Europe

Reichenau Island lies in lake Constance in southern Germany. For more than 1,000 years, the Benedictine complex here was one of the most important religious centres in Europe. It has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site because it ...

The famous invitation to 'relieve the ghosts of Communism's past with a warm cappuccino' was initially issued on behalf of Minsk. It's a perfect summary. Minsk is still struggling with youthful optimism towards a neo-socialist ideal, but with only the failed ...

Jamaica is the great cultural boom-box of the Caribean, constantly advertising an identity already so strong that it is recognised anywhere in the world. It's not at all typical of the West Indies, but by asserting itself so vigorously, this one ...

The City of Luxembourg is the capital of the wealthy but small Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, an independent survivor of the Low Countries' turbulent past that somehow escaped being taken over by one of its neighbours - Belgium, France and Germany. ...

Does Bram Stoker's Dracula and Vampire Diaries ring a bell? Maybe "The Lost Boys"?  Many, even the most passionate vampire wooers identify vampires as fictional beings. However, there was a time when people had real fears about falling prey ...

Church and State combine in Esztergom in miniature granduer. The setting is incomparable - commanding the great Danube Bend, where the river makes a right-angled turn south towards Budapest, and forms the current border with Slovakia. In physical size, it has ...

Just 22.5 km (12 mi) north of France's Cotentin Peninsula, in the English Channel, lies Jersey, a self-governing British Crown Dependency. A well-populated and attractive island, its low taxation has transformed the economy into a centre for off-shore banking and other ...

This troubled place remains the world's only divided capital city, serving as the capital of the official Republic of Cyprus and of the unrecognised Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. In 1974 Turkish invasion cut Nicosia - and the country - in ...

The landscape is sun-bleached, rocky and waterless; where the thin soil can be framed it is intensively worked. The tawny fields are crisscrossed by dry stone walls - the soft golden limestone is used for all construction here. Though relatively small, ...

The island of South Georgia, an inhospitable frozen wasteland of glaciers, snow-capped mountains and freezing winds, lies in the southern Atlantic ocean around 2,000 km (1,243 mi) east of Tierra del Fuego. This secluded Antarctic island is part of the South ...

Kauai is the northernmost of Hawaii's major islands which make up a volcanic archipelago in the Central Pacific. Known as the 'Garden Island, it is covered by tropical lush greenery due to its abundant rainfall. Because it is the oldest of ...

Prague has been the Czech state's cultural, political and economic heart for over 800 years. Lying on a bend in the River Vitava, halfway between Berlin and Vienna, it is set on seven verdant cliffs dotted by beautiful castles and churches. ...