Our main reason for visiting Cologne last December was football, to watch Newcastle United play Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League. And of course there were Christmas markets to enjoy. But we also wanted to see something of the city. The morning after the match was lovely and sunny, with a chilly wind but some warmth in the sun, so we set out on a walk by the river Rhine.
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Cologne's cathedral has a long drawn-out history of construction, starting in 1248 and only finishing in 1880. At that point it was the highest building in the world at 157 metres tall! Today it is the world’s third largest Gothic-style cathedral and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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Cathedrals often dominate their cities but I’m not sure I have ever seen one do so to the extent that Florence’s Duomo does. Although relatively hemmed in by other buildings, it towers over them. Any viewpoint over the city, whether from one of its towers or from the surrounding hills, will make this obvious.
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Mdina, the former capital of Malta, carries the weight of its long history. Protected by its ancient walls the centre has remained largely untouched by modernity. Winding streets are lined with a mix of baroque and medieval architecture. There are churches and grand palaces interspersed with more modest homes, all of them beautiful.
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Malta’s capital is small but beautiful! Its historic heart sits on a peninsula between two harbours and is protected by a series of fortifications. Inside, the grandeur of many of its buildings reflects the wealth of the Order of Saint John whose Grand Master, Jean de Valette, founded the city to strengthen the Order's position in Malta and bind the Knights to the island.
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According to Cicero, the greatest of Greek cities wasn’t in Greece itself but in Sicily. He described Ortigia, the original heart of modern-day Syracuse, as ‘the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of all’. Situated on a small island, the city was founded by the Greek settlers from Corinth in 743 B.C.
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The Romans built the city of Netum on the slopes of Mount Alveria in south-east Sicily. Legend tells that Daedalus stayed in this city after his flight over the Ionian Sea, as did Hercules after his seventh task. Over the following centuries it flourished, until in 1693 disaster struck, in the form of an earthquake. Most of the buildings were razed to the ground and over half the population perished.
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This beautiful hilltop town on the east coast of Sicily is understandably a magnet for tourists. Sitting high above the coast in the shadow of (very) active Mount Etna, it has everything you might hope for in such a town. Vistas of both sea and mountains; ancient ochre-coloured buildings glowing in the Sicilian sun; great restaurants and quality shopping; narrow lanes and bustling squares lined with cafés for people-watching; a small but beautiful cathedral; and to top it all an ancient Greek theatre still in use today.
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As in so many other places around the world, Catholicism was introduced to the Philippines by Spanish missionaries and colonisers in the 16th century. It played a crucial role in shaping the country's culture, values, and social structures during the colonial period and beyond. But it wasn’t all one-way traffic.
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The colonial city of Vigan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for good reason. It is one of the few Spanish colonial towns in the Philippines to remain relatively intact. Its unique architecture fuses native Filipino and Oriental building styles with more typical colonial Spanish features.
