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Last Friday, a remarkable exhibition was opened on Lara Beach in Turkey, showing over 100 massive sand sculptures by thirty artists from ten different countries all over the world. One of the sculptures is 15 meter tall and depicts several characters from Avatar, the world's most successful film ever. The exhibition is part of the Antalya International Sand Sculpture Festival, and each round, participating sculptors only have a couple of days to turn 7,500 tons of imported sand into art.

The annual event takes place on Lara Beach, a tourist resort in Antalya (a province in the southern Mediterranean region of Turkey). The theme of this year's festival is mythology, and apart from the Avatar sculpture, the artists chose to depict Adam and Eve, the Minotaur, the legendary 300 Spartans, Troy, Elvis and mythological heroes from Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Japan and the Mayan and Aztec periods. This is a unique opportunity to combine a beach holiday with an educational trip. The exhibition was officially opened on April 30 and will run until November 20. This summer, flythomascook operates flights to Antalya from 17 airports throughout the UK from only 91.99 pounds. Because Turkey is just outside the euro zone, it's a wallet-friendly destination for Britons too.

The event is organized by the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry, the Antalya and Muratpasa municipalities and the Antalya Association of Journalists. 'Last year, 120,000 people visited the festival. We aim to reach 250,000 visitors this year,' said Cem Karaca, the organiser of the festival. 'We aim to make our festival the top sand-sculpture festival in the world. I believe this will be a reality in a couple of years.'