Best spots you've never heard of

Ever gone on vacation and come across the most ideal spot that you had never previously heard of?

Users of travel Web site IgoUgo.com have come up with a list of the top 10 "Best Places You've Never Heard Of" based on their experiences, with reader comments for each place:

1. Amarante, Portugal - a magnificent little city

"During my first time in Amarante, I found it such a nice town to visit, a pleasant 'discovery,' the only thing I could complain about was the weather... The lovely city is bathed by River Tamega and Amarante's beautiful architecture by its margins and green streets reflect on its water."

2. Sigulda, Latvia - a beautiful little town

"As the Gauja National Park gateway town closest to Riga, only 50 km southwest, Sigulda attracts its fair share of tourists, and deservedly so because it is one of the nicest small towns in Latvia. It is located on the banks of the Gauja river that winds through the forested hills."

3. Avebury, England - a Stonehenge alternative

"Avebury may be a lesser-known henge sibling to the massive stones of Stonehenge in the south, but it is certainly no less impressive. "Although Stonehenge's stones are so much bigger, the scale of the circle here at Avebury leaves the former well and truly in the shade."

4. Sorata, Bolivia - a mythical Shangri-La

"Bolivians mention Sorata (a small village of 2,000 people) as one of the most beautiful places in their country. They compare it to a mythical Shangri-La, placed in a narrow, faraway - almost lost - valley in the mountains. "

5. Camargue, France - for a Spanish/Gypsy flavor

"It's an unusual corner of France with many Spanish and Gypsy influences, worth a day or two for those who enjoy outdoor activities or a touch of the exotic ... The Camargue is a national and regional nature park of marshes and wetlands encompassing the Rhone River delta, just south of Arles."

6. Victoria, Argentina - the "City of the Seven Hills"

"Victoria is known as the "City of the Seven Hills" and the whole landscape is beautiful. The Parana Delta starts here, and goes all the way down to Buenos Aires."

7. Budva, Montenegro - on a dramatic coastline

"Budva is a 2,500-year-old seaside settlement about halfway along the dramatic Montenegrin coastline. The immaculately cared-for old town juts out into the Adriatic Sea on a small peninsula and is surrounded by tall stone walls."

8. Bohol, Philippines - one of Philippines' secrets

"Bohol has numerous natural treasures that lure visitors to its shores. Although people usually go to its highly urbanized neighboring island Cebu, Bohol holds a charm of its own makes it distinct from other Visayan islands."

9.Cuyutlan, Mexico - black sand, green waves, sea turtles

"The beach is the reason to come to Cuyutlan. It is long and wide with black sand and rolling waves ... the seafood is fresh, abundant, and inexpensive."

10. Perthshire, Scotland - in the heart of highlands

"Blair Castle, the ancient seat of the dukes and earls of Atholl, has been awarded five stars as a visitor attraction by the Scottish tourist agency, its highest award. The castle enjoys one of Scotland's finest settings."

Bill Gates

William Henry Gates III, KBE, (born October 28, 1955), commonly known as Bill Gates, is the co-founder and current Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft. According to Forbes magazine in 2004, Gates is the wealthiest person in the world, a position he has held steadily for many years.
Bill Gates was born in Seattle, Washington to William H. Gates, Sr., a corporate lawyer, and Mary Maxwell Gates, board member of First Interstate Bank, Pacific Northwest Bell and the national board of United Way. Gates went to Lakeside School, Seattle's most exclusive prep school, and later on went to study at Harvard University, but dropped out without graduating.

While he was a student at Harvard, he co-authored with Paul Allen the original Altair BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800 (the first commercially successful personal computer) in the mid 1970s. It was inspired by BASIC, an easy-to-learn programming language developed at Dartmouth College for teaching purposes.

Gates married Melinda French on January 1, 1994. They have three children, Jennifer Katharine Gates (1996), Rory John Gates (1999) and Phoebe Adele Gates (2002). They live in a very large earth-sheltered home in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington. It is a very modern 21st century house in the "Pacific lodge" style, with advanced electrical and electronic systems everywhere. In one respect though it is more like an 18th or 19th century mansion: It has a large private library with a domed reading room.Also in 1994, he acquired the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci; as of 2003 it was on display at the Seattle Art Museum.In 1997, Gates was the victim of a bizarre extortion plot by Chicago resident Adam Quinn Pletcher. Gates testified at the subsequent trial. Pletcher was convicted and sentenced in July 1998 to six years in prison.

n 1975, Gates and Allen co-founded Microsoft Corporation to market their version of BASIC, called Microsoft BASIC. It was the primary interpreted computer language of the MS-DOS operating system, and was key to Microsoft's early commercial success.

In February 1976, Gates wrote the Open Letter to Hobbyists, which shocked the computer hobbyist community by asserting that a commercial market existed for computer software. Gates stated in the letter that software should not be copied without the publisher's permission, which he equated to piracy. While legally correct, Gates's proposal was unprecedented in a community that was influenced by its ham radio legacy and hacker ethic, in which innovations and knowledge were freely shared in the community. Nevertheless, Gates was right about the market prospects and his efforts paid off: Microsoft Corporation became one of the world's most successful commercial enterprises, and a key player in the creation of a retail software industry.

Microsoft's key moment came when in the late 1970s, IBM was planning to enter the personal computer market with its IBM Personal Computer (PC), which was released in 1981. Gates licensed MS-DOS to IBM, which it had acquired from a local computer manufacturer. The story of how Microsoft acquired the original system (QDOS) has inspired much folklore, which often portrays Gates pouncing on a trivial mistake by Digital Research and stealing that company's lead in microcomputer operating systems. It is frequently cited by those who accuse Gates of unethical business practices. By marketing MS-DOS aggressively to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones, Microsoft gained unprecedented visibility in the microcomputer industry, even rivalling IBM.

Sir Alexander Fleming

Sir Alexander Fleming (August 6, 1881 - March 11, 1955) is famous as the discoverer of the antibiotic substance lysozyme and for isolating the antibiotic substance penicillin from the fungus Penicillium notatum.
Fleming was born in Ayrshire, Scotland. He later attended St. Mary's medical school in London until World War I broke out. He participated in a battlefield hospital with many of his colleagues in the fronts of France. Being exposed to the horrid medical infections by the dying soldiers, he returned to St. Mary's after the war with renewed energy in searching for an improved antiseptic.

Both of Fleming's discoveries happened entirely by accident during the 1920s. The first, lysozyme, was discovered after mucus from his nose dropped into a bacterium laced petri dish (he sneezed). A few days later, it was noted that bacteria where the mucus had fallen had been destroyed.

Fleming's labs were usually in disarray, which led to be to his advantage. In September 1928, he was sorting through the many idle experiments strewn about his lab. He inspected each specimen before discarding it and noticed an interesting fungal colony had grown as a contaminant on one of the agar plates streaked with the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. Fleming inspected the petri dish further and found that the bacterial colonies around the fungus were transparent because their cells were lysing. Lysis is the breakdown of cells, and in this case, potentially harmful bacteria. The importance was immediately recognized, however the discovery was still underestimated, initially used to clean his glassware. Fleming issued a publication about penicillin in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology in 1929.

Fleming died in 1955 of a heart attack. He was buried as a national hero in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. His discovery of penicillin had changed the world of modern medicines by introducing the age of useful antibiotics.