Best places to visit in the UK

The United Kingdom has long been a favourite European tourist destination for many because of its beautiful countryside, historical cities, top museums and outstanding theaters. Here are some of the best places to visit in the UK.

Cambridge

Cambridge is a charming English city located on the River Cam just north of London. As the home to one of the world’s top universities, the University of Cambridge, it has all of the cultural and entertainment options you might expect from a college town.

Chester

Located on the River Dee in Cheshire England, Chester is more than 2,000 years old, which means there is plenty of history, culture and architecture on hand lasting several centuries. The Roman and medieval (中世纪的) walls around the city are one of the Chester’s biggest tourists attractions.

Stonehenge

One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge consists of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones in southwest England. It is also home to some of the most important Neolithic and Bronze Age finds and structures in the UK. It was not until 1600 BC that Stonehenge came to be completed.

Lake District

Located in northwest England, the Lake District is the second largest National Park in the UK. The main attractions are the lakes, mountains and hills carved by glacial erosion (冰川侵蚀) and providing dramatic and inspiring scenery. It is England’s famous destination for hiking and climbing.

Walking over water might sound like something unbelievable. In fact, people do it all the time. How? Almost all of the world’s liquid fresh water lies underground. This stash beneath our feet is called groundwater.

Earth is a water planet, but most of its H₂O is in the oceans. Only about 2.5 percent of the planet’s water is fresh water. Of that, nearly 69 percent is frozen in glaciers (冰川) and ice caps. And about 30 percent is groundwater — much more than the 1.2 percent that flows through rivers and fills lakes.

Groundwater is found almost everywhere on Earth. It hides under mountains, plains, and even deserts. Tiny gaps between rocks and soil grains take in and hold this water like a sponge, forming buried bodies of water called aquifers (地下蓄水层). Together, they hold about 60 times as much water as the world’s lakes and rivers combined. Groundwater is a key part of the earth’s water cycle. Rain and melted snow go down into the ground. The water can stay there for thousands of years. Some groundwater naturally runs out onto the earth’s surface through springs. It also flows into lakes, rivers, and wetlands. People get groundwater through wells for drinking, watering crops, and other uses. People draw more than 200 times as much groundwater from the earth as oil every year.

As human-caused climate change dries out parts of the planet, demand for groundwater may rise. At the same time, climate change may intensify (加剧) storms. Heavier rain is more likely to rush straight into streams and storm drains, instead of going into the soil. So, there may be less groundwater around.

Many of the world’s aquifers already seem to be drying up. Twenty-one of the earth’s 37 biggest aquifers are becoming smaller, satellite data show. The most dried-out aquifers are near big cities, farms, or dry regions. As groundwater stores dwindle, they hold less water to refill rivers and streams, thus threatening freshwater ecosystems. In California, drying up the ground may even be causing small earthquakes.

I recently paid a visit to Yunnan Province, in the southwestern part of China, where I had a very precious chance to take so many wonderful photos I’m so proud of. Here I’d like to show off one or two.

The Red Land of the eastern river is a place which one almost cannot find in China’s tourist maps. Even if there is, it has only a few words to introduce it. It is located in the southwestern part of Kunming (capital of Yunnan Province), 2,600 feet above sea level. Because of its lack of infrastructure (基础设施), transportation problem, inadequate lodging (住房) facilities, ordinary travel agencies would not think of going there. Even the people living there are not so aware of or familiar with its existing beauty. But of those who have seen the pictures of the Red Land, none can resist being attracted to its beautiful scenery, like a painting of a great magnificent landscape!

The soil contains such components (成分) as oxidized iron (氧化铁). After a long period of oxidation, they gradually added and mixed in the soil, producing this extraordinary reddish brown soil.   

Here each of the families was distributed with different sizes and shapes of land, and each has its preference of crops which causes and produces these beautiful pieces of color. During harvest time, the soil is shoveled up and made this unusually red color. Here whether mountains or hills, every inch of land is cultivated (耕作) and planted to the maximum by the inhabitants, consequently causing unwanted damage to the place: erosion (侵蚀). Just like many other places in the world, how long could this magnificent phenomenon (现象) exist? No one knows.