The most recent additions to Google’s Street View service made us wonder if it might be in danger of having a misleading name; beautiful scenery and historic ruined buildings aren’t typical on British streets.

Google collaborated with the National Trust to allow the Street View trikes to gain entry to 20 of the National Trust’s protected locations.¹

Dorset’s Corfe Castle overlooks the village of the same name, and provides picturesque views of the English countryside from the ruined battlements. Partially destroyed during the English Civil War, pieces of the castle were “borrowed” for construction in the village, where some of the original stones and door frames remain.

There are fantastic views off the north-eastern coast of Northern Ireland at Downhill Demesne and Mussenden Temple. Designed as a library, the temple was built in 1785 near the edge of the cliffs, and by 1997 was in serious danger of being lost to coastal erosion.

Plas Newydd is a Welsh country house which dates from the 14th century, where you can man the cannons across the Menai Strait. Don’t try to ask for directions though, as it’s in the Welsh village with the famously-long-winded name: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch².

Here in Scotland we have our own National Trust, who were unfortunately not involved with the project. However Google did also add images from the beautiful coastline of Loch Ness.

Although we’ve not had any reports of a Nessie sighting (yet), another mystery has been spotted: Some say he’s the Loch Ness monster, all we know is… it’s The Stig!

Yes, for reasons as yet unknown, Top Gear’s faceless racing driver has been captured just hanging around at the side of the road. What on earth for we wonder? Wasn’t his last appearance on Street View enough?³

You can see all 20 of the National Trust sights on Street View at this special Google Maps page.

The mines at Río Tinto have been producing copper, silver, gold, sulphur, and other minerals for the last 5000 years. The river flowing past the mines is the source of the name, which means the “Painted River”. As the name suggests, the Río Tinto is a deep red colour thanks to the high concentrations of heavy metals now present in the water.

According to myth, these are the fabled mines of King Solomon, and a section of the area is still known as Cerro Salomón today. For a time the mines were abandoned, but the Spanish government began operating them again in 1724.

In 1873, after many years of under production, the government sold the mines to a British consortium and the Rio Tinto Company was founded – within a few years the mine was running at full capacity.

The westernmost mine is Corta Atalaya, which is over 1200 metres long, 900 m wide and 350 m deep, making it the largest open-pit mine in Europe.

Due to the effects of acid mine drainage the waters of the Río Tinto are highly acidic, with a pH of between 1.7 and 2.5 (roughly between gastric acid and lemon juice).

Despite the acidity, the Río Tinto is still home to extremophile bacteria, which has led to Astrobiologists taking an interest in the river, believing that conditions may be analogous to extraterrestrial locations thought to have the potential for life, such as subterranean Mars.

For further info visit the official Río Tinto website (Google translation), or see some of the many, many photos on flickr.

Wayne Coyne is the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of rock outfit The Flaming Lips, and is known for his extravagant stage entrances and over the top performances. Flaming Lips gigs have been described as “psychedelic experiences”, and Mr. Coyne considers himself a bit of an experimental artist.

All of which might go some way to explain why he was photographed by the Google Car whilst sitting outside in a bathtub, with a large painted sign behind him which reads “Blob in the Bath”.

Naturally enough it was a member of the Flaming Lips forums that discovered this little tableau, and they directed us to some photos of the event on Myspace which prove it really is Mr. Coyne in the bath.

Unfortunately we haven’t got a Myspace account¹ to see if Wayne offers any sort of explanation as to what led him to believe this was a sensible sort of thing to do.

Here’s the Flaming Lips on Wikipedia, and more about Wayne himself.

Thanks to Allistair and the members of the Flaming Lips forums.

If you’ve ever dreamt of travelling the world to see the world’s most famous landmarks, but couldn’t afford to finance the big trip, perhaps you might consider visiting one of the many not-so-famous sites that attempt to replicate those better-known originals.

Carhenge (Alliance, Nebraska USA) – As an alternative to the multitude of regular Stonehenge replicas, why not visit Carhenge? It’s a scale replica of the real Stonehenge, the only discernible difference being that instead of standing stones, it’s made from thirty-eight grey spray-painted cars.

Eiffel Tower (Paris, Texas USA) – When on a trip to Paris, you have to visit the Eiffel Tower right? Well, the folks in Paris, Texas must have thought so, as they decided to build their own 20m tall replica (65 feet). The twist however (in true Texas style), is that they topped it off with a giant cowboy hat.

Parthenon (Nashville, Tennessee USA) – One of the more impressive duplications¹ of a famous landmark has to be the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee. This scale replica of the original Greek structure was originally built in 1897. Today, it stands as the centrepiece of Centennial Park, a large urban park west of downtown Nashville. Inside the structure you can find a 13m (42 feet) tall statue of Athena Parthenos that is dressed in more than eight pounds of gold leaf.²

Minitalia Leolandia Park (Bergamo, Italy) – Aside from visiting the replica of one building, you can also visit a replica of an entire country! Miniature parks around the world offer visitors small versions of cities and countries, usually in a beautiful, landscaped setting. From the satellite view of Minitalia, you can see that as the name implies, it looks just like a small Italy! On the ground level, visitors can walk from one city to another visiting tiny facsimiles of Italy’s most famous landmarks.

Las Vegas, Nevada USA – Perhaps the one location that has more wannabes than anywhere else is Las Vegas. Built in the middle of the desert, just about everything you see in this town can be considered fake in one way or another. On one end of the strip you’ll find a replica of an Egyptian obelisk that stands in front of the Luxor hotel, and on the opposite end you’ll find a replica of Seattle’s Space Needle. In between there are volcanoes, roman columns, the Eiffel Tower, and more!

Las Vegas is also home to a half scale replica of the Statue of Liberty, which is actually one of the most reproduced monuments in the world. Here’s a 35m (115ft) version in Germany’s Heide Park.

Google Sightseeing visited the original Parthenon and the original Statue of Liberty back in 2005, and in 2006 we took a tour of some of the best known replicas of Liberty, and several Parthenon impostors. We’ve also visited the excellent Dutch Madurodam miniature park, as well as taken an extensive tour of many of the members of the International Association of Miniature Parks.

Thanks to Feel Glass and many others.

Another year is winding up here at Google Sightseeing, so here’s a look back at the most popular posts from 2009.

1. Top 10 Street Views, April 2009

Following an absolutely massive launch of Street View imagery across Europe in March, one particular image attracted a lot of traffic to the site. It has since been removed from Google Maps, but others from our roundup remain; like the brilliant depiction of British people’s astonishing ability to queue, even in the face of compelling evidence that it’s utterly pointless.

2. Naked Street View

Immediately after the European Street View rollout, this post also seemed to attract a lot of traffic. We’re unsure why, but we do now know that Italian prostitutes are not in the least bit shy.

3. Top 10 Rudest Place Names in Britain

We’re not sure what this post says about Britain and our place-naming methodology, but a lot of people seemed to find something amusing in places called Titty Ho, Crapstone, Sluts Hole Lane, Penistone, Dick Place, Minge Lane and Butt Hole Road.

Or was it just us that thought this was hysterical?

Earlier this month we also posted a follow-up featuring the Top 10 Rudest Place Names in America, featuring the brilliant Climax, Michigan.

4. UK Street View Has Arrived

Yet more Street View! There were a lot of Europeans interested in seeing the things on that we found in the new imagery, and subsequently we’ve gained reasonably large following on our Twitter account, where we regularly post funny Street View sights that don’t make it into full posts.

5. UK Celebs Caught on Street View

Yes, Street View really was popular this year… helped by comedian Dave Gorman, who quickly found himself in the new imagery. However it was a possible sighting of Top Gear’s Stig that got people really excited, sorry Dave. To add more insult to Mr. Gorman’s celebrity status, it actually turned out to be a cardboard cut-out of the Stig.

6. Never, Neverland

With the sad news of the death of the King of Pop, we posted another look Michael Jackson’s famous Neverland property.

7. Top Ten Confusing Place Names

This brilliant roundup of the most ridiculously confusing place names proved extremely popular, featuring such classics as Smile, Okay, Uncertain, Goodnight, Nameless, Yell and Why.

8. The Nonexistent Town of Argleton

Nestled in the Lancashire countryside, just to the south of Ormskirk, is the small town of Argleton. Or so Google would have us believe.

9. World’s Largest Ship Graveyard

An absolutely astonishing look at the scale of the environmental and social catastrophe that is the world’s largest ship graveyard in Mauritania.

10. News on the Google Street View UK Launch

People’s appetite for new Street View just didn’t let up did it? Many of these were immediately removed from Google’s servers, but that didn’t stop them getting into most of the UK Red Tops.

Judging by this list, it would seem that we wrote about nothing much but Street View this year, but in fact we posted over 220 new articles, which covered loads of really interesting sights. We hope to post a roundup of some of our favourites before the end of the year, and we’ll be back in full swing early next year.

Happy/merry culturally and/or religiously appropriate festival/holiday!