Welcome to hidden europe 19. We feature the Polish town of Zamosc, London's Crystal Palace, the island of Gozo, rural Ukraine, la corrida in Spain and more.
hidden europe 19
The latest issue of hidden europe travel magazine features the Polish town of Zamosc, London's Crystal Palace, the island of Gozo, rural Ukraine, la corrida in Spain and more.
Picture above:
Storm clouds over Fort Ricasoli, Malta (photo © hidden europe).
Summary
The latest issue of hidden europe travel magazine features the Polish town of Zamosc, London's Crystal Palace, the island of Gozo, rural Ukraine, la corrida in Spain and more.
Zamosc is no ordinary Polish town. Tucked away in the country's eastern marchlands, Zamosc is picture perfect. Its central plaza gets our vote for Europe's finest town square. And the entire place turns out to have an intriguing history.
"To me this is a poignant place evoking a very lost Victorian London." Tim Locke returns to the south London suburb where he was born to look for traces of the capital's most cherished ghost: the Crystal Palace which burnt down in 1936.
Don't go to Gozo in the summer. Go in winter. Feel the lash of the grigal as it whips across the island and gaze as the waves churn a dozen rainbow-tinted boats in Mgarr harbour. And then, as the storm abates, watch the pale winter sunshine fall over honey-coloured basilicas.
Dubno is ordered, a place that sits snug in the Ikva valley. Kremenetz is different. Join Jenny Robertson as she guides us through small-town Volhynia, a region of western Ukraine that lies well off the regular tourist trails.
La corrida (bullfighting) is as much a part of Andalucian culture as tapas and flamenco. Like it or not, bullfighting is in no rush to disappear. John Mead recounts a tale of life and death from Baza in southern Spain.
2008 is a big year for polar anniversaries. Among those polar milestones is the eightieth anniversary of the death of Roald Amundsen, who lost his life while trying to rescue another veteran of polar exploration.
Just imagine! A time when plane tickets had no hidden extras and could be endlessly changed without penalty. We cast our eyes back to East Germany in 1973, and recall the days when Iraqi Airways flew from Berlin to London.
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.
An assassin's gun in a museum in the Albanian capital, a fireplace in the Bavarian Alps and some oak trees with pure Nazi pedigree are among the more unusual gifts that we uncover in this quirky perspective on gift-giving.
In the world of postmodernity, the sites of tragedies and atrocities have become new venues for pilgrimages. Dark tourism comes of age as memorial museums make their mark on the tourist trail.
With Eastertide in mind, we explore some devotional itineraries that led to New Jerusalems all over Europe. From Portugal to Poland, sacri monti (sacred mountains or calvaries) often offer very local interpretations of classic religious landscapes.
Okay, there is the Latin or Roman Church in western Europe and the Orthodox Church in eastern Europe. Easy to remember! But what happens at the boundaries?
Lonely Planet and Rough Guides may be mainstays in the guidebook market, but for more offbeat destinations in Europe, look to Bradt Guides for coverage of places that other publishers just do not reach.
Malta may boast a fabulously complicated history, but the island's rich range of links with Russia is often overlooked.
We take a moment to map out what must surely be the two most obscure international ferry links in the North Sea region.
Regular hidden europe contributor Laurence Mitchell introduces us to the museum of Easter eggs at Kolomiya in eastern Ukraine.
a look ahead at hidden europe 20