The streets of the Buda Castle Hill were eerily silent, the only sounds the clattering of our feet on the cobbles and the occasional swish of a street cleaner’s brush. It was too early in the morning for many visitors to be about, so we had the old winding streets
The Boyana Church in Sofia is one of nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Bulgaria. Situated on the outskirts of the city, on the foot of Mount Vitosha, it takes a bit of planning to get there, and your visit is likely to be brief. So why should you make
At the end of 2018 the Venice city council announced that it would be introducing a new entry fee, a tax on every tourist entering the city. This is partly a response to overtourism, and partly a way of bringing in much needed revenue. But what precisely is the problem,
Hamburg is a city of water. Sitting at the point where the River Elbe widens into the sea, it is full of lakes and canals. And bridges: Hamburg has more bridges than any other city in the world (apparently more than Amsterdam, Venice and London combined!). One of the best
You may be familiar with Hadrian’s Wall, the 73-mile defensive structure that the Romans built across the north of England in AD 122. But did you know that they built a second line of defence – the Antonine Wall – across Scotland a few years later? I set out to
The gardens at the Alcazar of Córdoba may be smaller than those of rival palaces in Seville and Granada, but they are still impressive. Even in the rain. We had walked through Córdoba’s UNESCO listed historic centre, from the magnificent La Mezquita to the little winding streets where Spanish culture
The cavernous space of La Mezquita in Córdoba makes me think of Russian dolls. Standing right in the middle of the 8th century mosque is a perfectly formed Renaissance cathedral. What is more, the mosque grew out of an earlier Visigoth church, which was itself built on the remains of