Grand banqueting halls, opulent lobbies and vast ballrooms; you could easily be forgiven for thinking this was a collection of photographs was documenting some of Europe’s grandest hotels. However, a closer look will reveal the majestic rooms to be engulfed in swathes of dust and moss; hotels that once hosted royals and high society abandoned to the elements. This is the latest result of urban exploration photography, going beyond “no entry” signs to capture images of dilapidated buildings across Europe. IT worker Thomas Windisch, from Graz in Austria, indulged his passion for photography by traveling across the continent, visiting over 100 abandoned hotels along the way. Here: inside a hotel in Austria. (Photo by Thomas Windisch/Caters News)

Layers of breathtaking colour streak the rolling hills of this vast desert, making the landscape appear as though it has been tie-dyed. The natural phenomenon, nicknamed the “Painted Desert”, was formed when the area was once a river floodplain. Each colour corresponds to a different underground geological feature – rocks which have seemingly dyed the layers of earth above. Formed from volcanic activity, the hills at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in East Central Oregon, USA, are almost bursting with colour. Pictured: The colourful hills at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in East Central Oregon, USA. (Photo by Mark Brodkin/Solent News/SIPA Press)

In this Sunday, September 23, 2012 file photo, masked and armed Somali pirate Hassan stands near a Taiwanese fishing vessel washed ashore after the pirates were paid a ransom and the crew were released in the once-bustling pirate den of Hobyo, Somalia. Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia, Somali officials and piracy experts said Tuesday, March 14, 2017, in the first hijacking of a large commercial vessel there since 2012. (Photo by Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP Photo)

A girl runs as she plays in a fountain at a shopping mall in Beijing, Friday, June 23, 2023. Authorities issued a rare red alert for high temperatures in parts of China's capital on Friday, the highest level of warning, as highs were expected to once again climb to around 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Farenheit). (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

Members of the Beltane Fire Society take part in Samhuinn Fire Festival on October 31, 2023 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Once celebrated from October 31 to November 1 by ancient Celts, Samhain, pronounced “SOW-in” or “SAH-win”, marked the shift from the brighter to the darker half of the year and was seen as a time when the boundary between the physical and spirit worlds was thought to weaken, influencing the development of contemporary Halloween customs. (Photo by Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian)

Hunter Chiaki Kodama guts a deer in a shed in Oi, Fukui Prefecture, Japan, November 17, 2016. A small but growing number of Japanese women enter the male-dominated world of hunting, where it was once taboo for men to even speak to a woman before going on a hunt. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

A production department of a textile factory is seen abandoned in Kaduna, Nigeria November 3, 2016. President Muhammadu Buhari hopes to revive the once flourishing textile and leather industries in northern Nigeria to end the country's dependence on oil exports and diversify Africa's biggest economy. (Photo by Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

The Skeleton Coast is the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean coast of Namibia and south of Angola from the Kunene River south to the Swakop River, although the name is sometimes used to describe the entire Namib Desert coast. The Bushmen of the Namibian interior called the region "The Land God Made in Anger", while Portuguese sailors once referred to it as "The Gates of Hell".