Post by Owen on Oct 22, 2020 18:02:25 GMT
1 ~~~ World's Prettiest Mountain Towns ~ Travel & Leisure ~~~
www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/nature-travel/worlds-prettiest-mountain-towns ~ February 2010 ~
In July 2005, Sandra Rötzscher arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, a high desert town in the Andes Mountains of northern Chile, to find herself in a four-day sandstorm. The rare event was “annoying and painful,” she remembers, but once it cleared, an otherworldly landscape emerged: craggy rock formations striated by years of sedimentary buildup, fields of geysers letting off columns of steam from the nearby volcanoes, and salt flats populated by flocks of flamingos. It was scenery unlike any she’d ever seen.
The first image that the phrase “mountain town” brings to mind is usually a scene of the Swiss Alp variety, with quaint lodges tucked beneath snow-dusted peaks. And, though many of the world’s most beautiful mountain towns are indeed alpine (or at least similar), gorgeous high-altitude communities exist in places more typically associated with beaches and deserts as well, like Chile or Mexico.
www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/nature-travel/worlds-prettiest-mountain-towns ~ February 2010 ~