At the very tip of a long, narrow peninsula reaching out into the blue waters of Lake Garda, the largest and one of the most beautiful lakes in Italy, stands

In the heart of Milan, one of Italy’s greatest and most modern cities, stands a vast red-brick fortress that seems to belong to another age entirely. The Castello Sforzesco is

Verona is a city that most people visit for love. It is the city of Romeo and Juliet, of balconies and star-crossed romance, of a great Roman amphitheater where opera

Some castles overwhelm you with size, and some seduce you with setting. Cesky Krumlov belongs firmly to the second kind. It does not sprawl across a mountain or crown a

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