“Hanging places” are not quite what you would expect when you first read it. It is not an alternative name for the Galgenberg (as this place was called from the Middle Ages onwar… Read More

The Gardens of Versailles are arguably among the most famous and impressive gardens in the world. Although their origins lie in the days of King Louis XIII, they are inextricably linked with… Read More

It is probably the smallest landmark in the world – the bronze figure on the Langelinie waterfront in Copenhagen known as “Lille Havfrue”, or the “Little Mermaid&rdqu… Read More

One of the most famous works by the French Impressionist Édouard Manet is the painting “The Races of Longchamp”. It shows a scene at the Longchamp racecourse in the Bois d… Read More

Théodore Géricault was a French painter, sculptor, draftsman and lithographer of the early 19th century and is considered one of the most important representatives of French Ro… Read More

The Castello Aragonese is a fortress on the island of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples, southern Italy. It is located on the eastern side of the island and is connected by a 200-metre bridge to… Read More

The »Porte du Peyrou« is a triumphal arch in the southern French city of Montpellier. Completed in 1693, it was originally in use as a city gate. Today it forms the eastern entra… Read More

Don Quixote and his friend Sancho Panza are certainly among the most famous novel heroes in the world and have been a symbol of Spanish culture since their publication. The novel by Miguel d… Read More

The “Tulip Mania” was the first well-documented speculative bubble in European history. The day when the collapse of this cleverly constructed entity began was February 3, 1637 a… Read More

The city of Zadar on the Croatian Adriatic coast seems almost like a monument on which the course of the centuries can be traced. For although it has been devastated and destroyed time and a… Read More

Although it is a cruel story from the pen of the Roman poet Ovid, it shall nevertheless be told here: One day the goddess Diana was out hunting, but had no success and was accordingly in a b… Read More

In the Austrian Salzkammergut lies one of the most beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in our country, which even gave its name to a period of the older Iron Age (around 800 to 450 BC): Ha… Read More

The Loire Valley between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic Age. After a chequered history, this region reached its heyday in the Renaissance, when Tours… Read More

At the westernmost tip of Liguria, barely ten kilometres from the coast of the Ligurian Sea, in the middle of the green Nervia Valley, lies the idyllic little town of Dolceaqua with its popu… Read More

In 1806, Napoleon had succeeded by a clever move in turning the Prussian government against him and luring it into the trap of an ill-considered war against him. For by the Treaty of Paris o… Read More

The art critic Félix Fénéon coined the term “Neo-Impressionism” for a style of painting that, according to its most important exponents, developed seemingly… Read More

Mailänderli are the most popular and most frequently baked Christmas biscuit in Switzerland. In Austria, of course, we know it too and here it is simply called a “biscuit”… Read More

François-Joseph Gossec (1734-1829) came from a Walloon peasant family. At the age of six, he was already a choirboy at the collegiate church of Walcourt, and from then on his path was… Read More

Eugène Bozza, who was born in Nice in 1905 and died in Valenciennes in 1991, was a violinist, composer and conductor. He received his first violin lessons from his father, who came fr… Read More

The Fläming is a historically grown cultural landscape in the border region between Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt, where one of the most interesting Christmas baked goods in German cuis… Read More

The first of Augsburg’s magnificent fountains, the Augustusbrunnen, was built between 1588 and 1594. It was modelled by Hubert Gerhard (ca. 1540-1620) and finally cast in bronze by th… Read More

If you mention the cinnamon star, especially if you do so around Christmas, everyone’s eyes are sure to light up. On the one hand, of course, this has to do with the effect of cinnamon… Read More

If you visit the wine-growing areas in the south of Styria, you will notice the large windmills everywhere, which not only turn merrily, but also make a lot of noise when the wind blows and… Read More

In 1857, Cécile Chaminade was born in Paris at the foot of Montmartre. Her mother, a pianist, initially taught the little girl the piano herself and it soon became clear that a specia… Read More

The Byzantine Empire immediately conjures up images in our Western European minds: magnificently dressed emperors, mighty domes and glowing mosaics, but also decadence and intrigue. Unfortun… Read More

I probably don’t think of any other composer as often as I think of Messiaen in my daily life – at least not with this regularity, which has lasted for years. His piece Le merle… Read More

Since the first advanced civilisations, slavery had been an important factor in the social and societal fabric of the Mediterranean, and in the Roman Empire it even constituted an essential… Read More

It is probably the best known and most played march in the world: the Army March II dedicated to Field Marshal Josef Wenzel Graf Radetzky von Radetz, better known as the “Radetzky Marc… Read More

Michelangelo Buonarroti, the star of the Renaissance, had a real problem with Pope Julius II. The Rovere Pope held his office in the style of an Italian territorial prince and had Michelang… Read More

Venice and Florence are certainly among the highlights of a tour of Italy. Both cities grew massively in size, wealth and power, especially in the late Middle Ages, and were among the most i… Read More

In Brittany, i.e. in the north-west of France, there are these wonderful, legendary and usually very picturesque enclos parroissiaux. Such enclosed parishes deliberately separate themselves… Read More

Maurice Ravel composed his Bolero in 1928 for the dancer Ida Rubinstein. Throughout his life, he was to have a very divided relationship with this work, which quickly became very successful… Read More

Despite all the contrasts in our modern world and despite all the differences between the cultures and regions of this earth, there is at least one element that unites everyone and brings th… Read More

On June 20, 1909, Emperor Franz Joseph I laid the foundation stone for the Technical Museum of Industry and Trade in Vienna. The main building of the museum was erected according to the pla… Read More

Already in the early Middle Ages, a monastery was founded in Hirsau in the northern Black Forest, which housed the relics of Saint Aurelius. In the course of time, however, the Aurelius Mona… Read More

24 May 1192: Styria becomes part of Austria. On 17 August 1186 the Georgenberg Handfeste was concluded on the Georgenberg in Enns. These are two documents in which the childless and serious… Read More

“Conozco el mar como bañista, como marinero y como pintor. Es como pintor lo que más me gusta”. (Raoul Dufy) Durante su vida, el pintor Raoul Dufy fue primero impr… Read More

“I know the sea as a bather, as a sailor and as a painter. It is as a painter that it is dearest to me.” (Raoul Dufy) In the course of his life, the painter Raoul Dufy was first… Read More

The flower island of Mainau is one of the most visited attractions on Lake Constance. There are very few travel groups that come to Lake Constance and do not stop off at the Mainau. The isla… Read More

Josef Ludwig Franz Ressel, Austrian forestry official and developer of the ship’s propeller, was born on June 29, 1793. A native of Bohemia, Josef Ressel studied cameral science, agri… Read More

The largest island of Lake Constance is located between Constance and Radolfzell and is connected to the mainland by the Reichenau Dam. Since 2000, the island with its Benedictine monastery… Read More

The Junkerhaus, now a museum, is the two-storey half-timbered house built by Karl Junker, which has been one of the sights of Lemgo since its completion. Karl Junker lived in the house from… Read More

Who never ate his bread with tears,He who never spent his sorrowful nightsSat on his bed weeping,He knows you not, ye heavenly powers. You lead us into life,You make the poor man guilty,Then… Read More

Daniel Dorff is an American composer. He was born in 1956 in New Rochelle/New York and studied at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania. He himself is a saxophonist and bass… Read More

On July 3, 1897, one of the landmarks of Vienna was opened – the Ferris wheel in the Vienna Prater. Gabor Steiner always wanted to offer the Viennese new attractions on his “Ven… Read More

Imagine the following: You are still sitting slightly sleepy and unsuspecting at your morning coffee. Suddenly your door is pushed open and uniformed gentlemen turn your house upside down an… Read More

Fascinating rock formation of one of the most remarkable natural and cultural monuments in Europe, medieval sacral site and popular excursion destination – these are the Externsteine i… Read More

Leopold I. (Liutpold), called the Illustrious, was born around 940. He was count in the Bavarian Danube delta and appears already in the 960s as a loyal follower of Emperor Otto I and later… Read More

Leopold I. (Liutpold), called the Illustrious, was born around 940. He was count in the Bavarian Danube delta and appears already in the 960s as a loyal follower of Emperor Otto I and later… Read More

In 1858, Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, the once independent republic in northwestern Tuscany. In the traditionally Catholic, bourgeois and elegant city surrounded by olive tree hills an… Read More