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Tortuguero National Park: Costa Rica’s Caribbean Jungle by Boat

Aerial view of dark jungle canals winding through lowland rainforest with a sandy beach and the Caribbean Sea beyond.

Tortuguero National Park: Costa Rica’s Caribbean Jungle by Boat There are no roads into Tortuguero. You arrive by boat, along a brown channel with forest pressing in from both sides, and you may hear birds, insects and, sometimes, the roar of a howler monkey. This is Tortuguero National Park on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, a […]

Monteverde Cloud Forest: Skywalks and Biodiversity in Costa Rica

Illustration: a narrow trail with wooden steps climbing through moss-covered trees and ferns in a mist-filled tropical cloud forest.

Monteverde Cloud Forest: Skywalks and Biodiversity in Costa Rica A narrow trail climbs into cloud. Moss hangs from every branch, orchids grow straight out of the tree trunks, and the loudest sound in the forest is dripping water. This is the cloud forest at Monteverde, Costa Rica, a protected forest in the Tilarán mountains, where […]

Central America Tour: From Panama to Guatemala in 27 Days

A suspension walkway stretching between mossy trees in the canopy of a misty tropical cloud forest at dawn.

Central America Tour: From Panama to Guatemala in 27 Days Four countries, a chain of volcanoes and one of the great ancient civilisations of the Americas: a journey from Panama to Guatemala crosses a narrow strip of land that holds a remarkable amount of variety. From the Panama Canal to the Maya city of Tikal, […]

Panama Canal: Locks, the Gaillard Cut and the Rainforest Railway

A large cargo ship in a concrete lock chamber of the Panama Canal with steel lock gates behind it and an electric locomotive on the wall.

Panama Canal: Locks, the Gaillard Cut and the Rainforest Railway A cargo ship stacked high with containers glides into a concrete chamber, the gates close behind it, and the water beneath it begins to rise. The Panama Canal locks lift ships 26 metres over the isthmus and lower them again on the far side, and […]

Jerez de la Frontera

Rows of stacked oak sherry casks beneath whitewashed arches in a cathedral-style bodega in Jerez de la Frontera

Jerez de la Frontera Walk through the old centre of Jerez de la Frontera on a warm afternoon and the air itself can smell faintly of wine, drifting from long whitewashed bodegas where sherry has been ageing in oak for generations. This Andalusian town gave its name to the drink, and the English word “sherry” […]

El Escorial, Spain

The grey granite Royal Monastery of El Escorial, with its corner towers and dome, below the pine-covered foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama

El Escorial, Spain About 45 kilometres northwest of Madrid, where the plain gives way to the pine-covered slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama, a single grey granite building houses a monastery, a royal palace, a basilica, a library and the tombs of the Spanish kings. El Escorial was Philip II’s answer to a battle, a […]

Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid

The Sabatini Building of the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, with its glass lift towers on the façade

Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid At the southern end of Madrid’s grand museum boulevard, a long eighteenth-century hospital begun under Charles III now holds what may be the most famous painting of the twentieth century. The Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, Spain’s national museum of modern and contemporary art, is where Picasso’s Guernica hangs, surrounded by […]

Royal Palace, Madrid

The south façade of the Royal Palace in Madrid seen across the paved Plaza de la Armería in late afternoon light

Royal Palace, Madrid On Christmas Eve 1734 a fire broke out in the old Alcázar of Madrid, the fortress-palace where Spain’s Habsburg kings had ruled an empire, and by the time it burned out three days later more than five hundred paintings from the royal collection had been lost. What rose on the same ridge […]

La Fortuna and Arenal Volcano: A Costa Rica Rainforest Guide

A symmetrical volcanic cone with cloud around its summit rising above green farmland in northern Costa Rica.

La Fortuna and Arenal Volcano: A Costa Rica Rainforest Guide Rising almost alone above the farmland and rainforest of northern Costa Rica, Arenal Volcano is the kind of mountain a child would draw: a near-perfect cone, often wrapped in a ring of cloud at the summit. At its foot lies La Fortuna, Costa Rica, a […]

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala: Maya Villages, Volcanoes and a Lake Cruise

Lake Atitlan in Guatemala at dawn, with three volcanic cones rising above the calm water and mist on the far shore.

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala: Maya Villages, Volcanoes and a Lake Cruise Lake Atitlan is a deep blue sheet of water about 1,560 metres up in the Guatemalan highlands, walled in by steep green shores and, along the southern side, three volcanic cones. Around its edge stand Maya villages where weaving, markets and traditional dress are still […]

Cholpon-Ata Petroglyphs: Rock Art and Ritual Landscapes beside Issyk-Kul

An illustrative view of a slope scattered with dark granite boulders above a deep blue lake with snow-capped mountains beyond, evoking the petroglyph field at Cholpon-Ata on Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan.

Cholpon-Ata Petroglyphs: Rock Art and Ritual Landscapes beside Issyk-Kul What did the people who herded and hunted around Issyk-Kul three thousand years ago think worth recording, and where did they choose to record it? On the northern shore of the lake in Kyrgyzstan, the answer lies scattered across a slope of dark granite boulders above […]

Kolsai Lakes: Alpine Water, Forests and the Northern Tien Shan

An illustrative view of a deep blue-green lake in a steep valley lined with narrow, spire-shaped spruce, evoking the Kolsai lakes in the northern Tien Shan, Kazakhstan.

Kolsai Lakes: Alpine Water, Forests and the Northern Tien Shan What holds a lake in place halfway up a mountain? At the Kolsai lakes in southeastern Kazakhstan, the answer is the mountain itself: each lake sits behind a barrier of rock and debris that once came down the valley sides and blocked the Kolsai River, […]

Singing Dunes of Kazakhstan: Sand, Sound and the Landscape of Altyn-Emel

An illustrative view of a great pale sand dune lying between two dark stony ridges on a saxaul-dotted plain, evoking the Singing Dune of Altyn-Emel National Park, Kazakhstan.

Singing Dunes of Kazakhstan: Sand, Sound and the Landscape of Altyn-Emel How can a hill of sand make music? Travellers have puzzled over the sounds of the desert for at least seven centuries, from Marco Polo in the Desert of Lop to Charles Darwin in the north of Chile, and the singing dunes of Kazakhstan […]

The Prado Museum in Madrid: Masterpieces Worth Slowing Down For

The neoclassical Villanueva building of the Prado Museum in Madrid, with its colonnaded portico of brick and pale stone behind a lawn and trees.

The Prado Museum in Madrid: Masterpieces Worth Slowing Down For The Prado Museum in Madrid holds one of the great collections of European painting, gathered over three centuries by the kings of Spain, and it is easy to come away from it exhausted, having seen everything and remembered little. The answer is to see less, […]

The Alcazar of Seville: Gardens, Palaces and Practical Tips

The Patio de las Doncellas in the Alcázar of Seville, with its long central pool, sunken garden beds and arcades of carved stucco arches.

The Alcazar of Seville: Gardens, Palaces and Practical Tips Step through the Lion Gate off the Plaza del Triunfo and a thousand years of Seville open up behind one wall: a Moorish courtyard, a Gothic hall, a Christian king’s palace built by craftsmen trained in Muslim Granada, and gardens of orange trees and pools that […]

The Alhambra in Granada: Visiting the Nasrid Palaces and Generalife Gardens

The Alhambra in Granada seen from the Albayzín, its red-ochre walls and towers on a wooded ridge with the snow-capped Sierra Nevada behind.

The Alhambra in Granada: Visiting the Nasrid Palaces and Generalife Gardens Seen from the Albayzín at dusk, the Alhambra looks less like a building than a ridge that has turned to stone, its red walls glowing above the cypresses with the snow of the Sierra Nevada behind. Up close, it is something else again: a […]

Via Egnatia: Rome’s Road Across the Balkans and the Meaning of Movement

Worn limestone paving of an ancient road climbing a wooded mountain valley above a river, an illustrative view of the kind of surviving Via Egnatia stretch found in eastern Albania.

Via Egnatia: Rome’s Road Across the Balkans and the Meaning of Movement Somewhere above the Shkumbin valley in eastern Albania, a line of worn limestone slabs runs between the oaks, the edge stones still in place, the surface polished by more than two thousand years of feet, hooves and wheels. This is the Via Egnatia, […]

Kokino Observatory: Archaeology, Landscape and Interpreting Prehistoric Skies

Weathered volcanic boulders on a hilltop summit above rolling uplands and distant mountain ridges at sunrise, an illustrative view of the kind of highland setting of the Kokino archaeological site in north-eastern North Macedonia.

Kokino Observatory: Archaeology, Landscape and Interpreting Prehistoric Skies On a volcanic summit in the hills of north-eastern North Macedonia, a cluster of split boulders, seat-like rock features and Bronze Age pottery has become a meeting point, and at times a point of disagreement, between archaeologists and astronomers. The Kokino observatory, as the site is popularly […]