Modest Melbourne: Arts Heart of Australia
As so often in Australia’s history, Melbourne was founded through fraud when adventurer John Batman, an Australian fluent in several aboriginal languages, made a “deal” with aborigines to lease land on behalf of speculators.
While offering the Aborigines any compensation at all was progressive in a colonial culture that preferred to simply run them off [...]
Magical Taipei: Capital of Taiwan
After climbing 508 metres up the Taipei 101 tower, the highest structure in the world, it can be seen easily from anywhere in the city, one can look down on the genuine Taipei amidst all the modern buildings: temples, markets, the National Palace Museum and in between them, the many old streets and lanes where [...]
The Wonderful Lithuanian City of Vilnius
The Lithuanian city of Vilnius exudes southern charm under the northern sun. Positioned in the natural amphitheatre of the surrounding Lithuanian hills, Vilnilus has much to offer visitors besotted with classical buildings.
Vilnius, which can look back on a thousand years of Lithuanian history, can boast one of the largest historical town centres in Eastern [...]
Vienna: Beautiful Baroque Centre of Europe
Located in the centre of Europe, Vienna is both a bustling city and a city known for its coffee houses, historic districts, beautiful parks, elegant squares and romantic courtyards.
Vienna means cafe culture, music and wine. Where else can one so happily spend all day sitting in a cafe, reading a magazine, sipping a Viennese [...]
Copenhagen: Capital of Denmark and Home of the Little Mermaid
Almost everyone who comes to Copenhagen visits the little mermaid harbour. Hans Christian Andersen’s popular fairy tale is about a young mermaid willing to give up her life in the sea and her identity as a mermaid to gain a human soul and the love of a human prince.
Love is capricious. In the end, [...]
Tehran - Capital of Iran - City Profile
Tehran is currently among the most densely populated capitals on the planet, yet for many centuries Tehran was nothing more than a small, insignificant city on the stage of world history.
Aga Muhammed Khan, founder of the Qajar dynasty, chose Tehran as the capital of the Persian Empire in 1795, largely because of its location on [...]
