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Travel / Europe

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Sicilian Easter Sweets

On the Italian island, marzipan figures—pears, plums, Paschal lambs—are a favorite holiday treat

The little death in Venice: Casanova was forced to flee his beloved home town twice (the San Cassiano Canal).

Who Was Casanova?

The personal memoir of history’s most famous lover reveals a misunderstood intellectual who befriended the likes of Ben Franklin

American soldiers in Paris right after the armistice of World War I.

An American Library in Paris

Founded after World War I, the City of Light’s English-language library has long been a haven for expats, including Hemingway

Two lovers at the canal St-Martin

Is Paris Really for Lovers?

Give Paris its due, but the place has at least its share of unromantic features

An olive tree in Italy

Italy: Where the Olive Oil is the Most Flavorful

An organic farming network gave my niece the opportunity. Then she gave me the nectar of the gods

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in The Trip

Goofing Around in England’s Lake District

Now out on DVD, The Trip, with comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, takes the road movie into the storied English countryside

Although he didn’t realize it at the time, friar Gregor Mendel, statue in the Abbey of St. Thomas, had discovered a crucial genetic mechanism underlying natural selection.

Evotourism ®

Evolution World Tour: Mendel’s Garden, Czech Republic

At an abbey in the Czech town of Brno, a friar studied peas and laid the groundwork for modern genetics

The Jurassic Coast encompasses 185 million years of history.

Evotourism ®

Evolution World Tour: Jurassic Coast, England

The best opportunity to play paleontologist is on the southern coast of England, a site rich with marine reptile fossils

Sites like Brussels' Place du Jeu de Balle are featured in the new Tintin movie.

Tintin is Everywhere in Brussels

The famed comic book character, now a Steven Spielberg-Peter Jackson film, is a nifty way to know the Belgian capital

The Colosseum, inaugurated in A.D. 80, seated 50,000 and hosted gladiatorial games, ritual animal hunts, parades and executions.

The Secrets of Ancient Rome’s Buildings

What is it about Roman concrete that keeps the Pantheon and the Colosseum still standing?

American backpacker Julia Pasternack shares a moment with two Turkish gentlemen.

Tips for Women Traveling in Turkey

One tourist says Turkey may be the friendliest nation she’s experienced. Another was called a “witchy woman.” What’s your experience?

"Luminescent and, unlike me, very tall" is how photographer Ruth Orkin described her friend, then know as Jinx Allen.

An Image of Innocence Abroad

Neither photographer Ruth Orkin nor her subject Jinx Allen realized the stir the collaboration would make

My bicycle, ready for its Bulgarian adventure

Why Go To Bulgaria?

Packing for an adventure to a place layered with relics from the Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Bulgars, Ottoman Turks and Soviets

A monarchist displays images of the Romanovs. Many Russians regard the Romanovs, canonized by the Orthodox Church in 2000, as martyrs.

Resurrecting the Czar

In Russia, the recent discovery of the remains of the two missing Romanov children has pitted science against the church

On the anniversary of the assassination of an anti-mafia magistrate, Palermo's citizens joined politicians in a fiaccolata, or candlelight vigil, in his honor.

In Sicily, Defying the Mafia

Fed up with extortion and violent crime, ordinary citizens are rising up against organized crime

After doing some digging, author Joshua Hammer discovered an anti-mafia movement going on in Sicily and thought it would make a good Smithsonian story.

Joshua Hammer on “In Sicily, Defying the Mafia”

St. Mark’s Basilica (above) reflects the apogee of Venetian influence: gilded ornamentation, including equine figures looted from Constantinople in 1204, caused it to be known as the Chiesa d’Oro (Church of Gold).

Venice, Italy

A focal point for visitors today, the gateway sign says "Work Will Set You Free," a monstrous lie told to the men, women and children imprisoned there.

Can Auschwitz Be Saved?

Liberated in 1945, the Nazi concentration camp is one of Eastern Europe’s most visited sites—and most fragile

In a once strife-torn Belfast neighborhood (where murals today dramatize a message of hope), reconciliation is taking hold. Even so, says Father Aidan Troy, formerly of a Belfast parish, progress must be nurtured day by day: "Peace is a delicate plant."

In Northern Ireland, Getting Past the Troubles

A decade after Protestants and Catholics agreed on a peace treaty, both sides are adjusting to a hopeful new reality

Now seen as early evidence of prehistoric worship, the hilltop site was previously shunned by researchers as nothing more than a medieval cemetery.

Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?

Predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years, Turkey’s stunning Gobekli Tepe upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization

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