Chan Chan is the largest adobe city ever built, the Peruvian capital of the Kingdom of Chimor famous for its carved fish and seabird friezes.

On the desert coast of northern Peru sprawls Chan Chan, the largest city ever built of mud brick and the greatest metropolis of pre-Columbian South America outside the Inca realm.

On Christmas Day in the year 800, in the old basilica of Saint Peter in Rome, a tall Frankish king knelt in prayer and the Pope stepped forward and placed

When and where to catch the polar lights in Russia most accessible aurora region, and how to give yourself the best odds.

High above the little town of Amboise, on a great rocky spur overlooking the River Loire, stands one of the most important royal residences in the history of France. The

Not every great castle is a fairy-tale palace. Some are meant to frighten, and few do it better than the Chateau d’Angers. Rising above the River Maine in the west

Come around the last bend in the road, and Chambord simply stops you. Out of the flat forest of the Sologne rises a fantasy in pale stone, a great white

There is no other castle in the world quite like Chenonceau. Most great chateaux sit proudly on a hill or beside a river; Chenonceau does something far more daring. It

High on a rocky spur above the little town of Foix, where two mountain rivers meet at the foot of the Pyrenees, three great towers rise against the sky. This

Some castles look exactly like the castle of a fairy tale, with soaring towers, pointed roofs, battlements and drawbridges, all arranged in perfect romantic splendour. The Chateau de Pierrefonds, rising