Travel stories, quotes and fun facts

The cellar with street signs

The wine cellars had road names painted on the tunnel walls: Cabernet Street, Feteasca Avenue. Our guide drove an electric buggy and took corners like a taxi driver.

Once a year go somewhere new

Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.

Bled's island has a wishing bell

On Lake Bled's only island, visitors climb 99 steps to ring a church bell said to grant a wish to anyone who rings it properly.

Bosnia rebuilt its famous bridge

The Stari Most in Mostar was destroyed in 1993 and rebuilt stone by stone using original techniques, reopening in 2004.

A night train to nowhere useful

The compartment had four bunks and five people, and the fifth was fine with the floor. Tea arrived in glasses with metal holders at six in the morning whether you were awake or not.

Montenegro means black mountain

The country's name refers to the dark pine forests of Mount Lovcen, which appear almost black from the coast.

Live your life

Live your life, take chances, be crazy. Don't wait, because right now is the oldest you've ever been.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Roads were made for journeys

Roads were made for journeys, not destinations.

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.

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.

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.

Better to see once

It is better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times.

Transylvania still has wild bears

The Carpathian Mountains hold one of Europe's largest brown bear populations outside Russia, along with lynx and wolves.

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.

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.

The world is big

The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.

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.

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.

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.