Torre Tavirа – Remnant of the Port’s Trans-Atlantic Trade
Built in 1778, the Torre Tavira watchtower is a surviving remnant of what was Cadiz's golden era in the eighteenth century when it was one of the wealthiest and most affluent places in Europe....
Chateau d’If:The Count of Monte Cristo
Of all the forbidding island prisons in the world, Chateau d’If may be the only one made famous by an imaginary character. Built in 1529 on an island of rock in the middle of the Marseilles harbor, the...
The Caves of Lascaux – The Oldest Paintings in the World
Imagine what went through the minds of those four French boys, hunting for a dog that afternoon in 1940, down in the Dordogne region of France. Innocently crawling into a cave, they looked up...
Catedral de León
Milan Cathedral was the biggest, Chartres had the most inspiring stained-glass pictures, Palma de Majorca had the largest rose window, and so on. But León—at the time the leading city of Christian Spain—set the...
Sanctuary of Apollo – Temple at the Heart of Ancient Greece
Apollo's temple-sanctuary complex, in its stunning mountainous setting, is part of the ancient site of Delphi. The sanctuary is one of the four major pan-Hellenic sanctuaries, and the temple represents the heart of ancient...
Knossos – Daedalus’s Ancient Labyrinth
Though today it’s part of modern Greece, the island of Crete long ago was home to its own powerful Minoan civilization, named after the famous king Minos. In Greek mythology, King Minos’s palace at...
Wawel Cathedral – Resting Place of Polish Kings and Queens
The Polish Cathedral Basilica of Saints Stanislaw and Vaclav, more commonly known as Wawel Cathedral, lies on Cracow's Wawel Hill, and was built in 1320. The church is home to a number of ecclesiastical...
Bank of England
The "Old Lady of Threadneedle Street"—the nickname seems to date from a James Gillray cartoon of 1797— was originally founded in 1694 to provide a sensible mechanism through which the government could raise money....
Nuremberg Trials Courtroom
Despite their many differences, the victorious Allied powers were agreed that the chief Nazi leaders should face trial for their crimes. The Palace of Justice in Nuremberg was chosen as the venue for the...
Roanoke – The Lost Colony
According to popular myth, the first English attempt to settle in North America – Sir Walter Raleigh’s colony at Roanoke – remains an unsolved mystery, in which the “Lost Colony” disappeared without trace. Sir Walter...
Kalaupapa Historical Park
The Kalaupapa Historical Park covers an area of roughly 10 square miles (26 sq km) and spreads across the Kalaupapa Peninsula (Makanalua Peninsula) on the north shore of the Hawaiian island of Molokai. It...
Chaco Culture National Historical Park
The remnants of what was once the hub of an important and thriving culture fill a remote, arid valley in northwestern New Mexico. It’s hard to believe that this barren spot once teemed with...
