The man himself often lived up to his bleak dream-world: lean, intense, racked by stomach complaints, and with a special fondness for the rugged limestone island of Faro, off Sweden's east coast, where he built a low stone house on an empty sweep of rock.

ECONOMIST: Ingmar Bergman

Most Florida mansions at the time were built back from the sea on a low limestone ridge that ran slightly inland from the shore along the coast south of downtown Miami.

WSJ: An American Renaissance Gem

Instead, a spine of tough, porous limestone runs the length of the state, just off the east coast.

WSJ: Book Review: Finding Florida

Mass tourism has been slow to discover Bulgaria's rugged north coast, home to few beaches but a long stretch of triumphant limestone cliffs popular with Bulgarian rock-climbers who leap into the crashing waves below.

BBC: The Black Sea by Moskvitch