Story#105
The bells of Tallinn
At Christmas the old town smells of almonds and every second doorway leads to a cellar bar. We got lost twice inside two hundred metres because every street looks like the postcard.
Europe: 185 stories, quotes and facts, part 2
26 stories, 44 fun facts, 15 quotes on this page. It covers Estonia, Albania, North Macedonia, Europe, Latvia, Serbia and 31 other places. Page 2 of 2.
Page 2 of 2
26 stories, 44 fun facts, 15 quotes on this page. It covers Estonia, Albania, North Macedonia, Europe, Latvia, Serbia and 31 other places. Page 2 of 2.
Countries on this page
Every country page collects its entries in one place, with a fact sheet and the guides for going there.
Entries on this page
Fun fact#104
Albania once banned private cars
Private car ownership was effectively forbidden in Albania until 1991, so the country went from almost no cars to full traffic in a single decade.
Fun fact#106
North Macedonia's lake is ancient
Lake Ohrid is among the oldest lakes on Earth, holding species found nowhere else after two to three million years of isolation.
Quote#783
Ciao means both
Ciao serves as both hello and goodbye, from a Venetian phrase meaning I am your servant.
Story#107
Art nouveau ceiling
I looked up at a stairwell ceiling in Riga and stayed looking for so long that a resident coming home stopped and looked up too, then said something in Latvian that clearly meant yes, it is good, isn't it.
Fun fact#108
Serbia gave the world vampire
The word vampire entered western European languages in the 18th century from Serbian folklore reports sent back by Habsburg officials.
Fun fact#110
Bulgaria grows rose oil
Bulgaria's Rose Valley supplies a large share of the world's rose oil, and it takes roughly 3,000 kilograms of petals to make one kilogram of oil.
Story#111
The republic of artists
Uzupis has a constitution on a wall in forty languages. One article says a dog has the right to be a dog. Another says everyone has the right to be unhappy. Both feel earned.
Fun fact#112
Romania has Europe's heaviest building
The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest is the heaviest building on Earth, using around a million cubic metres of marble.
Quote#787
Bon voyage
Bon voyage: a good crossing. The phrase is older than the aeroplane by centuries.
Fun fact#114
Transylvania still has wild bears
The Carpathian Mountains hold one of Europe's largest brown bear populations outside Russia, along with lynx and wolves.
Story#115
Midnight football
The sun did not set. At half past midnight there was a full football match on the astroturf and a queue for the pitch afterwards. Nobody looked tired.
Fun fact#116
Moldova has a wine city underground
The Cricova cellars run for more than 100 kilometres of tunnels with street names, and visitors tour them by electric car.
Story#119
Waiting for the lights
Four nights of cloud, and on the fifth the sky opened for eleven minutes. Nobody in the cabin spoke. Afterwards a Danish couple opened a bottle of something and we drank it out of coffee cups.
Fun fact#118
Ukraine's tunnel of love
A working freight train trims a leafy corridor near Klevan into a perfect green tunnel that has become a pilgrimage for couples.
Quote#793
Buen camino
Buen camino: the greeting pilgrims exchange on the road to Santiago.
Fun fact#120
Belarus keeps a primeval forest
This forest on the Polish border is the last large remnant of the woodland that once covered the European plain, home to wild European bison.
Story#121
Reindeer right of way
The road was blocked by forty reindeer moving at their own pace. The driver turned off the engine, poured coffee from a thermos, and said this was quicker than trying to hurry them.
Fun fact#122
Russia touches eleven time zones
A train from Moscow to Vladivostok crosses seven time zones, yet the whole Trans-Siberian timetable was long printed in Moscow time only.
Quote#838
A guest is a gift
A guest brings good fortune with him.
Fun fact#126
Ireland has no snakes
Ireland genuinely has no native snakes, not because of St Patrick but because the island separated from Britain before snakes recolonised after the Ice Age.
Story#125
The rain in Galway
It rained horizontally. In the pub, a man told me there is no bad weather, only the wrong jacket, then bought me a pint because my jacket was clearly wrong.
Fun fact#128
The Cliffs of Moher face Atlantic storms
The Cliffs of Moher rise 214 metres at their highest point and take the full force of Atlantic swells that begin near Newfoundland.
Story#129
Sheep on the single track
Twelve passing places in three kilometres, and a sheep asleep in every one. The oncoming driver reversed a quarter of a mile with one hand on the wheel and did not stop talking on the phone.
Fun fact#130
Scotland has an official animal
Scotland's national animal is the unicorn, chosen in medieval heraldry as a symbol of purity and untamable strength.
Quote#848
Travel east, travel west
East, west, home is best.
Fun fact#132
Edinburgh sits on a volcano
Edinburgh Castle stands on the plug of an extinct volcano, and Arthur's Seat in the city centre is another part of the same ancient system.
Story#131
A castle with a kettle
The bothy had four walls, a fireplace, a visitors' book and no door key. Someone had left dry kindling and half a bag of coffee for whoever came next. We left tea and matches.
Fun fact#134
Wales has more sheep than people
Wales counts roughly three sheep for every resident, and its hill farms have shaped the landscape for over a thousand years.
Fun fact#136
The longest place name is Welsh
Llanfairpwllgwyngyll and its full 58-letter version was reportedly extended in the 1860s by a local tailor to attract railway tourists.
Story#135
The bus that waited
We came down off the ridge nineteen minutes late and the last bus was still there. The driver had seen two head torches on the mountain and decided he was not leaving until they came down.
Quote#868
Smooth seas
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.
Fun fact#138
London's Tube is the oldest
The Metropolitan Railway opened in 1863, making the London Underground the world's first urban underground railway.
Story#139
Sunday in Bloomsbury
Every museum was free and every cafe was full. We spent four hours in one room of the British Museum, ate a sandwich on the steps, and did not see the rest of the city at all.
Fun fact#140
Big Ben is the bell
Big Ben is the nickname of the great bell inside the tower. The tower itself was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012.
Fun fact#142
Stonehenge stones travelled far
Some of Stonehenge's bluestones were transported roughly 250 kilometres from the Preseli Hills in Wales more than 4,000 years ago.
Story#141
Low tide at St Michael's
The causeway appeared out of the sea over about twenty minutes as if someone were slowly drawing it. Everyone stood at the edge with their shoes in their hands waiting for permission from the water.
Quote#872
The sea is common
The sea is common to all.
Fun fact#144
Bath's springs never cool
Around 1.1 million litres of 46-degree water rise through Bath's Roman baths every day, heated deep underground and falling as rain thousands of years ago.
Fun fact#146
Cornwall has its own language
Cornish died out as a community language in the 18th century and has since been revived, with road signs and schools bringing it back.
Story#145
The Faroese fog
We drove through a tunnel and came out in a different weather system. The village on the other side had sun, sheep on the roofs, and a shop that sold both fishing tackle and cake.
Fun fact#148
Faroe Islands hire sheep as cameras
When Street View cars skipped the islands, locals strapped cameras to sheep and mapped the roads themselves in a campaign called Sheep View.
Quote#878
Every road leads
All roads lead to Rome.
Fun fact#151
Andorra has no airport
Andorra has no airport or railway station. Everyone arrives by road through the Pyrenees, which is part of the charm.
Story#149
A bear on the trail
The guide stopped, put a hand out flat, and we all stopped too. Two hundred metres up the slope a brown bear crossed without looking at us once. Nobody took a photograph until it was gone.
Fun fact#154
Monaco is smaller than Central Park
Monaco covers about two square kilometres, and much of its newest land was reclaimed from the Mediterranean.
Story#299
Waiting out a strike in Athens
The metro stopped and the museums shut. We walked eleven kilometres, ate three lunches and found a rooftop where the Acropolis appeared between two air conditioning units.
Fun fact#156
Gibraltar's runway crosses a road
Traffic on Winston Churchill Avenue stops every time a plane lands, because the road runs straight across the airport runway.
Quote#882
When in Rome
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Fun fact#166
Cyprus has a divided capital
Nicosia is the last divided capital in Europe, split by a buffer zone patrolled by United Nations peacekeepers since 1974.
Story#301
The olive harvest
Nets under the trees, sticks in every hand, and a family arguing pleasantly about branch technique. We picked for three hours and were paid in oil, which was a good deal.
Fun fact#167
Europe's oldest restaurant is in Madrid
Sobrino de Botin has served roast suckling pig continuously since 1725 and still uses its original wood-fired oven.
Fun fact#170
The Alps are still rising
The Alps grow roughly a millimetre or two a year as Africa pushes into Europe, though erosion removes almost as much.
Story#305
Nightfall in the Alentejo
The nearest streetlight was eleven kilometres away. We ate outside and by nine o'clock the sky had more stars than the guidebook had words.
Quote#888
A journey shared
A shared journey is half as long.
Fun fact#171
The Danube passes ten countries
The Danube touches or crosses ten countries and four capital cities, more than any other river on Earth.
Story#309
The train that stopped for a cow
We waited eighteen minutes. The driver walked back along the carriages explaining the situation to each one personally, and by the time we moved everybody knew everybody.
Fun fact#174
Europe's largest canyon is in Crete
The Samaria Gorge runs sixteen kilometres to the Libyan Sea and narrows to just four metres at the famous Iron Gates.
Fun fact#175
The Camino has many starting points
There is no single Camino. Pilgrims walk from France, Portugal, Seville or their own front door, all converging on Santiago de Compostela.
Quote#943
A ship without a compass
He who has no destination will never have a favourable wind.
Story#311
A festival that found us
We arrived in a village for lunch and left at midnight. Nobody told us it was the patron saint's day, and nobody could believe we had turned up by accident.
Fun fact#177
Northern lights need dark and luck
Aurora hunting works best between September and March under clear skies far from town lights, and even then patience matters more than equipment.
Fun fact#180
The midnight sun never sets
Above the Arctic Circle the sun stays above the horizon for weeks in summer, and locals often play football at two in the morning.
Story#315
The lighthouse keeper's cat
The lighthouse is automatic now, but the cat still patrols as though it has responsibilities. The keeper's grandson runs a cafe next door and tells the story eleven times a day.
Fun fact#181
Hallstatt has a salt mine older than Rome
Salt has been mined at Hallstatt for around 7,000 years, and the world's oldest wooden staircase was found preserved in the shafts.
Quote#983
There is nothing like a dream
There is nothing like a dream to create the future.
Fun fact#184
Sintra's palace has an inverted tower
Quinta da Regaleira hides an initiation well, a spiral staircase that descends 27 metres into the earth instead of rising.
Story#319
Cold water swim club
Six people in dressing gowns at eight in the morning in February. They swim for four minutes and drink tea for forty. We were invited on the first morning and did not miss a day.
Fun fact#185
Bruges froze its own skyline
Bruges lost its sea access when its channel silted up in the 1500s, and the resulting poverty accidentally preserved its medieval centre.
Story#322
The tram driver's tour
The tram was nearly empty so the driver pointed things out as we passed, in three languages, without slowing down. At the terminus he apologised for talking too much.
Fun fact#187
Ghent banned cars from the centre
Ghent removed through traffic from its historic core, and shop revenue and cycling both rose in the years afterwards.
Quote#988
He who is fixed to a star
He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.
Fun fact#189
Tallinn's old town is nearly intact
Tallinn kept most of its medieval walls and 20 defensive towers, one of the best-preserved Hanseatic centres in northern Europe.
Story#325
Fog on the Camino
We walked in fog for two days and saw the same twelve metres of path. Then it lifted on the last morning and Santiago's towers were exactly where they were meant to be.
Fun fact#191
Riga is an Art Nouveau museum
Around a third of central Riga's buildings are Art Nouveau, the densest concentration of the style anywhere in the world.
Quote#993
Once you have tasted flight
Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward.
Fun fact#193
Vilnius has a self-declared republic
The artists' quarter of Uzupis declared independence in 1997 and has its own constitution, posted on a wall in dozens of languages.
Story#329
One key, five hundred years
The guesthouse key was iron and the size of a forearm. The owner said it had opened the same door since the eighteenth century and asked us not to lose it, understandably.
Fun fact#195
Chernobyl became a wildlife refuge
Wolves, lynx and wild horses now thrive in the exclusion zone, where the absence of people outweighs the radiation for many species.
Story#332
Christmas market discipline
There is a correct order: sausage, then gingerbread, then gluhwein, then a second gluhwein. A local corrected our sequence firmly and then bought the second round.
Fun fact#197
The Faroes have grass roofs
Turf roofs insulate Faroese houses against Atlantic wind and rain, and sheep sometimes graze on them.
Quote#998
Simplicity is the ultimate
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Pack accordingly.
Fun fact#199
Svalbard stores the world's seeds
The Global Seed Vault inside an Arctic mountain holds over a million seed samples as a backup for the planet's food crops.
Story#336
The gondolier's shortcut
He avoided the Grand Canal entirely and took us through back canals where the water was green and the walls were close enough to touch. He sang exactly nothing and it was better.
Fun fact#991
Rome has a key hole with three countries
Look through the keyhole on the Aventine Hill and you see a garden in Italy, a dome in Vatican City and an avenue owned by the Order of Malta.
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Propose your travel story
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