“To Conway, seeing it first, it might have been a vision. It was indeed a strange and incredible sight. A group of colored pavilions clung to the mountainside with the chance delicacy of flower-petals impaled upon a crag. It was superb and exquisite. An austere emotion carried the eye upward from milk-blue roofs to the gray rock bastion above. Beyond that, in a dazzling pyramid, soared the snow slopes of Karakal.” Such was Conway’s first glimpse of Shangri-La, the hidden lamasery in Tibet as described in James Hilton’s novel, Lost Horizon.
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is a mythical kingdom hidden somewhere beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas. Shambhala is ruled over by a line of Kings of Shambhala known as Kulika or Kalki Kings, a monarch who upholds the integrity of the Kalachakra tantra. The Kalachakra prophesizes that when the world declines into war and greed, and all is lost, the twenty-fifth Kalki king will emerge from Shambhala with a huge army to vanquish Dark Forces and usher in a worldwide Golden Age.
Avalon is the place that King Arthur ended up before he died. It is also the place where King Arthur’s sword (Excalibur) was made. In Avalon you can get the best apples in the world - and presumably pretty damned good cider too. When Jesus came back to life, he is said to have visited Avalon with Joseph of Arimathea (the man who gave Jesus his tomb).
El Dorado is a legendary city of gold. It is seen as a type of Holy Grail for each man - the thing you most seek in life is found here.
Valhalla, the afterworld of the Vikings is a place where all the dead warriors and gods live.
The City of the Caesars is a prosperous and rich city full of gold, silver and diamonds. It is described as an enchanted city that appears in certain moments. At least one description says it is located between two mountains, one of gold and another of diamonds.
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