richard. The area was occupied as early as the era of Roman occupation. Currently, the land surrounding the ruins of the coastal castle belongs to Prince Charles.
Giants' Bridge (Northern Ireland)
A prehistoric volcanic eruption has created unusual rock formations in Northern Ireland called the Giant's Causeway. The hexagonal pillars were formed as a result of the cooling of volcanic rocks and in some places resemble paving stones.
Irish legend has it that this unique geographic feature is the remnant of a bridge that a giant named Finn built to get to Scotland, where he was facing a duel with an opponent. According to another version, Finn's wife disguised herself as a child when the Scottish giant used the bridge to come to Ireland. Seeing the giant in the form of a child, he thought that his father would be too big for him, and fled back to Scotland, destroying the bridge.