Travel Guide
We have selected the most popular cities for you to choose from.
AmsterdamThe Amsterdam’s tourist office latest programme neatly gets to the heart of the Dutch capital: ‘Amsterdam: City on the Water’. This is a city like Venice founded on and still today focused around water and waterways, though unlike Venice, Holland’s largest city is no mere museum piece. Amsterdam is a real, living and breathing metropolis, not just an oasis for tourists, ...
Athens
Athens (Athina) is named after Athena, the goddess of wisdom, who, according to legend, won the city after defeating Poseidon in a duel. The goddess’ victory was celebrated by the construction of a temple on the Acropolis, the site of the city’s earliest settlement in Attica.
As a city state, the coastal capital of Athens reached its heyday in the fifth century BC. ...
Barcelona
Just decades ago, few tourists would have considered visiting the northern Spanish city of Barcelona. However, this once rather rundown industrial centre, which seemed to have little to offer, has undergone a seismic change that culminated in the hosting of the Olympic Games in 1992, an event which completely transformed Barcelona. As well as a string of purpose built sporting developments ...
Berlin
After a fifty-year lull, Berlin is back – back as the capital of a reunified Germany and back as one of Europe’s greatest cities. After World War II, Berlin was a crippled pawn, sandwiched between East and West, with a literal and metaphoric wall deeply dividing the two halves. The northeastern German city even suffered the ignominy of losing its capital status, as the West German ...
Brussels
The European Parliament has found its ideal home in Brussels (Bruxelles in French, Brussel in Flemish). This inland capital city of Belgium, bordered by The Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France, is a multi-cultural and multi-lingual city at the very heart of the EU. Indeed, it claims with some justification to be the ‘Capital of Europe’.
Belgium ...
Budapest
Any visit to Budapest reveals a city that is going places. Communism is well and truly history – the young are eager to adopt Western European values, while remaining in an obsessive relationship with Hungary’s fascinating past. The traditions and history of the Magyar people are still vitally important, as is the ubiquitous mobile phone.
The key to Budapest lies in its ...
Copenhagen
Canals, lakes and the sea form the backdrop to modern Copenhagen and are a reminder of the city’s heritage as a major Baltic port. This role is also reflected in the city’s name, København, a corruption of købmanne hafen or merchants’ harbour.
The city’s foundation dates back to 1167, when Bishop Absalon built a bastion on ...
Geneva
Geneva has long been Switzerland’s most cosmopolitan city. Situated at the southwestern end of Lac Léman (the country’s largest lake) and astride the Rhône, Geneva is the departure point for lake steamers. Only an arrival by water can convey just how well sited the city is, with foreground hills rising against a backdrop of mountains. The river bisects the city – ...
Madrid
According to Arab chroniclers, it was in AD 852 that the Emir of Córdoba, Mohamed I (AD 852–886), ordered a fortress to be built on the left bank of the Manzanares River, the geographical centre of the Iberian Peninsula. He named the settlement ‘Mayrit’ (‘source of water’) and in it lay the seeds of the city now known as Madrid. Traces of this flourishing ...
Paris
Paris is the city of a thousand clichés, the ‘City of Lights’ and Hemmingway’s much quoted ‘Moveable Feast’ amongst them, but for once it is also a city that justifies the hype. The French capital is one of the world’s truly great cities, a metropolis that lavishly satisfies the desires of tourists and business people alike and manages to retain a ...
Prague
Prague is quite simply one of the most stunning cities in Europe, a UNESCO World Heritage listed gem much eulogised as the ‘City of a Thousand Spires’ and countless other clichés. The Czech capital has become the archetypal post-communist city success story with seemingly not a month going by without a travel pundit or writer conjuring up another city as the ‘New ...
Rome
Situated on the River Tiber, between the Apennine Mountains and the Tyrrhenian Sea, the ‘Eternal City’ of Rome (Roma) was once the administrative centre of the mighty Roman Empire, governing a vast region that stretched from Britain to Mesopotamia. Today, it remains the seat of the Italian government and home to numerous ministerial offices but is superseded by Milan, in the ...