Architectural, Cultural sights in Europe
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Palazzo Ducale
Don’t be fooled by its Gothic elegance: this building was all business, from medieval carved stone capitals depicting key Venetian guilds along the arcade, to Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon’s 15th-century PortadellaCarta (Paper Door), the bulletin board for government decrees facing the piazza. The building was damaged by fire in 1577, but Antonio da Ponte (who designed the Ponte di Rialto) restored it.
Entering through the colonnaded courtyard, you’ll spot Sansovino’s statues of Mars and Neptune flanking the Scala dei Giganti (Giants’ Staircase), which Antonio Rizzo built as a suitably grand entrance for Venice’s dignitaries and which is currently undergoing restora…
reviewed
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Anne Frank Huis
The Anne Frank Huis is the Western Canal Belt’s ubersight, drawing almost a million visitors annually. With its reconstruction of Anne’s melancholy bedroom and her actual diary – sitting alone in its glass case, filled with sunnily optimistic writing tempered by quiet despair – it’s a powerful experience. The focus of the museum is the achterhuis (rear house), also known as the secret annexe, a dark and airless space where the Franks and others observed complete silence during the daytimes, outgrew their clothes, pasted photos of Hollywood stars on the walls and read Dickens, before being mysteriously betrayed and sent to their deaths. The house stays open later…
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Kolomenskoe Museum-Reserve
Set amid 4 sq km of parkland, on a bluff above a bend in the Moscow River, this Museum-Reserve is an ancient royal country seat and Unesco World Heritage Site. Many festivals are held here, so check if anything is happening during your visit. From Bolshaya ul, enter at the rear of the grounds through the 17th-century Saviour Gate to the whitewashed Our Lady of Kazan Church, both built in the time of Tsar Alexey. The church faces the site of his great wooden palace, which was demolished in 1768 by Catherine the Great. Ahead, the white, tent-roofed 17th-century front gate and clock tower mark the edge of the old inner-palace precinct. The golden double-headed eagle that top…
reviewed
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Museu Condes de Castro Guimarães
The grounds of Parque Marechal Carmona harbour the Museu Condes de Castro Guimarães, the whimsical early-19th-century mansion of Irish aristocrat Jorge O’Neill, complete with castle turrets and Arabic cloister. But the clover leaves inside didn’t bring him luck – he went bankrupt and had to sell up. His successor, Count of Castro Guimarães, lavishly decorated the abode with 17th-century Indo-Portuguese cabinets, Oriental silk tapestries and 17th-century azulejos. Don’t miss the rare 16th-century manuscript depicting pre-earthquake Lisbon. Admission is with half-hourly guided tours.
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Begijnhof
Surrounded by protective walls, these whitewashed cottages - clustered around a central garden carpeted by daffodils in springtime - have an air of tranquil purity. Established as homes for a Catholic order of single and widowed women, there were around 1500 of these begijnhoven (or beguinages) in Belgium in the early 20th century, but only 22 remain. Dating from the 13th century, this is one of the best preserved, and home today to Benedictine nuns. The tiny on-site 't Begijnhuisje museum gives you an insight into a typical cottage. Afterwards, prolong the serenity with a stroll in the swan-filled Minnewater park nearby.
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Sigmund Freud Museum
Sigmund Freud is a bit like the telephone – once it happened, there was no going back. The apartment where he lived and worked from 1891 till his forced departure from Vienna with the arrival of the Nazis in 1938 is now a museum devoted to the father of psychoanalysis. It contains a number of his possessions, and Freud’s obsessions – travelling, smoking and collecting ancient art – are well represented; Egyptian and Buddhist statues are everywhere. Notes (in English) illuminate the offerings and audio guides (€2) are available at the ticket desk.
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Circus
Inspired by the Roman Colosseum, the Circus is another Georgian masterpiece of Wood the Elder's design. Arranged over three equal terraces, the 30 mansions overlook a garden populated by plane trees; a German bomb fell into the square in 1942 and demolished several houses, although they've since been rebuilt in seamless style. Look out for plaques to Thomas Gainsborough, Clive of India and David Livingstone, all former Circus residents.
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Sergei Paradjanov Museum
This engaging, eccentric house museum of an avant-garde film director and artist SergeiParadjanov, showcases his colourful, amusing collages and framed found-object sculptures, as well as sketches and designs for his films. There’s real wit and flair to his work, and it’s well worth visiting even if avant-garde 20th-century film isn’t normally your thing. There are postcards and videos of his major films for sale.
reviewed
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Number 29
Built in 1794 for the widow of a wine merchant, Number 29 reconstructs genteel Dublin home life from 1790 to 1820. Discover how Georgians bathed twice yearly and how ladies used a latter-day mini gym, the leather exercise horse. See the discreet dining-room mirrors that allowed servants to respond to orders without listening in to round-table gossip. The 30-minute tour is a fascinating taste of the city’s social history.
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Hitler's Geburtshaus
Not far from the Torturm is Hitler's Geburtshaus; born in 1889, he only spent two years of his life here before moving with his family to Linz. The inscription outside his birth house simply reads Für Frieden Freiheit und Demokratie, nie wieder Faschismus, millionen Tote Mahnen (For peace, freedom and democracy, never again fascism, millions of dead admonish).
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Casa Museu Bissaya Barreto
Bissaya Barreto was a local surgeon, scholar and obsessive hoarder of fine arts, and his handsome, late-19th-century mansion has been turned into a museum. A guide (not necessarily English-speaking) accompanies guests through rooms jam-packed with Portuguese sculpture and painting, Chinese porcelain, old azulejos and period furniture.
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Krämerbrücke
The 18m-wide and 120m-long medieval Krämerbrücke is Europe's longest bridge with houses. It was originally constructed from wood but rebuilt in stone in 1325 and adorned with churches at each end. Today the only church building remaining is the deconsecrated Aegideuskirche remains, now part of the Sorat Hotel.
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Konstantinbasilika
The brick Konstantinbasilika was constructed in AD 310 as Constantine's throne hall. Its dimensions (67m long and 36m high) are truly mind-blowing considering that it was built by the Romans. Later part of the residence of Trier's prince-electors, it is now a typically austere Protestant church.
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Mozarts Geburtshaus
Mozarts Geburtshaus is where Mozart spent the first 17 years of his life. In the first room, the holy Wolfgang is shown as a babe beneath a fluorescent blue halo. Other curiosities include the mini-violin that Amadeus played as a toddler, plus a lock of his hair and buttons from his jacket.
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Mendeleev Museum
In the twelve Colleges, the building where Dmitry Mendeleev invented the periodic table of elements now contains the Mendeleev Museum. His cosy study has been lovingly preserved and you can see his desk (where he always stood rather than sat) and some early drafts of the periodic table.
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Casa Rocca Piccola
The 16th-century palazzo Casa Rocca Piccola is the elegant family home of the Marquis de Piro. The marquis has opened part of the palazzo to the public and guided tours on the hour (10am to 4pm Monday to Saturday) give a unique insight into the privileged lifestyle of the aristocracy.
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Casa di Goethe
Close to the Piazza del Popolo is the modest, lovingly maintained Casa di Goethe, where the German writer had a whale of a time between 1786 and 1788. Its collection includes his drawings and etchings from the period as well as interesting souvenirs of his stay.
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Weigh House
The Weigh House is a postwar replica of the 16th-century building designed by Quadro, which was dismantled in the 19th century. South of it are two discordant postwar structures on the site of the old arsenal and cloth hall.
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Marco Polo Tower
It's said that Marco Polo was born in Korčula in 1254 and, for a small fee, you can climb the tower of the house that is supposed to have been his. A planned restoration will turn it into a museum.
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Laston House
William Paxton built his saltwater baths above the harbour in what is now Laston House. The Greek writing on the pediment translates as the optimistic, 'The sea will wash away all the evils of man'.
reviewed
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Mozart-Wohnhaus
The Mozart-Wohnhaus takes a more hi-tech approach, with an audio guide giving the low-down on the Mozart family and serenading you with opera excerpts.
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James Joyce Centre
Denis Maginni, the exuberant, flamboyant dance instructor and ‘confirmed bachelor’ immortalised by James Joyce in Ulysses, taught the finer points of dance out of this beautifully restored Georgian house, now a centre devoted to promoting and preserving the Joycean heritage. Although Jimmy probably never set foot in the house, he lived in the ’hood for a time, went to a local school and lost his virginity a stone’s throw away in what was once Europe’s largest red-light district. We couldn’t imagine a more fitting location for the centre.
The centre owes its existence to the sterling efforts of Senator David Norris, a charismatic Joycean scholar and gay-rights …
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Avenue of the Knights
An appropriate place to begin an exploration of the Old Town is the imposing cobblestone Avenue of the Knights where the knights lived. The knights were divided into seven 'tongues' or languages, according to their place of origin - England, France, Germany, Italy, Aragon, Auvergne and Provence - and each were responsible for protecting a section of the bastion. The Grand Master, who was in charge, lived in the palace, and each tongue was under the auspices of a bailiff.
To this day the street exudes a noble and forbidding aura, despite modern offices now occupying most of the inns. Its lofty buildings stretch in a 600m-long unbroken wall of honey-coloured stone blocks, a…
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Loreta
The square’s main attraction is the Loreta, a baroque place of pilgrimage founded by Benigna Kateřina Lobkowicz in 1626, and designed as a replica of the supposed Santa Casa (Sacred House; the home of the Virgin Mary). Above the entrance 27 bells, made in Amsterdam in the 17th century, play ‘We Greet Thee a Thousand Times’ on the hour. Legend says that the original Santa Casa was carried by angels to the Italian town of Loreto as the Turks were advancing on Nazareth. The duplicate Santa Casa, with fragments of its original frescoes, is in the centre of the courtyard. Behind the Santa Casa is the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord (kostel Narození Páně), built in 17…
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Kremlin
Rostov’s main attraction is its unashamedly photogenic kremlin. Though founded in the 12th century, nearly all the buildings here date to the 1670s and 1680s. With its five magnificent domes, the Assumption Cathedral dominates the kremlin, although it is just outside the latter’s north wall. Outside service hours, you can get inside the cathedral through the door in the church shop on ul Karla Marksa. The cathedral was here a century before the kremlin, while the belfry was added in the 1680s. Each of 15 bells in the belfry has its own name; the largest, weighing 32 tonnes, is called Sysoy, named for the Rostov Metropolitan who oversaw the construction of the kremlin…
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