As a bit of an obsessive when it comes to city views, as soon as the Shard opened three years ago I booked myself tickets for London’s highest viewing platform. The building had only been open a few weeks,…
views
Seat of the German Parliament, the Reichstag is one of the most famous and imposing buildings in Berlin. The original version, built in the 1880s, was topped with a stone dome. But that, along with the rest of the…
In a country packed with beautiful landscapes, it says something that the Amalfi Coast is ranked as one of Italy’s most scenic stretches of coastline. This string of pastel-coloured villages are cut into a steep hillside, with jagged mountains…
Looking out over a place from high above is always one of my favourite things to do in a new destination, but after a day wandering the cobbled streets of the Norwegian city of Bergen, my feet were staging…
Among the macho Wild West-style towns of the southwest USA, Sedona in Arizona attracts a more New Age crowd. The town has embraced its alternative side with a host of crystal shops, psychics, alternative therapists and vortex tours.…
A few miles south of the Arizonan city of Sedona, there’s an unusual-looking structure tucked among the cliffs. It looks like it could be an observatory – or even a Bond villain’s lair – but it’s really a Catholic…
Utah’s biggest national park, Canyonlands was also the park on my road trip route that I knew the least about. I’d seen plenty of photos of Arches, the hoodoos at Bryce Canyon and Zion‘s red rocks, but what about Canyonlands?…
A land of delicately carved rock spires in sunset shades, Bryce Canyon was an out-of-this-world start to my southwest US national park hopping. The park is made up of a series of amphitheatres along the edge of a plateau,…
So when you book a ticket to the newly opened viewing platform at the top of Western Europe’s tallest building in February, what you’re hoping for is a clear, crisp winter’s day. One with perfect visibility over the whole…
The Dead Sea is already the world’s lowest and saltiest sea, but it’s getting lower and saltier all the time. Its hot weather and lack of rain mean more water evaporates out than flows in. So the salt gets…
Perched on the top of Petrin Hill overlooking Prague, you might spot what looks like a miniature version of Paris’ Eiffel Tower. The Petrin Lookout Tower might not be quite as imposing at a diminutive 60 metres high compared…
‘We’re going where?’ After trudging up a kilometre-long stony, dusty track as it looped its way up the side of the volcano, we had reached the top of Vesuvius. Or so I thought. To our right a neatly fenced-off…
Towering over the village of Anacapri is the peak of Monte Solaro. At 589 meters above sea level, the mountain is the highest point on Capri and the best place for views across the island and far beyond –…