Near Llanarthney, Wales we find a serene scene of rolling green hills, well pruned gardens and a few grazing sheep. Then, sticking out like a sore thumb is the massive Great Glasshouse of the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

Designed by renowned British architect Sir Norman Foster, this is the largest single-span greenhouse in the world. 95m long and 55m wide, the roof contains 785 panes of glass and is partially built below ground level, so that it seems to “swell from the ground like a grassy hillock”…

The Great Glasshouse contains more than a thousand plant species – many endangered – and conserves specimens from warm climates around the globe including Chile, Western Australia, South Africa, California, the Canary Islands and the Mediterranean. If you zoom in close enough you can actually see some of the plant-life that is able to survive here thanks to this massive glass roof.

Read more at Wikipedia. Thanks to TorIV

The Beacon Ring hillfort in the region of Welshpool has seen numerous uses in its 3000 year history.

The central burial hill, or round barrow, would have been formed around the Bronze age. Then, in the Iron age, a fort was built around the hill, probably due to it being the highest point on Long Mountain.

The hill was likely used for beacon fires throughout the ages (hence the name) and by the 1860s was a popular haunt for witchcraft fans to dance about naked, or whatever it is they do.

When Queen Elizabeth II (the current Queen) was crowned in 1953 it was, for some unknown reason, decided that this hill would be a fitting tribute for the new monarch, and trees were planted to spell out “E II R”.

“E II R” isn’t a typo, it stands for “Elizabeth Regina II”: Latin for Queen Elizabeth the second. If you’re wondering where you’ve seen that before it’s probably from post boxes throughout the UK.

Thanks: colin70

There are about 80 known whale species around the globe, the largest of which is of course the Blue Whale, which can measure up to a massive 30m long.

Such a giant beast should easily be visible on the aerial and satellite photographs of Google Earth, it’s just a matter of finding them…

To start with, there’s definitely a blue whale in this Japanese swimming pool, but I don’t think that counts.

The Route 66 landmark Blue Whale slide is so famous it even appeared in Sega’s King of Route 66 video game. More info.

Outside of UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory there’s an 85-foot long Blue Whale skeleton. The female whale was washed ashore of Pescadero Beach in 1979, after dying of unknown causes.

We’ve still not found any live whales though! Off the coast of Santa Barbara there’s a 10m long grey blob that could resemble a whale, or more likely a shark. Either way it would have to be very close to the surface to be seen so easily. I’m not convinced.

‘Reverence‘ is a sculpture by Jim Sardonis, which depicts two whales seemingly diving into the grass. The tails are each 12-13 foot tall and made of granite. More info.

Back in Japan, and Ueno Park has more than tails - there’s a life size Blue Whale diving into the ground. More info.

And finally, to Argentina, where there could just be real whales.

According to whale expert wildslide these are southern right whales who breed in this area during the months of May and October. Success!

Previously on Google Sightseeing: Whales! and Beached Whale

Thanks: The many people who thought they saw a whale, including: Jonathan_Tronson, FrequentFlyer, danescombe, bagabnoosh, kjfitz, Ralph Mettier, Nick, Jim Morton, Andrew, Rking, Yoshino, Barb, Caraurta, danescombe, Todd Pearson, Andrea from Italy, Nichole, James, A30 & John Hartnup

With high-resolution images all over the globe, Google Earth has captured many sporting events actually in-progress, so today we proudly present - The Top 10 different sports you can actually see people playing on Google Earth!

As a bonus, we’ve tried to work out how each game is going, and to make things even more difficult for ourselves, we’ve limited our search to ballgames only.

10. First let’s look at the 2nd of the 18-hole Las Vegas Country Club Golf Course, where we see the pin lying on the grass and the person closest playing their putt. Everyone else is standing around, probably telling him to hurry up.

9. As the world’s most popular sport, there must be hundreds of games of football being played at any one second. Here we see students playing “the beautiful game” at the University of Tokyo. However, this looks like it’s just a practise session as there’s no goalie at either end.

8. There’s people playing tennis all over the globe but for the top 10 we’ve chosen these two games of doubles being played on clay in Germany.

The eastern game is in full swing, and on the western court the players are standing in their service positions, and judging from the shadows it looks as if the southern team are about to serve!

7. There’s a good turnout for Lawn Bowls at Bell Vue Park Bowling Green in Newport, Wales. Sadly the bowls are just too small to be seen so we can’t tell how the games are going.

6. The stands are filling up at Yankee stadium, and there’s a couple of people on the field, but we’re a little too early for the game.

Hmm, we’ll need another baseball game in progress… here’s four!

In the thumbnail we see a batter up at the plate, and I think the bases are loaded.

5. The Shay in Halifax, England is also used for football games, but today it’s a home game for local rugby league team Halifax RLFC.

The ball is probably somewhere in the west of the pitch and the team to the north are on the offensive.

4. They’re playing lacrosse in Salamanca, New York. You can tell that it’s a men’s game as there are 20 players on the pitch (women’s lacrosse would have 24 players).

3. Here is a cricket match being played in the village of Hoylandswaine, north of Sheffield. It looks like they’re between plays, as the batsman has stepped back from the wicket to the west and we can see the other batsman and the bowler at the eastern end.

2. Here we see a packed gameday at Seahawks Stadium (now Qwest field) with 63,588 people watching the Nevada Wolf Pack at Washington State Cougars on August 31, 2002.

Google Earth Community member GEChump managed to identify the exact play seen in the photo, making this 11:37 remaining in the second quarter with the game tied at 7.

The Cougars eventually went on to win 31-7.

1. Finally, we find a tense one-on-one street-Basketball game being played in Rolde, Netherlands. Due to the left-hand player’s poor defence the right-hand player has just taken a shot at the basket, however they’ve missed and the ball is rebounding back.

Have you found a ball game on Google Earth not mentioned here? Let us know!

Thanks: heamit, mike, Kegan, seamus, Jeff, John Culbert, Jeni, Kristen, Mark, shuvman, vancantona, silkobilko, Crebbin, patmonahan, Majoska, pttech, Adam Rus, Ian, Arlene and the Google Earth Community.

Not to get too political for a website dedicated to things from above, but today I’d like to look into the United Kingdom’s devolved assemblies, if you’ll join me…

Back in 1999, after a couple of referendums, the UK government established devolved assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to make key decisions affecting the lives of local people.

Northern Ireland’s home rule was originally established at Stormont in 1920 until 1974, so in 1999 they already had a suitable building to use. Although, the assembly has been under suspension since 2003 so the building is probably not seeing much use at the moment.

The Welsh Senedd is located in the capital of Cardiff. Designed by British architect Richard Rogers it cost £67 million and was opened March 1, 2006.

Unfortunately Google Earth’s aerial photography was taken sometime before that date and the assembly is seen as just a large building site.

In comparison the Scottish Parliament (designed by the late Catalan architect Enric Miralles), was finished two years earlier than the Welsh assembly, but cost an estimated 431 million pounds.

Despite the staggering cost, in March 2006 the building began falling apart when a roof beam slipped from its hinges during a debate…

Wikipedia: Devolution, Northern Ireland Assembly, National Assembly for Wales, Scottish Parliament

Thanks: AndrewAnorak & Myself

Near Ystrad Mynach in south Wales, we find a fantastic 200 metre long earth-sculpture of Sultan the Pit Pony.

This is the UK’s largest figurative earth sculpture, and although I’m not sure there’s actually much competition for that particular title, Sultan sure is impressive. I particularly like the way his ear sticks right up in the air!

Sultan definitely looks a lot more like a Stallion than a Pit Pony, and as it turns out, this work (by landscape sculptor Mick Petts) was actually named Sultan by the locals - after a famous Pit Pony that used to work in the old colliery.

There’s more info on Sultan at the Caerphilly County Borough Council website.

Thanks to Barrie Parham.

Caerphilly Castle is the largest castle in Wales and the second largest in Britain after Windsor castle. It is also one of the largest fortresses in Europe and is cunningly surrounded by shallow lakes to slow attackers and prevent tunnelling.

Unlike most of the other castles in Wales Caerphilly was not build by Edward I during his crack down on Welsh resistance. It was instead built in 1271 by Gilbert ‘the Red’ de Clare, a powerful nobleman of Norman descent who was squabbling with another nobleman of Welsh origin, Llywelyn.

Thanks: Tom

Someone has written Beef it up using hay bales in this field near Newport, Wales. Promotion for their other product perhaps?

Thanks to matt.