Zerzura

. . . You will find palms and vines and flowing wells. Follow the valley until you meet another valley opening to the west between two hills. In it you will find a road. Follow it. It will lead you to the City of Zerzura. You will find its gate closed. It is a white city, like a dove. By the gate you will find a bird sculptured. Stretch up your hand to its beak and take from it a key. Open the gate with it and enter the city. You will find much wealth and the king and queen in their place sleeping the sleep of enchantment. Do not go near them. Take the treasure and that is all.
– Author unknown, 15th century

The mythical city or oasis of Zerzura (Arabic: زرزورة‎) was long rumored to have existed deep in the desert west of the Nile River in Egypt or Libya. In writings dating back to the thirteenth century, the authors spoke of a city which was "white as a dove" and called it "The Oasis of Little Birds". More recently, European explorers made forays into the desert in search of Zerzura but never succeeded in finding it. Notable twentieth-century explorers Ralph Bagnold of Britain, and the Hungarian Lászlo (Ladislaus) Almásy (whose fictionalized life is the subject of the famed movie, The English Patient) led an expedition to search for Zerzura from 1929-1930 using Ford Model-T trucks. In 1932 first Patrick Clayton, then the Almásy-Clayton expedition found two valleys in the Gilf Kebir. In the following year Almásy found the third of the "Zerzura" wadis, actually rain oases in the remote desert. On the other hand, Bagnold considered Zerzura as a legend that could never be solved by discovery.*

*taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zerzura