Around St Petersburg
One of the greatest attractions outside of St Petersburg is the jaw-dropping collection of gilded fountains, statue-lined lanes and picturesque canals…
Must-see attractions in Eastern Europe
Yekaterinburg
The massive Byzantine-style Church upon the Blood dominates this site where the Romanov family was executed. While many believe the funds that went into…
Wallachia
The Endless Column, one of Constantin Brâncuşi's best-known and most celebrated works, sits at the eastern end of Calea Eroilor (20 minutes on foot from…
19th & 20th Century Art Gallery
Arbat & Khamovniki
This branch of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts contains a famed assemblage of French Impressionist works, based on the collections of two well-known…
Tuva
One of Tuva’s ‘must sees’, the National Museum’s huge modern home contains the usual arrangements of stuffed animals, WWII artefacts and dusty minerals,…
Bucovina
This Unesco-protected church in the village of Arbore receives a fraction of the visitors of the other painted monasteries and hence feels more private…
Murmansk
Home to Murmansk's ‘walruses’ – hardy souls who swear by the health benefits of regularly bathing in icy waters – this wooden hut on the edge of Lake…
Varna
Exhibits at this vast museum, the best of its kind in Bulgaria, include 6000-year-old bangles, necklaces and earrings said to be the oldest worked gold…
Timişoara
This is an ideal venue to brush up on the December 1989 anticommunist revolution that began here in Timişoara. Displays include documentation, posters and…
Transylvania
Alba Carolina Citadel is the crowning attraction of Alba Iulia. Within this star-shaped citadel are museums, churches and the Unification Hall that sealed…
Veliko Târnovo
The inescapable symbol of Veliko Târnovo, this reconstructed fortress dominates the skyline and is one of Bulgaria’s most beloved monuments. The former…
Northern European Russia
One of Russia's unmissable attractions, the reserve is home to dozens of 18th- and 19th-century log buildings, some furnished in period style, which were…
Albania
The evocative ruins of the ancient Illyiran city of Apollonia sit on a windswept hilltop some 12km west of the city of Fier. While a large part of the…
Central Montenegro
Resting improbably – miraculously? – in a cliff face 900m above the Zeta valley, the gleaming white Ostrog Monastery is the most important site in…
Arbat & Khamovniki
The Novodevichy Convent was founded in 1524 to celebrate the taking of Smolensk from Lithuania, an important step in Moscow’s conquest of the old Kyivan…
Moldova
The archaeological and ecclesiastical complex at Orheiul Vechi (Old Orhei), about 50km north of Chişinău, is an important historical site and a place of…
Plovdiv & Southern Mountains
About 30km south of Plovdiv stands the magnificent Bachkovo Monastery, founded in 1083. Most of the complex dates from the 17th century onwards, with the…
Central Rīga
Like a huge painting that you can spend hours staring at, as your eye detects more and more intriguing details, this must-see Rīga sight is in fact a…
Saviour Monastery of St Euthymius
Suzdal
Founded in the 14th century to protect the town’s northern entrance, Suzdal’s biggest monastery grew mighty in the 16th and 17th centuries after Vasily…
Šibenik
The crowning architectural glory of the Dalmatian coast and the undisputed masterpiece of its principal designer, Juraj Dalmatinac, this World Heritage…
North Macedonia
Adrift on Lake Prespa, Golem Grad was once the king's summer playground but is now home to wild tortoises, cormorants and pelicans, and perhaps a few…
Berat
Hidden behind the crumbling walls of the fortress that crowns the hill above Berat is the whitewashed, village-like neighbourhood of Kala; if you walk…
Odesa
Odesa's elegant facade, this tree-lined, clifftop promenade was designed to enchant the passengers of arriving boats with the neoclassical opulence of its…
Lake Ohrid
Sveti Naum, 29km south of Ohrid, is an imposing sight on a bluff near the Albanian border and a popular day trip from Ohrid. Naum was a contemporary of St…
Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
Arbat & Khamovniki
This opulent and grandiose cathedral was completed in 1997 – just in time to celebrate Moscow's 850th birthday. The cathedral’s sheer size and splendour…
Tirana
This fantastic conversion – from a massive Cold War bunker on the outskirts of Tirana into a history and contemporary art museum – is Albania's most…
Northern Dalmatia
Covering 95 sq km of the Velebit Range that divides continental Croatia from the Adriatic coast, Paklenica National Park contains some of the country’s…
Central Ukraine
Between May 1942 and July 1943, Adolf Hitler paid several visits (accounts vary) to his regional military headquarters in a vast bunker 8km north…
The Carpathians
University buildings are often called 'dreaming spires', but Chernivtsi's is more like an acid trip. This fantastic, Unesco-listed red-brick ensemble,…
Belgrade
Some 115 battles have been fought over imposing, impressive Belgrade Fortress (aka Kalemegdan); the citadel was destroyed more than 40 times throughout…
Church of the Intercession on the Nerl
Golden Ring
Tourists and pilgrims all flock to Bogolyubovo, just 12km northeast of Vladimir, for this perfect little jewel of a 12th-century church standing amid a…
North Macedonia
This 1974 monument, commemorating the Ilinden Uprising from 1903, is a marvel of Yugoslav architecture and a fantastic example of abstract historic…
St Petersburg
This spectacular palace on the Moyka River has some of the best 19th-century interiors in the city, in addition to a fascinating and gruesome history. The…
Mineral Water Spas
Founded in 1823 and covering 1340 hectares, this hillside park is among the largest in Europe. It's riddled with walking trails past rivers, ponds,…
Northern Dalmatia
One of Northern Dalmatia's most striking natural phenomena, Dragon's Eye Lake is a 10,000-sq-metre oval encircled by 4m- to 24m-high cliffs. Connected to…
Around St Petersburg
The centrepiece of Tsarskoe Selo, created under Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine the Great between 1744 and 1796, is the vast baroque Catherine Palace,…
Latvia
Turaida means ‘God’s Garden’ in ancient Livonian, and this green knoll capped with a fairy-tale castle is certainly a heavenly place. The red-brick castle…
Black Sea Coast
Stalin's dacha, Zelenaya Roscha, is a fascinating place, built specifically to accommodate a small, private and paranoid man. Tours are in Russian but…
Brač Island
Things can't have looked too different on the approach to this remote mountain cleft when a small group of priests and their servants, on the run from the…
Korčula Island
Dominating the little square at Korčula's heart is this magnificent 15th-century cathedral, built from Korčula limestone in a Gothic-Renaissance style by…
