In the Republic of Montenegro you will find Durmitor National Park, a vast natural protected area of 39,000 hectares which was declared Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 1980. Shaped by the action of glaciers and with rivers and underground waters cutting through it, its beauty goes beyond what can be captured in a photo. Dense forests of conifers with important endemic flora and lakes of crystal waters stretch out along Tara River, which possesses one of the most profound gorges in Europ
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We travel writers, as you can imagine, regularly get questions from people going on holiday. But when someone referred to me by a dear friend asked what she should not miss when she goes to Italy's capital for all of one weekend, I wanted to ask her – “ma sei pazza??” (Are you nuts?) You could spend every waking hour for weeks barely scratching the surface of this breathtaking city with a history stretching back nearly 3,000 years, so trying to truly capture la Città Eterna in a mere 48 hours
You could:
- bike the wine trails from town to town, among 400 villages, In the Moravian foothills of the White Carpathians, stopping along the way to chat with individual winemakers who might offer you a taste of their wine.
- Visit the Wine Salon in Valtice for tastes of over 100 award-winning wines.
- Go to one of the wine festivals around the harvest, usually around September.
- (And if you are lucky enough to taste Czech wine in situ, you won’t want to miss the Kroměříž Gardens. Visit thi
Recently I had the chance to get an all-too-brief taste of Norway’s second city before boarding a weeklong Hurtigruten cruise up the coast, and OMG what a right little gem I found Bergen to be. Well, if you can call a city of 266,000 “little” – but honestly, how the locals describe it really does feel totally true: essentially,you could think of it as the world’s biggest small town (for me, the German term gemütlich comes to mind).
Surrounded by forest-clad hills on Norway’s southwestern coa
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Croatia’s Dalmatian coast is chock-full of historic, architecturally charming towns and cities, but few would question that the queen of them all is the walled old quarter of Dubrovnik, thought to have been founded in the 7th century but according to some theories dating back even much earlier, to ancient Hellenic times. In any case, this eight-square-mile cluster of stone buildings and red-tile roofs has as a result become one of Europe’s more popular cities and tourist destinations – n
Old Parish Church Cemetery in Whitby, England
My obsession to travel to every site related to either the fictional Count Dracula or his real historical counterpart, Prince Vlad Dracula the Impaler, grew out of a visit to Whitby, England, where part of the novel Dracula takes place. I stood on the cemetery hill (top) where, in Bram Stoker's Dracula Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray spent hour after hour sitting on their "favourite seat" (a bench placed over a suicide's grave near the edge of the c
Finding yourself in a Mediterranean village just 10 kilometers from Budapest is one of the surprises the Danube offers up to travelers. The small town of Szentendre (Saint Andrew) is the gateway to the Danube Bend, a curve of Hungary’s most majestic river. The town retains its 18th and 19th century appearance and atmosphere.
With a population of approximately 26 000, to this day the customs and traditions of Serbs who fled the Turkish hoards at the end of the 17th century are kept al
Santa, baby! In the spirit of the season, for all you moms and dads out there here’s a quick international round-up of several key Kris Kringle korners -- theme parks built specifically around that jolly old elf and his crew. There are of course countless towns and cities (not to mention shopping malls) in various countries that toss up a little “Santa’s Village” for the kids during the Yuletide holidays, but these four in North America and one in Europe are dedicated theme parks that do thei
by Judy Antell
Theme parks are a natural fit for Halloween festivities: On a certain level, you might say it's always a Halloween party at theme parks - plus, most of the rides are already designed to scare the living daylights out of you. In October (and sometimes even earlier), some of theme parks have gently scary daytime Halloween events for kids as well as night terrors for teens and adults. Here's a (non-exhaustive) sampling from across the world (and keep in mind, for
Last weekend the final two races of the Cretan Union Cup Regatta took place off Agios Nikolaos – the first event of this kind celebrating 100 years of Crete Island union with mainland Greece and to honor the Cretan culture.
Cretans have a lot history and modern-day culture to be proud of and, once again, they’ve proven the Minoan’s spirit is still alive on the Island. As November and fall come to Crete, these Islanders prepare for autumn activities: grape gathering, wine a
With its strategic position overlooking the strait that parts the Mediterranean from the Atlantic, Gibraltar remains in British hands. For tourists, it also makes an almost unique journey back to the colonial times when Britain ruled the world, reports Erik Bergin.
After the British handed back Hong Kong to China in 1997, there’s not much left of the former glorious British Empire, that once ruled land and seas around the globe.But one British outpost remains, undisturbed by Spain’s opposition
Dalmatia.he
by Nelly Huang
Croatia, a land of more than a thousand islands splattered off the beautiful Adriatic Sea coastline in the Balkans of Eastern Europe, is chock-full of intriguing history, Mediterranean cuisine and Slavic cultural heritage. And on a recent visit to its Dalmatian coast, I decided to delve deeper into its less explored side of the country, and so I ditched the crowds on the beach, left the tourist trail behind me, and headed deep into the world of music.
Journey int
Almost since the dawn of recorded history, Man has been crossing the Aegean Sea by boat, and this remains the best way to do it. We could paraphrase the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: ‘If you just want to get there, you could fly, but to travel, you must take a boat’
There are boats of all description plying this sea, and I’ve sailed on a lot of them. The one that the island people themselves use, as well as the tourists, is the ferry. Most of these leave the Greek mainland from the port of Pi
by Jacy Meyer
Sure, the capital of the Czech Republic is a many splendored thing, and 60 percent of visitors venture nowhere else in the country. But what they’re missing is massive, from ancient castles and abbeys to some of the world’s most gorgeous spas and best beer, along with lodging and dining that both of fine quality and highly affordable. You may have even heard of the likes of Karlovy Vary (aka Karlsbad) and UNESCO World Heritage Sites Český Krumlov and Telč. But here are five of my
