
There's been a chateau on this site between Blois and Amboise since the 10th Century, but the current model dates from the 14th, which is why its appearance is largely medieval, with a hint of Renaissance. Catherine de Medici, the castle's most famous o…"

This château looks like a full size doll house in white, with grey sloping roofs and plenty of large windows in perfect symmetry. It was built by Henri Hurault, Comte de Cheverny, but he lost it to the crown, though a generation later his son brou…"

Bonaventure Cemetery was established in 1846. It's old and overgrown in a lovely, slow, southern way. Most people know it from the book or film 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil', and it's just like that. Seeing as it was used as a location for…"

Tarascon Castle looks over the Rhone, a fort keeping watch, her thick walls and towers all the same height adding to the fortified look – this is not a fort for show, it's a fort to keep people out, and protect the whole region. After it was retir…"

The Catskill Mountain Range run westwards from a dramatic escarpment rising out of the Hudson Valley until they peter out round the Allegheny Plateau, after rising to thirty different peaks over 3,500 feet. The highest point is Slide Mountain. Because …"

Chania's main covered market is just in front of the historic Venetian and Turkish quarters of the city, buy the entrance to the fort – modelled on the market at Versailles you can't mistake it. People have been doing their groceries here since th…"

Chania Cathedral is dedicated to Panagia Trimartyri, the Virgin of the Three Martyrs, the patron saint of Chania. This rather graceful, oatmeal coloured stone building was built at the end of the 19th Century, but then damaged less than a year after com…"

The Chania Naval Museum occupies part of the Firkas Fortress. Chania was an important port, and this museum presents old portraits of Greek admirals and historic battles as well as the relics of the weapons and ships that fought in them, and some modern…"

As one of the most historic looking cities on an island known for its history, Chania's museum would be expected to have some treasures in its inventory. There are plenty of archaeologically interesting sites in the local area, and this museum, built in…"

Sounds fantastic, how can I get there?"

This is the more European centre of Istanbul, both by the look of it, its location and its uses. It looks almost Russian, reflecting the growing influence Europe was having on Turkey when it was built in the mid 19th Century. It was built for the Sul…"

Also called Balik Pazari, this is supposed to be 'the' fish market in Istanbul. It doesn't have huge number of stores, around 20, but it does offer a pretty impressive selection of edible marine life, as well as another 10 or so vendors selling things t…"

The Chora Church or Mosque is considered a notable Byzantine church by many, and though Istanbul has quite a collection of Byzantine churches, this one, slightly off the beaten track in Edirnekapi, is recommended because of the impressive collection mosa…"

This is one of the oldest bazaars in Istanbul – so it's pretty old – it was built in the 16th and 17th Centuries, at the same time as the Yeni Mosque which it's attached to. The space is 'L' shaped, and indoors, and there are 88 separate 'ro…"

Flacq has one of the largest markets on Mauritius, and probably the largest open air market. There are stalls open here every day, but the weekend is bigger, and more exciting. Two of the scents amongst many here are Vanilla and herbal tea, two local s…"

Thousands of reptiles live here. The ones with the sharpest teeth live in carefully marked cages, and the less aggressive ones, with the smaller teeth, walk around free range – these are mostly the giant tortoises, so don't let the idea of it…"

Ras Al Khor is a wetland sanctuary just a short flutter from the World Trade Centre and the centre of Dubai. It's a lagoon, with a fringe of wetlands, right in amongst the traffic, providing a home for hundreds of birds, small mammals and marine creatur…"

This market is massive, hosting thousands of overlapping stalls, it's an eye full, and the name is a bit of a mouthful, but translates to something like: pan jya yoo-an jyoh hwoh shih-chahng – meaning dirt, or so the general consensus seems to be. …"

I don't particularly like scorpions. But equally I don't know that I dislike them enough to see them impaled on a squewer in a row still wriggling. There were rows of these scorpions on sticks at this market – next to rows of 'here's one I prepa…"

Bodrum's Tuesday Textiles Market is the place to find textiles made all over. This isn't just fabric, what's on offer at this market borders on the line: A riot of colour. The rows of stalls selling fabrics, clothes and shoes an get pretty noisy. If …"

Zaanse Schans is something like an outdoor museum, with its windmills turning in rows and old orange roofed barns and buildings in between them. It's still a living ancient hamlet, albeit now a lot of the town's income comes from its attractive pre…"

Every great city has a great square, and Haarlem, though not capping the top of today's lists, was once a great trading centre, and the Grote Markt its meeting place. Lines of cafes and restaurants bid for your custom, offering you a view of the city h…"

This is the Netherlands' National Natural History Museum, a merger of two former museums, rehoused in one of the country's most expensive buildings. It's most important claim to fame is the number of specimens making up the collection – a million …"

Cheese, wooden shoes and tulips are the things you're supposed to buy in Dutch markets – cheese being my personal favourite. And Gouda being the cheese for me. They've been trading Gouda et al, in the Goudse kaasmarkt for around 300 years, the pr…"

The Château de Saumur is a palace worthy of a lovely princess. White with rounded turrets and grey pointed roofs, and many small windows, this is the kind of structure my younger sister used to draw all the time when she was little. The…"

Grinda is east of Vaxholm and west of Möja. It's the beaches that make this island a popular choice to visit. It's also easy to get to by ferry and has a shop and cafe, bar and taverna, but not much else so many campers think its perfect."

The outside of this gallery looks a bit like a prison, when it was built in 1916 it was the height of modern fashion, a warehouse-esque space with huge sky lights and high windows. This design, and the varied sized galleries make it one of the most…"

This palace, which is best described as a very graceful stately home, was built in the 19th Century for King Karl XIV Johan, as an escape from the very formal way of life in the Royal Palace. He and his family used it as a summer home.One of the mo…"

Djurgården is the garden island, or the Royal Game Park, and this is where many of Stockholm's museums, galleries, monuments and great buildings are found, including an amusement park and an open air museum. Despite all that there's still lar…"

Sandhamn translates to Sand Harbour, and is located on Sandön, which translates to Sand Island. The natural harbour is beautiful, and well loved by pleasure boaters, most of them hopping over from Stockholm, which is only 50kms away. Peo…"

Möja is easily reached by ferry from Stockholm, and is popular with visitors as a foodie heaven, for the cafes, restaurants, hostels and food stores...the local speciality is strawberries. Before the 19th Century there weren't any permane…"

This castle began as a 12th Century feudal fortress, but it's been rebuilt several times since then and now has the look of a 17th Century French castle with pointed turrets and and rounded towers. The castle actually gets a lot of its fame and att…"

This chateau was built in the mid 1500s by the local priest – though with its two long, pale grey main buildings it looks a bit grander than that. The builder, Pierre de Bourdeille, began as a soldier, but after a serious fall from his horse …"

This cave system has been known about for a very long time – people were admiring its prehistoric artistic treasures as early as 1575. The art here stretches well back into the cave which could be why it has survived so well despite the somet…"

Perched precariously on a cliff overlooking the Dordogne river, the Château de Beynac is one of the best preserved castles in this part of France. Built in the middle ages it looks like a castle that may have kept a prisoner in the attic, san…"

This market kicks off in the Place de la Liberte at around 8:30 with the smell of fresh bread, cheese and other fresh edible delicacies, then as the day wears on the less tasty stalls open, selling clothes, trinkets and acres of flowers. The flavou…"

Famous for handicrafts and portrait paintings, this night market also has everything you'd expect from a Thai market: amazing smelling foods, CDs and DVDs of varied quality and parentage, clothes and jewellery in local and western styles, antiques, elect…"

As well as being the world's largest teak building, and constructed in a lovely golden shade of the wood, this early 20th century, 81 roomed mansion or palace is also a good place to come to see classical Thai dancing, Thai folk dancing and musical perfo…"

Made all of beautiful, white Italian Carrara marble, including the paving of the courtyard, this wat is one of Bangkok's most lovely. King Chulalongkorn began construction on the temple in 1899 and it was designed by his half brother. The decorations a…"

If you can't see Thailand's ancient collection of royal barges in action in state ceremony on Bangkok's waterways, the next best thing is to see them in the museum where they're now housed, which is where these barges, some hundreds of years old, now spe…"
"Snowdon, in Snowdonia National Park, is Wales's highest mountain at 1,085 metres, the same height as Table Mountain in South Africa. The Welsh call it Yr Wyddfa. The English call it Snowdon, as in snow hill, even though there's signific…"
"Symi's main town is also called Symi, which can make travelling to this small Greek island a tiny bit more confusing, not for the large numbers of pilgrims who come every year around Easter to visit the monastery in Panormitis, but for the visitors comin…"
"Tilos is a little inverted 's shaped' island between Kos and Rhodes, so shares some of those larger island's most attractive characteristics, the lush green interiors and the bright blue bays, but with a lot less of the tourist crowd. At it's wides…"

The second largest, and many say the most beautiful of the Lake District's lakes, Ullswater has even beeen compared to Lake Lucerne, though it lacks the string of pretty towns surrounding the ribbon of water. The nearest town is Glenridding, which is th…"

When Castro addressed his population he did it here, at times talking to more than a million citizens in person as well as people watching him at home throughout the rest of Cuba on TV. The main features of the empty square are the Jose Marti Memorial o…"

This charming, 1791, Baroque building began as the home of Cuba's Governor under colonial rule, before becoming the Presidential Palace, and is now the home to the collection for the Museum of Havana – as in a museum to the history and culture of this ci…"

The north side of this long mountain ridge region catches the full benefit of the moisture coming in off the Caribbean, and this is the lushest part of the Topes de Collantes park. Three peaks stop the clouds, the tallest, San Juan peak, is 1,140 metres…"

In the clear waters around this island are Nurse Sharks, stingrays, turtles, jacks, tuna, barracudas, snappers, parrotfish, triggerfish and a colourful range of crustaceans. Reefs ring the pale sandy beaches in shallow seas where visibility is as good a…"

Less than a hundred miles from Havana, this World Heritage listed swamp is a haven for exotic plant and animal species – more than 1000 different types of invertebrates and over 175 different species of bird, including Cuban endemics Zapata Wrens, Zapata…"

The sand here is so pale it's often referred to in the guide books as being 'silvery', and the water lapping over it shows up a definite turquoise in comparison – like very nice jewellery. The three kilometres of beach tempt kayakers and sailors, as wel…"