11 articles found
Gdańsk: One of Poland's Greatest Cities
At 4:45am on 1 September 1939, the German warship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish military transit depot at Westerplatte, on the outskirts of Gdańsk. The 182 Polish defenders held for seven days against overwhelming German force. It was ...
Randers, Denmark
Most travelers to Denmark go straight to Copenhagen, maybe Aarhus, and call it a country. But drive into central Jutland, to the point where Denmark's longest river spills into a long sheltered fjord, and you'll find Randers — one of Denmark's oldest...
Portugal's Oldest Places: A Guide to Ancient Sites
Portugal is one of the oldest nation-states in Europe annd its borders have remained essentially unchanged since 1139 AD. Here are the ancient and historic sites that every visitor seriously interes...
Why Is Greece Called Greece? What the Hellas that about?
If you ask a Greek person what they call their country, they will say Hellas (Ελλάς or Ελλάδα). They call themselves Hellenes (Έλληνες). The Greek language is Helleniki. Greece, in the eyes of the Greeks, has always been and remains Hellas. So where...
The Oldest Historic Place in Greece: The Palace of Knossos, Crete
If you want to stand somewhere ancient, and not just old, but the birth of civilization old then the Palace of Knossos on Crete is going to be it. The palace you see today was built around 1700 BC, and rebuilt after an earthquake destroyed an even ea...
Bryggen: Bergen's UNESCO World Heritage Hanseatic Waterfront
The row of pointed gables lining Bergen's eastern harbour – red, yellow, ochre, and weathered brown – is one of the most recognised skylines in Scandinavia. Bryggen (simply "the wharf" in Norwegian) was for four centuries the most important node in...
Viking Age Norway: History, Myths, and Where to Experience It Today
The Viking Age – broadly defined as the period from the first recorded Norse raid (Lindisfarne Monastery, 793 AD) to the Battle of Hastings (1066 AD) – transformed medieval Europe and established Norse seafarers as the most wide-ranging explorers of ...
Warsaw: The City That Refused to Die — History and What to See
No major European capital suffered more in the Second World War than Warsaw. By January 1945, when Soviet troops entered the city, it was a sea of rubble — 85% of its buildings destroyed, its entire pre-war population of 1.3 million expelled or kille...
The Odessa Catacombs: Ukraine's Vast Underground World
Every great port city has its secrets. In Ukraine's largest Black Sea city, Odessa, the secrets are buried — literally. Beneath the limestone bluffs and wide boulevards of this famous city lies the largest catacomb network in the world: an estimated ...
Oslo's Viking Ship Museum: The World's Best-Preserved Viking Vessels
On the Bygdøy peninsula — Oslo's museum quarter — stands a cross-shaped building of modest exterior and extraordinary interior. The Viking Ship Museum (Vikingskipshuset) holds what is beyond reasonable argument the finest collection of original Vikin...
Why Is It Called Budapest?
The name Budapest is a well-known city name in Europe in terms of tourism and one of the least known in terms of its actual history. Budapest was formed in 1873 by the administrative merger of three separate cities, Buda, Óbuda, and Pest. What Doe...