Category: Middle Ages
-
Lisbon, or how to discover the world and lose yourself
If you take the tram from central Lisbon and straight west (a modern tram, unfortunately, not one of the city’s famous antique ones), you will reach the neighbourhood of Belém in less than an hour. This is a more tranquil, open-spaced part of town than the city centre, with its narrow, busy streets. It is…
-
Strasbourg, or the day Europe split in two
Strasbourg, with its quarter-million souls, has a curious small-town feel to it. Intersecting the street grid is a parallel network of picturesque canals. Bridges crossing the waterways are in summer adorned with magnificent floral decorations, and along the banks lie centuries-old half-timbered houses, as colourful as the flowers. The atmosphere is as much that of…
-
Castillon, or how to win at war
In the south-west of France, about forty minutes by train from Bordeaux, lies the town of Castillon. Few people get on or off at this small station. From there, a street leads down into town, passes a few restaurants, a church, a mairie, crosses the Dordogne River and that’s it. It is a small, sleepy…