Posted on March 31, 2010 by Fiona Hilliard

Image by Malz77 via Flickr Dortmund is a large, robust city in Germany’s Ruhrgebiet built on the solid foundations of coal, steel and er, beer. Ok, so the coal mines and steel mills are increasingly winding down or grinding  to a halt, but the local breweries are still merrily churning out the local tipple – [...]

Posted on March 30, 2010 by Fiona Hilliard

Image by Graham Hodgson via Flickr While the rest of Austria snoozes by the fire in its easy chair, it looks as if the city of Linz has snook out the bedroom window in search of a bit of fun and excitement. Linz doesn’t have the elegant architecture or high-brow cultural flair of Salzburg or [...]

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Fiona Hilliard

Image by Iguana Jo via Flickr Rimini, the undisputed capital of Italy’s beach tourism industry may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s one of those places that truly does offer something for everyone – you just have to look past the packed beaches and slightly cheesy nightclubs. It’s a sad state of affairs [...]

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Fiona Hilliard

Image by Joriel “Joz” Jimenez via Flickr The city of Billund in Denmark may be renowned for being the home of plastic men, women, trees, cars…you name it, it’s got clickable bits, but that doesn’t mean Legoland is the be all and end all of Billund.  There are lots of nice attractions worth seeing if [...]

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Fiona Hilliard

Image by clspeace via Flickr Bremen is famous for two things – Beck’s Beer and a creepy children’s fairytale called The Four Musicians of Bremen. In fairness to the Brother’s Grimm, the story probably didn’t set out to be macabre but the artist behind the Ladybird books of the ‘70s saw things differently. If I [...]

Posted on March 24, 2010 by Fiona Hilliard

Image via Wikipedia She may have known her stalagmites from her stalactites, but back in the day, a certain Geography teacher (you know who you are) definitely couldn’t say Charleroi. If she said it once, she must have said it fifty times…FYI for anyone else out there ignorant of the correct enunciation, you pronounce it  “sharl-waw”, not [...]