Taranto is a city almost surrounded by water. Set on the arch of the Italian boot, in the region of Puglia, it sits between two seas, the open Mar Grande

Some castles crown a hill. This one is a small mountain in its own right. The Castello Aragonese rises off the eastern shore of the island of Ischia, in the

There are castles built to frighten, and there are castles built to impress, and every so often you find one that seems to have been built simply to be beautiful.

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

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

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

Spread across the summit of a great hill above the plains of southern Rajasthan, covering an area so vast that a whole city once flourished within its walls, Chittorgarh is

Image: Leonid Plotkin The most spectacular Elikli rock from the rocky area of Cholpan Ata, where every stone is adorned with Scythian – Kun traces. There are many more rock

If you had to design the perfect fairy-tale castle, you might well end up with something very like Corvin. Rising above a river in the Transylvanian town of Hunedoara, with