On a windswept plateau on the border between Turkey and Armenia, where a river gorge marks the modern frontier, stand the haunting ruins of Ani. Once a great medieval city

In the dry plains of north-central Sri Lanka lie the ruins of Anuradhapura, the island’s first great capital and one of the longest-inhabited cities of the ancient world. For more

In the countryside of western Turkey lies Aphrodisias, one of the most beautiful and best-preserved ancient cities in the world. Named after Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, it

In the desert of southeastern Iran, rising from the arid plain like a great golden sandcastle sculpted by giants, there stands the most extraordinary mud-brick monument in all the world.

On an island where three rivers meet in central Thailand lie the ruins of Ayutthaya, once the glittering capital of the kingdom of Siam and one of the largest and

In the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon stand some of the most colossal temples the Roman world ever built. This is Baalbek, known in antiquity as Heliopolis, the City of the

Few names from the ancient world carry as much weight as Babylon. For thousands of years it was a byword for splendour, power and sometimes decadence, a great city on

On a bend of the Irrawaddy River in central Myanmar lies one of the most extraordinary religious landscapes on earth. Across the dusty plain of Bagan stand thousands of Buddhist

On the fertile plains of central Java, ringed by volcanoes, rises the largest Buddhist monument in the world. Borobudur is not a temple with rooms and halls but a vast

We come at last to the Danube, and to one of the most magnificent castle-scapes in all of Europe. High on Castle Hill, above the great river that divides Budapest