The notion of the sparsely inhabited island exerts huge appeal on the imagination. We project our hopes, our desires and our fears onto islands which then become crucibles of life, easier to mould and understand than when those same aspirations and worries are seen in the context of our normal, rather messy, lives in less confined spaces.
The island of Ugljan plays second home to many residents of Zadar on Croatia’s Dalmatian coast. Guest contributor Rudolf Abraham explores an island that was once famed for its exquisitely pungent olive oil.
Byriuchyi Island, in the north-west corner of the Sea of Azov, has been shaped by wind and waves. This remote piece of Ukrainian territory is the unlikely base for an ambitious contemporary art project.
At the eastern margins of the North Sea, in the shallow waters hard by the German coast, are a series of islands that are seasonally flooded. Human settlement on these islands is a fragile thing. These special islands (called Halligen in German) have their own distinctive cultural landscape. Join us on a day trip in deep mid-winter to Hallig Hooge – where it happens to be dustbin day.
Although the island of Mingulay in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides is long bereft of any inhabitants, it is still an evocative place. Laurence Mitchell, a regular contributor to hidden europe magazine, takes us on a tour of 'The Village' - the remnants of the once turf-roofed blackhouses that the islanders called home.
The story of Victoria Island, a tiny fleck of land in the European Arctic midway between Svalbard and Franz Josef Land, is a reminder that there are better ways of conducting international diplomacy than leaving a message in a bottle.
The Danish island of Rømø is full of reminders of its erstwhile connections with the whaling industry. There are fence posts made of whalebones, and the skull of a whale stands beside the main road across the island.
Valsörarna is a sea of mauve heather, a landscape laced with juniper and full of ripe and juicy blueberries. This tiny Finnish outpost in the Gulf of Bothnia is one of the Kvarken islands. Erik Schaffer and Silvia Stock report on a summer visit to Valsörarna.
we visit one of the least known, yet idyllically beautiful of Scotland's Hebridean islands: Oronsay
Eighty years after the mine closed: a note from the Arctic island of Bjørnøya.
we check out Greece's remotest island outpost, a place where the locals and visitors take the boat over to nearby Turkey for the Friday market
hidden europe explores a scatter of islands off the French coast - the most southerly outposts of the British Isles
Bang in the middle of the Atlantic, equidistant from Lisbon and Newfoundland, the island of Corvo is one of the most isolated European communities.
On the tidal flats that surround the North Frisian island of Sylt there are millions of lugworms. On the island itself there is a peculiar sub-species of homo sapiens. hidden europe explores both!
The naming of places is a sure way of imprinting an identity upon them - as we found when we started poring over old maps of the Arctic island of Jan Mayen. Modern maps give the place a very Scandinavian demeanour. But it was not always so.
Sure, the Eiffel tower! But not the famous Parisian landmark. We visit another tower designed by Monsieur Eiffel. This one is on the Estonian island of Ruhnu.
The astronomer Tycho Brahe arrived on the island of Ven with a stipend from the Danish king and an artificial nose. We report from the island where Tycho lived with his pet moose.
There are two sides to Sylt. The east has soggy edges as tidal flats and salt marshes separate Sylt from the German and Danish mainland. The other side can be wild and treacherous, a place where shrapnel spray pounds the beach and bodies are washed ashore.
Irish monks and a Norwegian king have helped shape the community of Kirkjubøur on the Faroese island of Streymoy.
Fámjin is all the better for being difficult to reach. It is a tiny place, a mere pinprick on the map of the Faroes. But Fámjin has something of the Faroese soul about it, for it here that the national flag was first flown. We look at some places that enshrine icons of national identity.
hidden europe explores a little moment in cinematic history that led to a Hebridean island getting its first proper road