Kylemore Abbey, Ireland

A pale granite castle with crenellated towers, mirrored in a lake beneath a wooded mountain in Connemara, County Galway. Despite the name, it was built as a castle: Mitchell Henry, a wealthy doctor and Galway MP, raised it from 1867 as a private home for his family, after he and his wife fell for the valley on their honeymoon. It became an abbey in 1920, when Benedictine nuns who had fled Ypres during the First World War made it their home, and the Benedictine community still owns and runs the estate. The lakeside view in this photo is the one that sells it: a Victorian castle-house set so neatly in wild scenery that it looks painted. A small neo-Gothic church and a six-acre walled Victorian garden are a walk away on the estate.