But descend the steps, hewn from wooden rail ties, and you enter an oasis of playful, post-modern elegance.

FORBES: Ecca Park

Early on, Moser developed his own style, inspired by classical American designs -- all hewn from black cherry raised in the Allegheny Plateau in western Pennsylvania.

FORBES: Out of the woods

Soon the window glass becomes cool to touch as the train climbs more than 1, 000 metres into a bare, otherworldly landscape of boulders and snowdrifts, navigating beautiful but treacherous mountain country through high passes and tunnels hewn from solid rock.

BBC: The perfect trip: Norway

Chef and owner Johnny Hernandez addresses me through the steam rising from arrachera en salsa de tomatillo, a central Mexican speciality cooked and served in a molcajete - a mortar hewn from volcanic basalt whose design dates back to Mesoamerican times.

BBC: The perfect chilli con carne in the heart of Texas

Mountains hewn, carved and hacked from the ancient foundations of Earth swept to the horizon.

BBC: Oman��s sleepy Musandam Peninsula

Granted, the tale of the aristocratic Jen (played by Zhang Ziyi), her tangles with martial-arts masters Li Mubai (Chow Yun Fat) and Yu Shulien (Michelle Yeoh, fresh from her recent successful turn as a Bond girl), and her torrid romance with rough-hewn Lo (Chang Chen) is not that gripping.

CNN: From Our Correspondent: Movie with a Message