The world is constantly changing, but some parts of it change more quickly than others. Landscapes, generally, change slowly and gradually if at all: on a return visit to the Alps, you will expect to see the same mountains as many years before and be rarely disappointed. Cities, by contrast, evolve much more quickly, and…
Traffic signs, street lights, bus stop shelters: street furniture is part of our lives, and we rarely ever give it a second thought. The pieces are one-dimensional: they have a specific job to do, and no other consideration – least of all aesthetics – seems to matter. In fact, however, street furniture is a lot…
Wroclaw may be a great place for mysteries if you are into that sort of thing, but one thing is certain: it is surely a great place to go dwarf hunting. Just walk around – and when you see one, or better: two, perhaps even three – … … walk over and shoot. That’s how…
Do you like to uncover mysteries? To search for hidden truths? To scratch the veneer of appearances to see what has so carefully been concealed from you? f the answer to that is yes, then the Polish city of Wroclaw is the perfect destination for you. Over there, in the German-Polish borderlands, you will find…
There are many things to do in Monaco besides gambling away your family fortune. You can, for example, hike to the top of the Tete de Chien, the “Dog’s Head” that keeps a watchful eye on the town from its lofty heights … … or visit one of the principality’s many gardens and sculpture parks….
If we have whetted your appetite with our last two posts, you may be wondering: what is the best way for yourself to explore the villages of Provence? When you are looking for answers on the Internet, you can easily get the impression that the public transport infrastructure of the area will not be very…
Over the years, we have travelled extensively on the various van Gogh trails in France, driven purely by the power of circumstance. When we lived in Paris, the artist was practically our neighbour, separated from us by no more than a couple of blocks and 120 years. Way back then, we also followed van Gogh’s…
You may have never heard the name before, but Görlitz in the extreme south-eastern corner of Germany is a serious contender for the crown of the country’s Most Beautiful Town. In a part of Europe that has been devastated by violent conflicts time and again over the centuries, Görlitz has managed to survive the horrors…
The Holocaust was the crime of the 20th century, but even within this bloodstained frame, the extinction of Poland’s and Warsaw’s Jews stands out for its exceptional cruelty: these people – who had done nobody any harm – were imprisoned, starved and told lies about their future while the infrastructure for their murder was being…
There are few cities in Europe that look as new as Warsaw. There are few cities in Europe that are as new as Warsaw. The Polish capital may look back on one thousand years of history, but you would be hard-pressed to find a building in town that was not built (or entirely rebuilt) after…