For those who choose to make the drive from San Diego, California, to Glacier National Park, Montana, there are many popular places to stop during the two to three-day journey. The most popular include the Las Vegas strip, Salt Lake City, and Yellowstone. But there are also many smaller places of great historical significance that it is worth adding to your itinerary. From forts to mansions to massacre sites, here are nine essential stops for discovering the lives of the region’s Native Americans and early settlers.

1. Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park, Nevada

The first stop out of San Diego will take five to six hours to reach. After passing the Mojave National Preserve and crossing the state line into Nevada, you’ll arrive at the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort, built by Mormon missionaries in 1855. It was the first permanent non-native settlement in the Las Vegas Valley. Established alongside a spring-fed creek, it quickly attracted traders, gold seekers, emigrants, and the native Paiute. Many traveling to California along the Old Spanish Trail would stop at the fort.

Built with adobe bricks and consisting of two bastions and four walls 150 feet long, the fort has undergone excavations to reveal a range of items that are thought to be of Anasazi and Paiute origin. Today the site is managed by the Mormon Church, and you can see the remains of the fort and historic artifacts in a small museum.

2. Ancestor Square, St. George, Utah

Two hours northeast of the Mormon Fort, you will arrive in Ancestor Square in the southeastern tip of Utah. Ancestor Square is a cluster of buildings in the heart of St. George. Founded by Mormon pioneers in 1847 and led by a man called Brigham Young, St George is described as the “art and soul” of Utah.

One of the smallest buildings but perhaps most interesting is the Jailhouse, thought to have been built by Sheriff Hardy around 1880. You can also visit the home of Brigham and Amelia Young, where President Brigham Young resided between 1870 and 1877. There is also the Tabernacle, built in 1867, which now serves as an event venue, the Old Courthouse, built in 1876, which now houses the St. George Chamber of Commerce, and the Opera House, built in 1913, which is now a museum. There are also plenty of quaint shops, cafes, and restaurants to patronize.

3. Cove Fort, Utah

From Ancestor Square, take the 1-15 north past Cedar City and Beaver until you reach a ghost town called Sulphurdale, located in Millard County, Utah, where you will find Cove Fort. It is located between Beaver and Fillmore, which was the capital of the Utah Territory at the time. The fort, constructed with stone quarried from mountains nearby, is laid out in a square, with each wall about 30 meters long. The distinct walls are made up of dark limestone and black volcanic rock. The stone construction is key to its survival over the years. Many other forts were made of wood and have not survived.

Just like today, many 19th-century travelers used the fort as a place to rest and eat during long journeys. The kitchens could serve food to up to 75 people at a time. There was also a resident farrier or blacksmith who shod oxen and horses and likely repaired wagon wheels. The fort has been open to the public since it underwent some restoration in 1988.

4. Albert Fisher Mansion, Salt Lake City, Utah

Drive two and a half hours northbound on the 1-15, past Utah Lake, situated to the east of Provo, and arrive in the heart of Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah. You’ll arrive at Fisher Mansion to discover the story of Albert Fisher. Born in Germany in 1852, he joined the Salt Lake City Mormon community in his 20s. In 1869, the transcontinental railroad connected the Atlantic with the Pacific. The Mormons wanted to prevent their gold coins from going east, so they became a self-sufficient community, building furniture, firearms, and any other product they needed. Fisher became the brewmaster of the Mormon brewery.

After a falling out with the other Mormons, Fisher sought an investor, purchased 15 acres of land on the east bank of the Jordan River, and built his own brewery, Fisher Brewing Company. His home, Fisher Mansion, is open to the public and offers a look into how Albert lived at the time. The company was closed during prohibition, reopened in 1934, and sold in the 1950s. It was revived in 2017 by Tom Fisher Riemondy, a great-great-grandson of Albert Fisher.

5. Bear River Massacre Site, Idaho

Drive north past the Great Salt Lake for two hours to Bear River. Nestled between Preston and Winder are the Bear Massacre Site and Memorial Park. On January 29, 1863, the United States Army, led by Patrick Edward Connor, attacked an encampment belonging to the native Shoshone tribe. Bear Hunter, a Shoshone Chief, led the defense and was killed in action. It is considered a massacre, with the soldiers destroying lodges and wheat supplies, capturing resources such as horses, and killing hundreds of Shoshone men, women, and children.

The attack on the encampment followed rising tensions between the native Shoshone and the Mormon settlers. The Mormons were consuming significant food resources and forcing the Shoshone to move to areas where food was scarce, leading to famine and destitution. From their first regular interactions with these new settlers in 1847 through to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, relations grew increasingly fraught. A young Shoshone man, Pugweenee, was hanged on the belief he had stolen a horse, and the Shoshone retaliated days later by killing young settlers. Today, the area is a sacred burial ground for the Shoshone people.

6. Fort Hall Replica and Commemorative Trading Post, Idaho

An hour north of the Bear River is the Fort Hall Replica and Commemorative Trading Post, built in 1834. It served as a trading post until it was demolished in 1863. The replica that now stands in its place gives insight into the 19th-century lifestyle of the Indigenous Americans, pioneers, and travelers passing through the area. In its day, the fort saw gold seekers, fur traders and trappers, and other prominent figures pass through its gates.

The replica was built using descriptions from people who had visited the original building, along with the original plans from the Hudson Bay Company. Keeping true to the original, the replica was constructed using traditional methods and effectively built by hand.

7. Menor’s Ferry Historic District, Wyoming

Three hours northeast of Fort Hall, across the state border into Wyoming, you will find Menor’s Ferry Historic District. Situated on the west side of the Snake River is a replica of a country store. The original was erected by William D Menor, who arrived in Jackson Hole in 1894. He built his homestead there and constructed a ferryboat, a replica of which can also be seen on site. This ferryboat became a vital means for crossing the Snake River, which became impassable in many places during periods of high water. Many residents used the ferryboat to cross the river and collect timber, gather food, and hunt wildlife.

The ferryboat consists of two pontoons carrying a simple platform, with cables looped through the boat to prevent it from being washed downriver. For 50 cents, a wagon and team could cross, and it was only 25 cents for a horse and rider. When the river became too low, a cable car was available for up to four passengers. Although the homestead was originally built to tap into the area’s natural resources, Bill Menor and his small community of neighbors fell in love with the beauty of Jackson Hole.

8. Fort Ellis Historical Marker, Montana

Just over four hours north of Menor’s Ferry, through Yellowstone National Park, and across the state lines into Montana, is Fort Ellis. Similar to Bear Falls, here, three tribes, the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho, struggled with the growing presence of the settlers from the mid-1800s. In a bid to control their newfound trails, such as the Bozeman Trail, which connected southern Montana (gold rush territory) to eastern Wyoming (the Oregon Trail), the US Army launched military campaigns targeting the Indigenous tribes, building forts to support their military presence. Following the death of John Bozeman in 1867 at the hands of Native Americans, Fort Ellis was constructed.

The fort became a key location for the next 20 years, playing a role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and the Battle of the Big Hole in 1877. Today, many visitors pass through this corridor to access Yellowstone National Park, ski the mountains, and fish and hunt. Fort Ellis no longer stands, but a historical marker marks its place.

9. Fort Connah, Montana

Four hours northwest of Fort Ellis is Fort Connah, a cluster of three buildings, one of which, the storehouse, is an original construction and may be the oldest building in Montana. The fort was largely active between 1846, when it was first erected, and 1871, as a Hudson Bay Trading Post. Replica buildings reflect how the trading post would have looked some 170 years ago.

The trading post, built by the Scotsman Agnus McDonald, was the last of its kind. McDonald named the fort for Connen in his home country. He later changed it to Connah to make it easier for the Native Americans, including the Kootenai, Pend d’Orielle, and Salish tribes, to pronounce. Before 1910, when settlers were encouraged to migrate to the area, the prairie had not seen a plow. It was largely home to local Native American tribes, who used the trading post. In 1871,  the US government forced Hudson Bay Trading to abandon it.

With over 300 rooms across two floors and a gallery space of 633,000 square feet, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is immense. After all, it is the largest museum in the Americas. Under normal circumstances, you need hours, if not days, to enjoy all the art and history that the museum has to offer. But if you do not have days to spend, you should focus on the highlights.

I recently visited the Met, and here are the 10 highlights that stayed with me long after I left.

1. The Temple of Dendur (Gallery 131)

The first stop is the temple of Dendur. To get there, head right from the Great Hall (entrance). You will pass through the Egyptian galleries and get to see some mummies and sarcophagi.

In Gallery 131, you will reach the temple of Dendur, an entire Roman-era Egyptian temple of the 1st century BC. The temple honored the goddess Isis and, beside her, Pedesi and Pihor, deified sons of a local Nubian ruler.

Egypt gifted the temple to the Met, where it has been exhibited in a massive glass-walled pavilion with views of Central Park since 1978.

Leaving the temple of Dendur, make your way through Gallery 116, where you will find the Sphinx of Hatshepsut, Egypt’s famous female pharaoh who left a lasting legacy despite the damnatio memoriae that almost erased her name from history.

2. Perseus with the head of Medusa, Antonio Canova (Gallery 541)

As you head for the European Sculpture and Decorative Art wing, you will encounter Antonio Canova‘s famous statue of Perseus holding the head of the infamous Medusa from Greek Mythology.

Perseus with the head of Medusa is one of the most impactful sculptures you will encounter in the museum and is representative of Neoclassical sculpture of the period.

Canova, a prominent sculptor of the Neoclassical Movement, depicts Perseus at the moment of his triumph, holding the head of his enemy. Unlike other depictions of this mythical episode, such as Caravaggio’s, Canova’s sculptural complex is strangely serene, exuding a calm beauty.

3. Diadoumenos (Gallery 153)

Without a doubt, there are important artifacts in the Arms and Armors section of the Museum. However, this list cannot fit everything. It can, however, fit a Roman copy of the Diadoumenos, one of Classical antiquity’s most famed sculptures.

The ancient Greek sculptor Polykleitos created a statue that may have looked more or less like this one in the fifth century BC. Polykleitos depicts a young man adorning his head with a band after having won an athletic contest.

The calm pose of the man, who stands in contrapposto, creates a tension that makes him look as if he is about to move, which is one of the reasons that made Polykleitos one of antiquity’s most famed sculptors.

The Met’s is not the only copy of a Polykleitean Diadoumenos, and this is what makes this sculpture special. It was so famous that many copies were made; the ancient world couldn’t get enough of it.

4. Marble column from the temple of Artemis at Sardis (Gallery 160)

As you pass through the spacious Leon Levy and Shelby White Court, designed to feel like a Roman villa filled with Greek and Roman art, you will encounter a giant marble column from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis (ca. 300 BC).

The reason this highlight was selected is due to its impact, which allows the viewer to catch a glimpse of the grandeur of the full ancient Greek temple, which once stood fifty-eight feet high. However, there are many other notable artworks in the Met’s Greek and Roman collections if you are interested in these ancient civilizations.

5. Buddha of Medicine Bhaishajyaguru (Yaoshi fo) (Gallery 206)

As you climb to the second floor, turn to your right and enter the Asian art area. You will easily locate the Buddha of Medicine Bhaishajyaguru sitting on a lotus throne encircled by deities at gallery 206. This grandiose painting dates to 1319 and once adorned the Lower Guangsheng (“Vast Triumph”) Temple, in the northern Chinese province of Shanxi.

A break here is well-deserved and much-needed, as time is necessary if you want to properly investigate the rich detail, elegant symbolism, and unique history of this work.

6. Washington Crossing the Delaware, Emanuel Leutze (Gallery 760)

The massive, heroic depiction of the pivotal Revolutionary War moment of Washington crossing the Delaware River is a must-see for everyone interested in American art and history.

Washington Crossing the Delaware (1861) was painted by the German Emanuel Leutze and became popular in his native Germany and, of course, in the United States.

7. Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes, Marie Denise Villers (Gallery 634)

Although the Met is known for its rare collection of Vermeers (Gallery 614) and for Rembrandt’s Aristotle holding a bust of Homer (Gallery 616), I particularly enjoyed Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes by Marie Denise Villers, and, after learning about the painting’s story, I genuinely believe that it deserves a place in your must-see list.

I spent quite some time looking at the painting, which has its unique way of drawing you in. The woman’s gaze, staring directly at the viewer, first captures your attention. The woman appears to be drawing. The light is coming from a window that appears to be broken. Outside, a couple is chatting.

The painting’s special history is related to the representation of women in art. The woman with the mesmerizing gaze is Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes (1786-1868), a skilled painter who wanted to become a professional artist but gave up art when she got married, which helps explain why the couple stands behind the broken window of the woman staring at us from this painting.

8. Ballet Class, Edgar Degas (Gallery 815)

If you ever took an Art History class, you probably know that when ballet dancers are involved in a painting, it’s probably a Degas. The Dance Class is probably the French painter’s most famous work, and one of his most crowded.

Twenty-four women, ballerinas and their mothers, attend a class conducted by Jules Perrot, a famous ballet master.

In the same gallery, you will also find Degas’s Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, proudly posing surrounded by other ballerinas, also painted by Degas.

9. Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, Vincent Van Gogh (Gallery 822)

Van Gogh‘s fame and popularity have turned the artist into a contemporary myth. Van Gogh painted this self-portrait in 1887. In total, he would paint 20 self-portraits throughout his turbulent life.

In the surrounding rooms, you will find other famous paintings by Van Gogh, such as the Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889), other artists such as Seurat, Renoir, Gauguin, and more. This section is a maze, but it’s ok to get a bit lost here.

10. Self-Portrait, Leonora Carrington (Gallery 901)

Carrington’s Self-Portrait is truly impossible to ignore. The more you look at the image, the more you feel drawn to it, and the more you discover.

Leonora Carrington depicted herself seated next to a lactating hyena while a rocking horse is levitating behind her, and another (this time real) galloping horse can be observed outside of the room’s door.

The painter is depicting herself with wild hair, just like the horse’s mane, while her green jacket matches the forest outside.

Tips for Your Visit

1. Book Your Ticket & Plan Ahead

Although in my case, I did not encounter a problem, if you only have three hours, then you do not want to spend a single minute stuck in a queue. Buy your ticket ahead of time and skip the line. You can buy your ticket on the museum’s website.

2. The Map!

The museum’s map is your best companion. Follow the red path; it will take you to the highlights. Since time is of the essence, you don’t want to get lost. You can also find the map at the Met’s website.

3. Pace Yourself

With over 300 rooms across two floors and a gallery space of 633,000 square feet, you need to find a pace that will keep you going. Going too slow will tire you out fast. Going too fast will prevent you from processing the information in each room. Find a pace that works for you and keep it going.

Keep in mind that you cannot see everything. You do not need to read every single label. You do not need to look at every single artifact. You have enough time to see the highlights only.

If you have time to spare, then you should probably plan a few consecutive visits to the museum. There is so much to see and learn at the Met, that your time there is never enough.

Portugal has one of the oldest borders in Europe. However, several people occupied the region long before the Zamora Treaty officially recognized the Portuguese Kingdom in 1143. Iberian tribes and the Celts were the first. Next came the Roman Empire and the Visigoths. However, it was the Moors who stayed the longest. Their presence left deep marks in Portuguese culture, especially in Silves. The historic capital of the Algarve region, Silves can be explored on a valuable day trip from any of the major coastal cities. Read on to discover the history of the city and the most important historic sights to see.

Xelb: Arab Prodigy of the Gharb Al-Andalus

Silves is an ancient city dating back to the Iron Age, where Phoenicians and Romans lived before the Moors conquered the city in 716 CE. Xelb, as it became known, was a wealthy city in the Gharb Al-Andalus (the southwestern region of the Iberian Peninsula). Surrounded by fertile agricultural fields and located 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the coastline, Silves was only accessible by boat through the Arade River. As a result, trading with other cities in Al-Andalus was fairly safe.

To strengthen their occupation, the Moors allowed both Christians and Jews to stay and continue with their daily lives as long as they abided by Moorish laws. Since the Visigoths tormented the Jews with forced baptisms or exile, this felt like a breath of fresh air.

As a result, Xelb enjoyed a long period of prosperity and peace. Over the years, the city grew to hold 30,000 people from all over Northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Eventually, the city flourished and became an economic and cultural mecca, also known as a city of philosophers and poets. It is often compared to other magnificent cities such as Lisbon, Seville, and Cordoba.

Due to Xelb’s political and economic influence, it was declared the Taifa of Silves. The city was the capital of an independent Arab kingdom, ruling the westernmost region of the current Algarve.

Silves After the “Reconquista”

As the Moors enjoyed economic prosperity in the south, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, Count Afonso Henriques of Condado Portucalense had one goal: to expel the Moors and claim their territory.

After winning the Ourique Battle against the Moors, Afonso Henriques was proclaimed the first King of Portugal in 1143. During his lifetime, he also conquered Coimbra, Santarém, and Lisbon. His descendants followed in his footsteps and continued pushing the Moors further south.

Sancho I, son of D. Afonso Henriques, was the first king to try to conquer Silves. Due to the city’s strategic importance, D. Sancho believed that if he overthrew the city, others in the region would follow. Yet, he did not have enough men or weapons to face the Moors. As a result, he hired Northern European crusaders headed to the Holy Land and promised them payment in the form of looting Silves’ riches.

After a long siege, the Moors finally surrendered. The Crusaders looted the city and disregarded the king’s orders by killing anyone standing in their way. Silves was almost deserted after the battle. The survivors fled to Seville and Granada, leaving only a few Christian soldiers and farmers behind.

The Moors reconquered the city a few years later, but Silves lacked its former splendor. In 1249, the Christian armies conquered the city again in another bloody battle. King D. Afonso III ordered the resettlement of Silves and named it the capital of the Algarve Kingdom. Nevertheless, Silves’ economy declined as people settled in the coastal areas and lived in fear of another battle.

Silves’ Historical Heritage

While roaming Silves’ streets, you will find traces of the city’s past everywhere you look. The labyrinthine narrow-cobbled alleys, white-washed houses, rooftop terraces, indoor gardens, and façades covered in geometric-shaped “azulejos” (tiles) are some of the Moorish influences still visible today. The Moors also introduced the Algarve’s most well-known fruits: orange, almond, carob, and figs. The region’s warm and sunny weather created the perfect conditions for these fruits to thrive.

Even the word “Algarve” comes from the Arabic “Al-Gharb,” and according to the Portuguese writer Adalberto Alves, there are more than 19,000 Portuguese words of Arabic origin. Silves hides many intriguing facts, and every corner veils a piece of history.

The Impressive Red-Walled Castello de Silves

Once you arrive in Silves, you will feel drawn to the imposing castle on top of the hill and its surrounding walls. Although history books tell us the Moors built the castle, the truth is that they repurposed an existing Roman fortress. Covering more than 12,000 square meters (approx. 13,0000 square feet), the castle and its walls were built with “taipa,” a mixture of clay, pebbles, sand, and local sandstone, which is responsible for its distinctive red tone.

The Islamic fortification organized the city into two different areas: the “alcáçova” (from the Arabic “al-kasbah”) and the “medina.” The alcáçova refers to a large area on top of the hill, inside the castle walls, protected by eleven towers. Here, you can admire the Moura cistern, the largest in the alcáçova, which supplied Silves until the early 1990s. Today, the city council converted the cistern into an exhibition room. A few steps away, you will find the cistern of the Dogs.

Together, these cisterns collected and stored rainwater, supplying the alcáçova and the medina year-round. Inside the alcáçova, you will also find the archeological remains of the Palace of Balconies. This palace fortress had an area of 320 square meters (1050 feet), two floors, and plenty of rooms, patios, indoor gardens, and baths. According to archaeologists, this is the only Islamic palace in Portugal. Here, you can admire the recreation of the palace’s Islamic broken arches and imagine how luxurious this building once was.

Surrounded by outer walls, the medina was a mixture of white-washed houses and labyrinthine narrow streets. Over the centuries, Silves Castle was rebuilt several times, due to the violent battles, but also several earthquakes that hit the region. Nevertheless, Silves’ Castle is a unique example of Islamic military architecture in Portugal.

Exploring the City Gate

Originally, Silves had three city gates: Porta da Almedina, Porta do Sol, and Porta da Azóia. Nowadays, only Porta da Almedina still stands, known as Torreão das Portas da Cidade. It is a sandstone albarrana tower, which provided access from the alcáçova to the medina and the city mosque. While walking through it, you will notice the narrow curve designed to make access difficult. More recently, the Portas da Cidade accommodated the city council, the local police, and the library. Today, it is one of the city’s landmarks.

Silves Municipal Archaeology Museum

A short distance from Portas da Cidade, you will find the Silves Municipal Archaeological Museum. It contains an extensive archaeological collection recovered from excavations in and around Silves, dating back to prehistoric times, through to the Iron Age, and the Roman occupation. Yet, most of the artifacts on display come from the Islamic occupation.

The central piece in the museum is a 12th-century Almohad cistern-well. Built with the local red sandstone, the cistern well has a mouth three meters in diameter (10 feet) and is connected to phreatic waters 18 meters deep (59 feet). The water level at the bottom of the well is visible year-round. A vaulted spiral staircase with three windows and roofed by a segmented tunnel vault allows access to the well’s depth, and provides ventilation and natural light.

This incredible monument is located close to the wall surrounding the medina. Because of this, archeologists believe the cistern-well’s purpose was to supply the lower parts of the city, including the public baths 100 meters away (328 feet). Once the Christians conquered Silves, the cistern-well was abandoned and filled with rubbish. It was only rediscovered in 1979 when the city council was doing reconstruction work in the area.

Silves’ Cathedral

Although Silves was named the seat of a bishopric in 1189, the cathedral construction only began in 1268 when the Christians conquered the city. The pristine white-washed façade, contrasting with the lively red sandstone, offers a striking view. It is no wonder it is one of the most visited monuments in the Algarve.

The original Gothic style had been altered many times due to reconstruction and restoration works over the centuries. Here, you can admire the Rococo and Manuelino architectural styles of the façade. Inside, you will find Gothic ogival vaults and Baroque side altars. Nevertheless, Silves Cathedral is the best example of Gothic architecture in the Algarve.

Even though archaeologists are still looking for unequivocal evidence, they believe the cathedral was built over an old mosque. They have already found the remains of a cistern under the cathedral and worn stones in the tower bell, which have led archaeologists to believe these are much older than other stones in the same area.

The Roman Bridge

This bridge’s origins remain a mystery to this day. The locals call it “Ponte Romana” (the Roman Bridge). However, the bridge, as we see it today, was built in the 15th century. According to the latest investigations, there is no evidence that the bridge was a piece of repurposed infrastructure. Besides, the Islamic descriptions of Silves never mention a bridge. The first reference dates to 1439, when the population complained to the king about a bridge damaged by floods. In the following years, the bridge was rebuilt.

Built with red sandstone blocks, Silves’ Roman Bridge is 76 meters long (250 feet) and five meters (16 feet) wide. The iconic five-round arches supporting the bridge’s deck are interspersed with triple-sided pyramidal carvings, with side railings and a belvedere.

The Roman Bridge was the main access to the Western Algarve until the 1960s, when it showed signs of structural damage. As a result, the city council built a new bridge and converted the old one into a pedestrian pathway.

Today, the English county of Worcestershire is probably best known for Worcestershire Sauce. Sandwiched between the Cotswolds, the Marches, and Birmingham, it’s an easy county to skip over. But if you do, you will be missing out! Its 672 square miles are filled with beautiful rolling countryside, picturesque towns and villages, and scores of heritage sites. These are the top ten historical sites to visit in Worcestershire if you find yourself there.

How to Pronounce “Worcestershire”

Before we get started, few overseas visitors know how to pronounce Worcestershire. The tendency is to over-emphasize the “ces,” as the English likely did at some point in the distant past. In today’s pronunciation, the key is to skip over the “ces” entirely. The correct pronunciation is “Wuss-ter-sheer.”

The name comes from the county “seat,” the city of Worcester, which serves as its administrative and religious center. Its name is derived from Weorgorna Ceastre, which means “fort (or camp) of the Weorgorans,” most likely a sub-tribe of the Hwicce, the Anglo-Saxon tribe that dominated much of the local area. Weorgoran means “people of the winding river” in Old English, probably referring to the River Severn, which snakes its way through the city on its way to the Irish Sea.

People from Worcester are still occasionally known as Weorgorans and the name still appears in Latin renditions of the city name or the titles of officials (such as its bishop). The Weorgorans may have inhabited the area from as early as the 6th century CE, driving out or assimilating the native Britons. Prior to their coming, it had been a Romano-British settlement, chosen because of its convenient fording position on the river.

1. Worcester Cathedral

The most striking building in Worcester is Worcester Cathedral, built on the site where there has been a church since at least the 7th century CE, though rebuilt and elaborated several times. Like most English cathedrals, it was extensively elaborated and rebuilt in Gothic style by the Normans following the 1066 conquest. The 11th century crypt survives for eerie exploration. Many of its outbuildings and appendages were demolished following the Tudor Dissolution of the Monasteries, although ruins still survive around the cathedral.

King John, the infamous tyrant from the story of Robin Hood, is buried in the center. The story goes that his entrails were buried elsewhere, leaving him as gutless in death as he was in life. As well as a king, there is also a prime minister buried here: Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947). He was the predominant British politician of the pre-war period, who was from nearby Bewdley, later (perhaps unfairly) demonized as one of the architects of Appeasement. Further along is an elaborate tomb covered in roses which houses the body of Arthur, Prince of Wales, the son of Henry VII and elder brother of Henry VIII, who died in Herefordshire. The tomb is decorated with the usual symbols of the Tudor monarchy and the Arthurian legend that the dynasty went to great efforts to appropriate. There are also numerous historical curiosities, including a 1225 copy of Magna Carta, the only surviving Antiphoner (a pre-Reformation liturgical book), and a music collection that includes works from Edward Elgar.

The cathedral is open most days, reached by a steep climb up some narrow passageways. The trek is worthwhile for the sweeping views across the city and the surrounding countryside. Helpful signs guide you to identify the key sites of the epic Battle of Worcester of 1651, including the battlefields and where the Royalist and Parliamentary armies were encamped. You may also catch a sight of the local Peregrine falcons which nest in another of the city’s many spires.

2. Fort Royal

Worcester calls itself the “Faithful City,” a reference to its supposed loyalty to the Royalist cause during the English Civil War. In fact, the city, like most others in the country, switched sides depending on which army showed up outside its gates. Still, its association with Charles II and his showdown with Oliver Cromwell in 1651 is an important part of the city’s identity.

Fort Royal Hill is a short walk from the Cathedral and, as the name implies, was one of the main fortifications used by the future Charles II. Until recently, the hill was just a dog-walking park on a grassy mound, ridden with disposable nappies and dog faeces. Thankfully, the site has been reformed with signs giving you full details of how the forces of Cromwell and the Stuarts fought over it.

Heading back towards the cathedral, in the area known as Sidbury, is the Commandery. This is a former cathedral almshouse and hospital but now serves primarily as a Civil War museum with memorabilia such as guns and cannons from the period. The Commandery and Fort Royal were both visited by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in 1786, wishing to see where the “battle for the constitutional liberties of Great Britain” had occurred.

The story continues back in the city center. After realizing all was lost, Charles II fled the scene. Local legend has it that he hid from the Roundheads in the cellar of a pub on Friar Street, known today, conveniently, as the King Charles House. Occasionally, if you sweet talk one of the bar staff, they may even show you where the future monarch hid. Even if they don’t, the 16th century pub building is worth a visit for its wide selection of beer and cider and some of the best pies in the country. Friar Street is one of the last remaining streets in the city filled with traditional buildings housing boutique shops and a vibrant nightlife.

3. Lea & Perrins Sauce Factory

Worcestershire is probably best known abroad for its distinctive sauce, described on The Simpsons as “stanky.” The sauce was invented and sold by two chemists, John Lea and William Perrins, in Worcester in 1837 and was first imported into the United States two years later. The sauce is now owned by Kraft Heinz, but the bottles retain the traditional orange branding, with its faded image of the Worcester factory.

Although there have been constant fears that foreign ownership would mean closure, 40 million bottles of the sauce are still produced at the Midland Road site. The factory building resembles Willy Wonka’s factory, with huge colorful branded coach doors. Unfortunately, it isn’t regularly open to the public but is still worth a look if you’re in the area. If you’re desperate for a tour of a manufacturing center, there’s always Cadbury World, although it will mean leaving the county!

4. Elgar Birthplace Museum

Near Worcester Cathedral is a large statue of Edward Elgar (1857-1934), the great musician best known for the tune to Land of Hope and Glory and the American graduation music (written as Pomp and Circumstance No. 1), and his Enigma Variations (part of which were used in the Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk [2017]). As the statue is now surrounded by bars and restaurants, a fine local tradition has evolved of trying to place a rogue traffic cone on his head.

Elgar grew up in the city but was actually born and spent much of his adult life closer to the epic and beautiful Malvern Hills, which lie a short-drive from the city and are easily visible on clear days. The Elgar Birthplace Museum, within the classic cottage in which he was born, is in Lower Broadheath, a small traditional village just outside the city. Now run by the National Trust, the museum includes a large amount of Elgar memorabilia, family letters, original sheet music, family scrapbooks, and much more.

Despite popular perception, the museum emphasizes that Elgar was an outsider in his own time: a Catholic in a Protestant country, a man of humble origins in a very class conscious society, and extensively influenced by continental music. It is an invaluable stop on the way to the Malvern Hills, allowing you to understand how he was inspired by his upbringing and the Worcestershire countryside to craft his serene, evocative music.

You may then wish to travel out further to St Wulstan’s Catholic Church in Little Malvern, a peaceful church with an “arts and crafts” style interior, where Elgar is buried. Be mindful that the church is only open on days of mass.

5. Malvern Hills

The hills themselves can be seen for miles across the county. A Site of Special Scientific Interest and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, they form the traditional marker of the border between Worcestershire and Herefordshire. As well as inspiring Elgar, they were also favored by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, with the hills probably inspiring some of the landscapes of Middle Earth.

The remains of ancient settlements and hillforts can be found throughout, most famously at British Camp. This is one of the most accessible and visited areas of the hills due to its huge remaining Iron Age earthworks, which are accessed from the Wyche (Hwicce) Cut. Folklore has it that a Briton leader, Caractacus, made his last stand here against the Romans, which some recent archaeological finds may possibly corroborate. Some parts of the hills were quarried until it was forbidden by parliament—one of Britain’s first ever measures of environmental protection—creating some dramatic landscapes and large blue pools, as well as nesting sites for birds.

The hills became a popular visitor attraction in the Victorian period. Concerns over public health led to obsessions over natural cures to ailments among the middle class, leading people to rush from the cities to places like Malvern Spa to bathe and drink the mineral water that bubbles up through its natural springs. The surrounding towns of Little Malvern, Great Malvern, and Malvern Link have distinctive Victorian architecture, and buildings such as St Ann’s Well and the Holy Well within the hills themselves are reminders of this busy period where neuroses over public health helped create modern tourism.

There are numerous villages in and around the hills which are worth a visit. My personal favorite is Hanley Castle. The castle itself no longer stands, but it does have a pub, The Three Kings. Don’t bother looking for a website or trying to book a table. This is a dusty, 15th-century black-and-white timbered pub built next to a 12th century village church, still run by the same family that has served as landlords for generations. It’s cash only, has old-fashioned opening hours (12pm–3pm and 7pm–11pm), and parking can be tricky when it’s busy. Nevertheless, it has (probably) the best traditional ale in the county and music performances by locals throughout the week.

6. Droitwich Spa

North-east of Worcester is Droitwich. Its history revolves around salt. The Romans named the settlement “Salinae.” The Anglo-Saxons renamed it Saltwich, with the “wich” derived again from the Hwicce tribe. It became known as Droitwich following the Norman Conquest, droit meaning “right” in French. There are huge reserves of it just below the ground and a tax on its extraction and production remained a royal revenue until the 1830s. Its natural brine has the highest concentration of salt except for the Dead Sea, with ten times as much as regular seawater. During ancient and medieval times, it was extracted either by hand or by buckets dropped into pits. From the 18th century, pumps began to be installed to draw up the brine from boreholes.

Like Malvern, Droitwich benefited from the health obsession of the Victorian middle classes, who began flocking to the provincial town for its hot, salty pools. As with Malvern, the “Spa” suffix appeared around this time as a tourism gimmick. The original brine baths have long closed. New facilities that opened near the hospital were shut after a dispute between the local council and the operator. Hopes that a hotel group will revive them have come to nought. Visitors can still enjoy the natural saltwater, though, at the open air lido, a favorite among locals. The salt can also be purchased around the town and there is a salt museum at the heritage center. You can also visit working saltworks at Churchfields.

7. Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings

Next along the M5 towards Birmingham is Bromsgrove. In nearby Stoke Heath is the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, an unusual museum in that it is all open-air and consists of 30 historic buildings relocated there for preservation. The structures on display include a functioning windmill and a post-Second World War “prefab” house, designed to be cheap housing for people de-homed by German bombing. There are also medieval wattle-and-daub agricultural buildings, and even a Victorian church, moved and rebuilt from Herefordshire.

Its most popular attraction, however, is a traditional blue police box, of the same design as featured as the TARDIS in Doctor Who. The box is one of the few remaining and was originally from Glasgow. When you’re done at the museum, take a walk around the surrounding countryside, or take a trip onto Bromsgrove’s lively high street.

8. Severn Valley Railway

The Severn Valley Railway is less a historic site than an historical experience. It’s a 16-mile rail line running from Bridgnorth in Shropshire to Kidderminster in Worcestershire. It was originally built in the mid-19th century, following the River Severn and crossing over a Victorian bridge. The route was one of the many savagely axed during the notorious Beeching Cuts of the 1960s, which dismantled large swathes of Britain’s rail network. Local enthusiasts worked and fundraised to preserve and eventually reopen the railway.

It now carries heritage steam and diesel trains alongside some beautiful stretches of the county, overlooking the Severn, and touring past natural and historic sites. More unusually, you will probably also see African elephants as it chugs past West Midland Safari Park. There are also railway-themed attractions along the route, including 19th and 20th century signal boxes. Those happy to pay a little more can also enjoy a classy dining experience. Overall, it’s a relaxed way to experience a traditional British railway while seeing stunning English countryside. If you don’t want to ride the train itself, there are many walks along its route, including in the Wyre Forest, where you’ll probably see the puffing steam of the engines and the sounds of their whistles.

9. Croome Court

Not far from Malvern is Croome Court, an 18th century pile built in Neo-Palladian style for the earls of Coventry, who owned large amounts of land in the area. The mansion and park were designed by “Capability” Brown, the famous British landscape architect. As well as serving as home to the earls, it was also visited by George III, Queen Victoria, and George V. The site was requisitioned during the war for use by the RAF, who operated an airfield at the nearby village of Defford.

Now run by the National Trust, parts of the grounds are free to enter, although the most impressive areas require a small fee. These include walled gardens, pastures, and lakes. There are also numerous follies and small points of interest built by Brown scattered around the park, such as a grotto, a church, a (fake) ruined castle, and a panorama tower.

And, if you have time, there are a number of other impressive country houses in Worcestershire.

Spetchley Park, not far from Worcester, is still the home of the Berkeley family, one of the few elite English families with Anglo-Saxon routes. The original house was burned by a drunken Royalist on the eve of the Battle of Worcester to stop it being used by Cromwell. The current manor was built in 1811 with Bath Stone, set within 4,500 acres of parkland. It was regularly visited by Elgar. During the Second World War, it was identified to be used by Churchill and the Cabinet in the event of German invasion. After the Battle of Britain, it was used as a recuperation site for US Army Air Force pilots. The parkland is a mix of wild woodland filled with deer, manicured gardens, and serene water features.

Witley Court is distinct from many other manors in that it is a ruin. It was originally built in the 17th century but was extensively expanded and redeveloped by subsequent owners, not least the earls of Dudley. However, a fire in 1937 devastated the house, and the owners decided to break up the estate and strip it possessions rather than try and renovate. It has been a property of the Department of the Environment since the 1970s. Rather than undertake a full expensive restoration, they have stabilized the house and refurbished the gardens, making Witley Court a spectacular and unusual ruin.

10. Pershore

A very short drive from Croome is Pershore, where the earls of Coventry had business interests. It doesn’t normally feature on this type of list, but it’s my hometown and I think it is at least worth a stopover. Visitors will immediately notice its unusually large Norman church tower, which is actually the remains of the much larger Pershore Abbey and adjoining monastery. Founded in the reign of King Edgar in the 10th century, the Abbey is worth a visit for its artwork, Victorian stain-glass windows, and ancient charter, as well as the pleasant parkland. It is unusual in that another former church, St Andrew’s, sits right next to it, a result of a dispute between the Abbey and Westminster Abbey. The latter was a major landowner in the area and built the new church for its tenants to spite the monks of Pershore.

The town itself is renowned for its Regency and Georgian architecture, concentrated around the “Broad Street” town square, which is now the main site for local festivals and the monthly farmer and craft market. As Pershore is situated on the main road from Oxford to Worcester (and then to Wales), it was visited occasionally by monarchs. Just a few years ago, the main pub that looks over the town square, The Angel Inn, uncovered a portrait of Elizabeth I painted onto plasterboard, confirming that the Virgin Queen visited and possibly stayed in the town on one of her many itineraries. The painting is now on display in the building.

Those inclined to do so can also go on circuitous walks around the countryside, mostly fixated on the slow-moving Avon River. You may stroll across the Old Pershore Bridge, where you might spot that some of the brickwork in the middle is different. This is because the bridge was blown up in the civil war by retreating Royalists. The walk eventually takes you to Tyldesley Wood, an ancient woodland once belonging to Pershore’s monks, which still has the plum orchards that Pershore was best known for in the 19th century.

Planning a Visit to Worcestershire?

The above is just a snapshot of the rich and deep history of the county. We’ve skipped over the riverside town of Bewdley, the haunted history of St Kenelm’s Church and the Clent Hills, and numerous castle ruins. That’s not even touching on the shire’s industrial and agricultural heritage. Any visitor, though, will be richly rewarded by spending some time in this oft-missed county in the heart of England.

The Taj Mahal. Petra. And Moravian Bethlehem, Pennsylvania? Since 1972, UNESCO has maintained a list of global sites so sacred to humanity that they are called World Heritage Sites.

Considering this, the world raised a collective eyebrow when the newest additions were announced in 2024. Among the many notable historic and natural sites was a collection of 200-year-old stone buildings in eastern Pennsylvania.

How did they qualify for inclusion on the same list as these other landmarks? To understand this, we must first discuss the Reformation.

The First Martin Luther

If you were to make a list of the most important figures of the Protestant Reformation, it is a sure bet that you would probably list Martin Luther right at the top. His well-known writings and his challenge to the authority of the Catholic Church make him among the earliest and most prominent leaders of the Reformation. However, he was far from the first.

100 years before he nailed his famed 95 theses to the door of his local church, another priest in the Czech Republic had already launched what many historians considered to be the first reformation movement.

That priest was named Jan Hus, and in the 1400s, he began openly criticizing the Catholic Church for such practices as simony, infidelity, and, of course, the practice of indulgences, a full century before Martin Luther would do the same. His efforts helped launch the Bohemian Reformation, a religious movement that would be key to why Protestantism first took hold in Germany.

But the activities of Hus didn’t go unnoticed by Rome. Railroaded during an ecumenical council and eventually martyred by being burned at the stake, the Catholic Church thought that it’d put an end to his shenanigans. Little did they know that before he died, Jan had organized his followers into their own separatist church a full century before the rise of Protestantism. Hus’s church would eventually grow into what we still know today as the Moravian church.

The Unitas Fratrum

Soon after the execution of Hus, the Catholic Church realized the job wasn’t quite done, and they moved to snuff out his followers once and for all by launching a full-on Crusade in 1420 that launched what would be known as the Hussite Wars. This should have spelled the end for the followers of Hus, especially given how fractured they were, but miraculously, they were able to defeat not just this first incursion, but three subsequent campaigns as well.

Their resistance was so complete that in the end, the Catholic Church did something it had never before done with a group of heretics: it signed a treaty that allowed the Hussites to practice their own separate form of Christianity in Bohemia without fear of reprisal. It was in this climate that a group known as the Unitas Fratrum organized itself in 1457 in the Czech Republic and would eventually become known as the Moravian Church.

The church would eventually splinter due to the devastation brought on by the Thirty Years War and subsequent persecution, with one group finding refuge on the estate of a German count named Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf in the 1720s. It was there that they regrouped and established the village of Herrnhut, which would eventually serve as the blueprint for what was to come next—international settlements and evangelizing.

From this foundation, the church sent out missionaries, spreading their faith not through force of arms, but through the building of community, and one of the more than 30 settlements established by the Moravians ended up being located in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Bethlehem

In 1741, a group of Moravian missionaries led by Zizendorf himself arrived at the confluence of the Monocacy Creek and the Lehigh River. They sought out the landowner, a wealthy merchant and former mayor of Philadelphia named William Allen, and purchased 500 choice acres on which they intended to build a self-sustaining community. Since the cornerstone was officially laid on Christmas Eve, the group could think of no more fitting a name than Bethlehem.

The community was both industrious and innovative, ahead of its time, especially when it came to urban planning and the construction of purpose-built structures, including notable buildings that would go on to serve their needs. They built the first water supply in the US that was fed by pumps and water towers, the first industrial park in what would eventually become the steel capital of the United States, and like every other Moravian settlement, they built a Gemeinhaus to serve as the hub of the community as a place of worship, learning, and communal living space.

The community operated as a true egalitarian commune. All the members were treated equally, including women, receiving the same education regardless of wealth or gender. Everyone contributed to the sustained development of the community through their labor, and all were taken care of from birth until death. They were, in fact, so dedicated to the ideal of equality that even in the graveyard, everyone was given nearly identical headstones regardless of their status or wealth.

Unlike many other communes, the Moravians didn’t sequester themselves from the outside world. Instead, they sought to build both economic and spiritual connections to those around them. They founded satellite communities across the Mid-Atlantic, including some missions as far west as Ohio. They preached to the nearby Lenape Indians as well as the German settlers in the surrounding area, allowing any converted indigenous people to be buried in their cemetery, which was unusual for the time.

In addition to selling their timber and flour surplus to those nearby, they also petitioned King George III to construct and operate a large “Gasthaus,” eventually naming it the Sun Inn when it opened in 1758. It became an important stopping point for travelers and welcomed many of the era’s most notable people, such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and many others associated with the American War of Independence, especially as the world around them began being consumed by revolution.

The Winds of War Bring Change

Despite a firm desire on the part of church leadership to remain neutral in the war between Great Britain and her colonies, the revolution would find its way into the Moravian community. Despite feeling that rebellion against civil authority was actually forbidden by the New Testament, they were slow to take sides. The congregation saw the Declaration of Independence as premature and continued praying for the health of the king even after the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, something that was regarded as suspicious by many of their neighbors.

As armed conflict broke out and men mustered for war, the Moravians refused, citing their pacifist beliefs. While the government of Pennsylvania didn’t make them serve, they did levy taxes and fines on them in reprisal.

Despite being dedicated pacifists, there was nothing in their philosophy that prevented individual members from choosing to support one side or the other, so the vast majority of the Moravians aligned themselves with the Patriot cause throughout the war. Bethlehem and the surrounding communities became centers of production as well as healing, tending to the wounded and burying the dead. So skilled were they at tending to the wounded that the American Army located its general hospital in Bethlehem during 1777/78.

As the war ended, the Moravians probably hoped that all would go back to the way it was, but while this involvement in the war may have won over their detractors, it did mark the end of their separatist ways.

From Isolation to Integration

By the end of the 1700s, the new nation of America was beginning to form its national identity, and the Moravians found themselves swept up in the cultural change as well. Communal economies were abandoned in favor of stronger ties to the sometimes booming ports and cities of the new nation, and in most of their communities, their distinctiveness began to fade. But in Bethlehem, they held on to two important vestiges of their unique identity: their non-violent tradition and their commitment to education. The latter resulted in the establishment of the Moravian College in 1858.

This institution, along with the church, helped provide Bethlehem’s Moravian community with the stability it needed to continue to exist, even throughout tumultuous times. It also ensured that many of the historic structures that disappeared in other settlements remained intact, a big reason why the site would eventually be considered for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

In 2024, the Pennsylvania Moravian Settlement was finally admitted to this prestigious list, joining three other Moravian communities in Ireland, Germany, and Greenland as the first multinational site to be included from the US. The inclusion of the historic structures of Bethlehem serves as a testament to the enduring global influence that this community still has to this day.

The Novodevichy Convent on the banks of the Moskva River is one of the most distinctive buildings in the Russian capital. Inaugurated in 1898, the Novodevichy cemetery became Russia’s second-most prestigious burial ground during the Soviet period. The graves of many famous Russians buried in other monasteries were transferred to the site. In addition to world-renowned writers, musicians, and actors, Novodevichy is the final resting place for many Soviet and post-Soviet politicians, including three heads of state. But who exactly is buried in Novodevichy Cemetery?

1. Isaac Levitan (1860-1900)

One of the most celebrated Russian landscape artists, Isaac Levitan was born in 1860 to a Jewish family in present-day Lithuania. After the family moved to Moscow, Levitan studied at the Moscow School of Painting and began exhibiting his work in 1877.

In 1880, the Moscow art collector Pavel Tretyakov acquired Levitan’s painting Autumn Day. Sokolniki, featuring a path in a Moscow park with a female figure painted by his friend Nikolay Chekhov (the brother of the writer Anton Chekhov). Tretyakov retained an interest in Levitan’s work and acquired more than 20 pieces during the artist’s lifetime, which are exhibited in the State Tretyakov Gallery.

After leaving the Moscow Art School in 1884, Levitan routinely exhibited his work with the Peredvizhniki movement, a group of artists who moved away from representing classical and Biblical scenes and embraced subjects within Russia. Together with Ivan Shishkin, Levitan represented a new golden age of Russian landscape painting.

While Shishkin is known for bringing the Russian forest to life, Levitan acquired international renown for his “mood landscapes,” often featuring a vast open expanse with a path or creek extending into the distance. His 1894 painting Over Eternal Peace, featuring a small wooden church overlooking a vast body of water that disappears into the horizon, is emblematic of his style.

During the 1890s, Levitan made three trips to Western Europe and acquired international recognition, and he incorporated elements of French Impressionism into his later works. He suffered from poor health for much of his life and was diagnosed with a serious heart condition in 1894. After his death in 1900, he was initially buried at the Dorogomilovo Jewish cemetery in Moscow, but in 1941, his remains were transferred to the Novodevichy Cemetery near Chekhov’s grave.

2. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is one of the most famous Russian writers to have lived. In the West, he is best known for his players, who portray the decline of the Russian gentry at the turn of the 19th century, but in his native Russia, Chekhov is primarily known for his short stories.

Born in Taganrog, near the Black Sea, in 1860, Chekhov remained in his hometown for almost 20 years. In 1876, his father moved to Moscow with his eldest sons to avoid debtor’s prison, leaving Chekhov and his mother behind to sell the estate. After finishing his education, Chekhov joined his family in Moscow in 1879 and began training as a doctor. Before his graduation in 1884, he supported the family by submitting short stories to literary journals.

Chekhov continued writing after he qualified as a doctor. His medical work brought him into frequent contact with poor and sick people whom he treated for free. These experiences influenced his writing, and Chekhov developed a distinctive style by ending his short stories in a way that left it up to readers to draw their own conclusions.

In 1887, Chekhov wrote his first play, Ivanov, which proved an unexpected hit. It was at this time that he formulated the concept known as Chekhov’s gun, a principle stating that every single element of a story should be necessary and contribute to the final plot.

He continued to write several shorter pieces for the stage, but The Seagull played to a hostile audience during its St. Petersburg premiere in 1896. This setback proved a blessing in disguise, as Konstantin Stanislavsky saw the potential of the play as a tragedy and staged a successful revival at the Moscow Art Theater in 1898. Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya premiered in Moscow the following year.

Chekhov was plagued by poor health throughout his life but was reluctant to submit himself to examination by his colleagues. He began coughing blood in the mid-1880s, but it was only in 1897 that he was officially diagnosed with tuberculosis. This prompted him to move to Yalta, where he wrote Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. In 1901, he married the actress Olga Knipper, but they were frequently apart as Chekhov remained in Yalta while Olga continued her career in Moscow.

In 1904, Chekhov and his wife set off to Germany to seek treatment for his illness. He died on July 15, 1904, at the age of 44. His body was returned to Russia in a refrigerated railway carriage carrying oysters and buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.

3. Pyotr Kropotkin (1842-1921)

Best known as a revolutionary theorist, Prince Pyotr Kropotkin was born in Moscow to an aristocratic family in 1842. As a child, Kropotkin enrolled in the Corps of Pages in St. Petersburg and served as a courtier to Tsar Alexander II upon graduation in 1861.

As an opponent of serfdom, Kropotkin welcomed the tsar’s abolition of the institution in 1861 but later believed that the tsar’s reforms did not go far enough. In 1862, he took the opportunity to embark on a five-year journey through Siberia on government service. In addition to surveying lands recently annexed to Russia, he took a great interest in observing how animals survived the harsh climate. His observations helped him develop the concept of mutual aid, in which animals cooperated rather than competed with each other to ensure their survival.

Kropotkin’s existing sympathy for the political prisoners in Siberia and his observations of the natural world led him to adopt left-wing ideas about cooperation. He returned to St. Petersburg and was elected to the Russian Geographical Society, but was inspired by the Paris Commune of 1871 to become more politically active.

Although he rejected political violence, Kropotkin’s call for political agitation was enough to get him arrested by the tsarist secret police in March 1874. He escaped from prison in 1876 and went to Switzerland, where he lived for the next five years until he was expelled by the Swiss authorities following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881.

By 1886, Kropotkin established a base in London, where he would live for the next three decades. During his period, he produced some of his best-known works, including The Conquest of Bread, a political manifesto for anarchist communism, envisaging a society under common ownership where people were only required to work for five hours a week. Responding to claims that humans would not be willing to work without a profit incentive, Kropotkin argued that people are happy to do work they enjoy and are willing to help fellow members of the community.

When the First World War broke out in 1914, Kropotkin split the anarchist movement by declaring in favor of Britain and France. After Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown in 1917, Kropotkin returned to Russia in June. He refused an offer of a post in the Provisional Government but argued for Russia’s continued participation in the war. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, Kropotkin challenged Lenin’s centralization of power. He died in February 1921 at the age of 78 and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery. Although the Bolsheviks offered him a state funeral, they soon suppressed his writings after his death.

4. Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

Sergei Prokofiev was one of the most accomplished Russian composers of the 20th century. Born in 1891 in present-day Ukraine, Prokofiev was a musical prodigy who wrote his first piano piece at the age of five and a short opera at the age of nine. In 1904, he began studying at the St. Petersburg Conservatory after a recommendation from the composer Alexander Glazunov.

Much younger than the other students, Prokofiev was regarded as boastful and arrogant. He was a talented pianist, and his first two piano concertos were regarded by contemporaries as extremely modern and difficult to play. However, he demonstrated his versatility with his First Symphony (the ‘Classical’) from 1917, conforming to a more conventional style.

In 1913, Prokofiev made his first foreign trip and encountered Sergei Diaghilev in Paris. His Scythian Suite of 1915 featured music initially intended for a ballet. He would later write three successful ballets performed by Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes in the 1920s. His 1935 ballet Romeo and Juliet features the famous “Dance of the Knights.”

After the Russian Revolution, Prokofiev received permission from the Soviet Union to leave the country, heading first to the United States and then to Paris. His most famous opera, The Love for Three Oranges, set to a French libretto written by Prokofiev himself, was premiered in Chicago in December 1921. By the 1930s, Prokofiev yearned to return to the Soviet Union. He was commissioned to write the music for the Soviet film Lieutenant Kijé, which premiered in 1934. Prokofiev’s music was so popular that he reworked it into a standalone suite. In 1936, he returned to Moscow permanently and wrote Peter and the Wolf, one of his most famous compositions.

Prokofiev continued to write music for the Soviet film industry, most notably collaborating with Sergei Eisenstein on the 1938 film Alexander Nevsky. A work of propaganda celebrating the triumph of Russian prince Alexander Nevsky over the Teutonic Knights at a time when the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were poised to go to war, the film was suppressed following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact but revived to great acclaim after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Once again, Prokofiev exploited the popularity of his film score to adapt the music into a cantata.

The German invasion encouraged Prokofiev to write a grand opera based on Tolstoy’s War and Peace. After receiving feedback from the Soviet authorities to include more patriotic scenes, he initially produced a two-part version intended to be performed over two nights. A final revised version intended for performance on a single evening was not premiered until after the composer’s death in 1953.

In his later years, Prokofiev collaborated with a younger generation of talented musicians, including pianist Svyatoslav Richter and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. In 1948, his music was denounced by Soviet Culture Minister Andrei Zhdanov “for confused, neuropathological combinations which transform music into cacophony.”

Famously, Prokofiev’s death at the age of 61 on March 5, 1953, was overshadowed by that of Stalin on the same day. His family could not hold his funeral for three days as crowds of Stalin’s mourners prevented the body from being brought out of his apartment near Red Square. When he was eventually buried at Novodevichy Cemetery, the mourners were unable to get hold of any flowers for the grave.

5. Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971)

Nikita Khrushchev served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1953 and 1964. As Soviet leader, he is best known for dismantling Stalin’s cult of personality following his ‘Secret Speech’ of 1956, his unsuccessful efforts to boost agricultural production by turning over ‘Virgin Lands’ for the cultivation of corn, and his confrontation with President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Born in 1894 in Kalinovka near the border between Russia and Ukraine, Nikita Khrushchev trained as a metal worker before becoming a political commissar during the Russian Civil War and rising up the ranks of the Communist Party. As head of the Moscow party organization during the 1930s, he was involved in the construction of the Moscow Metro.

In 1938, Khrushchev became head of the Communist Party in Ukraine and purged the party organization on Stalin’s orders. During the Second World War, Khrushchev served as a commissar on the frontlines in Kyiv and Stalingrad and was also present at the Battle of Kursk. After the war, Khrushchev was restored to the leadership of an enlarged Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow in 1949. As head of the party organization for both the city and surrounding province, Khrushchev launched an expansive housebuilding program to provide cheap accommodation after the ravages of war.

In the months after Stalin’s death in March 1953, Khrushchev emerged as First Secretary of the Communist Party and allied with Premier Georgy Malenkov to oust the notorious secret police head, Lavrenty Beria. He consolidated his power by replacing Malenkov with his protégé Nikolay Bulgarin in 1955 before demoting Bulgarin and becoming premier himself in 1958. Khrushchev’s unpopular reforms to the party apparatus and his decision to back down over the Cuban Missile Crisis saw him overthrown by his protégé Leonid Brezhnev in 1964. Khrushchev died seven years later, in 1971, at the age of 77.

Had Khrushchev died in office, he would undoubtedly have been buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis near Lenin’s Mausoleum. However, when he died in 1971, he was relegated to the Novodevichy Cemetery. At the request of the Khrushchev family, the sculptor Ernst Neizvestny designed a striking funerary monument made of black and white slabs, emphasizing Khrushchev’s positive and negative legacies. Ironically, Neizvestny had been criticized by Khrushchev in 1962 for “disfigur[ing] the faces of Soviet people.” Until Mikhail Gorbachev’s death in 2022, Khrushchev was the only Soviet leader buried in Novodevichy Cemetery.

6. Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007)

The first president of post-Soviet Russia, Boris Yeltsin was born in Sverdlovsk oblast in 1931. He became a construction worker and joined the Communist Party in 1961. During the 1960s, he was responsible for leading construction projects in the city of Sverdlovsk, present-day Ekaterinburg. In 1976, he was appointed First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Oblast Party Committee. At the age of 45, he was among the youngest provincial leaders in Soviet Russia. In 1977, he ordered the demolition of Ipatiev House, where Tsar Nicholas II and his family had been killed in 1918.

In 1981, Yeltsin joined the Communist Party’s Central Committee. By this time, he began to have doubts about the effectiveness of the Soviet government and began conducting unannounced inspections to obtain a better idea of how the system was actually operating.

Following Mikhail Gorbachev’s accession to the leadership in 1985, Yeltsin was transferred to Moscow, where he served as head of the city’s party organization and dismissed older corrupt officials in favor of a younger generation. Yeltsin believed that Gorbachev’s reforms were not ambitious enough and was dismissed from office in November 1987.

His departure from the government allowed him to lead the liberal opposition to Gorbachev. His election as chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in May 1990 prompted a showdown with Gorbachev after Yeltsin issued a declaration of sovereignty for Russia in June. The following month, he resigned from the Communist Party.

When Communist Party hardliners launched a coup in August 1991 to overthrow Gorbachev, Yeltsin defiantly faced up to the tanks and helped ensure the coup’s failure. After saving Gorbachev, Yeltsin quickly moved to undermine his government. While Gorbachev sought to broker a new Union treaty to save the Soviet Union, Yeltsin met with the presidents of Ukraine and Belarus on December 8, 1991, to form the Commonwealth of Independent States, effectively dissolving the Soviet Union. Gorbachev duly transferred power to Yeltsin on December 25, and the Soviet Union was formally dissolved the following day.

Yeltsin’s presidency is known for radical economic reforms that led to hyperinflation and economic inequality, as well as the rise of oligarchs who acquired privatized state enterprises at low prices. Yeltsin’s reforms faced widespread opposition from parliament, and in 1993, he controversially mobilized tanks to shell the parliament building. He forced through a new constitution that concentrated powers in the hands of the presidents. After trailing Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov early in the 1996 presidential campaign, Yeltsin cut a deal with the oligarchs and won reelection.

Yeltsin had a reputation for heavy drinking and reportedly canceled several meetings with foreign leaders because he was inebriated. Plagued with health problems, Yeltsin resigned from the presidency on December 31, 1999. His prime minister, the relatively unknown Vladimir Putin, succeeded him in a temporary capacity before winning the 2000 presidential election. Yeltsin died of a heart attack in 2007 and is buried at Novodevichy under a large gravestone representing the Russian flag.

The Adriatic port city of Trieste is one of the most unique cities in Italy. Founded on the site of Roman Tergeste and overshadowed by nearby Aquileia for much of its history, Trieste’s fortunes improved gradually under Habsburg rule from 1382. During the 18th century, the Habsburgs transformed Trieste into a thriving port and a cosmopolitan intellectual center, inspiring the nickname “Vienna by the Sea.” While Trieste has been an Italian city for most of the past century, it has retained many of these characteristics up to the present day.

The History of Trieste Begins: Roman Tergeste

The city of Trieste derives its name from the Roman city of Tergeste, first recorded during the 1st century BCE by Julius Caesar, who granted it the status of a colony in 46 BCE. Tergeste was built on top of a hill now known as the Colle San Giusto, where the Castle of San Giusto is now located.

A few years before he became emperor, Octavian ordered the construction of walls around the city. A surviving Roman arch known as the Arco di Riccardo is believed to have been a city gate. It is unclear how the arch received its name, but one theory links it to Richard the Lionheart, who passed through the area in 1192, shortly before he was taken prisoner by Duke Leopold V of Austria.

Tergeste’s fortunes were closely connected to the nearby city of Aquileia, one of the largest cities in Roman antiquity located at the head of the Adriatic. The Via Flavia, built during the reign of Emperor Vespasian, connected Tergeste with Pula on the Istrian peninsula and the Dalmatian coast. The theater of Trieste was built in the 1st century CE and later expanded by Emperor Trajan. The ruins of a basilica dating from the reign of Trajan can also be seen on the site of the Roman Forum on the hill.

Historical artifacts from the region can be seen in the city’s archaeological museum, named in honor of the art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who was assassinated in Trieste in 1768. He was buried in the cemetery next to the Cathedral of San Giusto. His remains were subsequently deposited in a monument built in his honor in the 1820s.

The Middle Ages

Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Adriatic faced considerable political turmoil for several centuries. During this period, Trieste passed between the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy, the Lombards, and the Byzantine Empire. In 788 CE, the town became part of Charlemagne’s Frankish Empire, a precursor to the Holy Roman Empire.

Between the 10th and 13th centuries, Trieste was ruled by its bishop, who enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy from the Patriarchate of Aquileia, one of the most powerful ecclesiastical states in medieval Italy. The Cathedral of San Giusto, built on the site of a Roman temple next to the Forum, continues to serve as the seat of the bishops of Trieste. The first church was built in the 6th century CE, and two more basilicas occupied the site until the present structure was constructed during the 14th century. The church is dedicated to Saint Justus, a 3rd-century Christian martyr from Trieste who is venerated as the city’s patron saint.

By the mid-13th century, Trieste faced threats from the Republic of Venice and the Counts of Gorizia. Over the following half-century, the ecclesiastical authorities gradually relinquished their powers over the city until the government passed into secular administration by 1295. The city continued to struggle in the face of the Venetian threat and was occupied by the Venetians from 1368 to 1372.

Habsburg Rule

After Venice renounced its claim to Trieste in 1381, the citizens of Trieste sought the protection of Leopold III of Habsburg, Duke of Austria. The voluntary submission was agreed in September 1382, and the city remained under Habsburg rule for the next 540 years, with a couple of brief exceptions. The Habsburgs lived up to their promise of protecting the city’s autonomy and political rights.

In 1468, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III ordered the construction of a fortified residence for the Imperial Captain on the hill of San Giusto near the cathedral. This edifice, known as the Captain’s House, formed the core of the Castle of San Giusto, which was expanded in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1508-1509, Trieste was briefly occupied by Venice during the War of the League of Cambrai. The Venetians constructed a round bastion to protect the Captain’s House but withdrew before they could carry out their intention of building a triangular fortress. Construction work began on the Lalio and Fiorito bastions in 1553, though the latter was not completed until 1636.

The castle never saw any military action and was already obsolete at the time of its completion. It continued to serve as the residence of the Austrian Imperial Captain until 1750 when a palace was built in the city below. The castle subsequently served as an armory and prison and was restored in the 20th century.

Imperial Trading Port

Trieste reached new heights in the 18th century after the city was granted the privileges of a free port by Emperor Charles VI. The city continued its expansion during the reign of Charles’ successor, Empress Maria Theresa, who drained the swamps to the northeast of the old town to create the new district of Borgo Teresiano. The empress envisaged transforming Trieste into a modern Venice by constructing a network of canals. Financial pressures meant only the Canal Grande and two minor canals were completed. Nevertheless, the city became the largest port in the Habsburg Empire, with a population of 30,000 at the end of the 18th century.

During the turn of the 19th century, Trieste was occupied by French troops on three occasions during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It became part of the Illyrian Provinces in the Napoleonic Empire between 1809 and 1813. Trieste regained the status of Free Imperial City after the restoration of Austrian rule and continued to thrive as a commercial port.

In 1833, the company of Österreichischer Lloyd (Austrian Lloyd) was founded in Trieste to facilitate information exchange in the shipping industry, inspired by Lloyd’s of London. The company began its shipbuilding operations in 1836 with the construction of six steamships for the Levant trade. The company would soon become the largest shipping company in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, carrying both freight and passengers.

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 enabled Austrian Lloyd to expand further into Asia, running passenger services to Mumbai, Colombo, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The company had become so successful that, in 1907, it moved its operational headquarters to Vienna. After Trieste was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy,  the restructured company moved its headquarters back to Trieste and was renamed Lloyd Triestino in 1919.

Trieste’s political status was elevated in 1849 when it became the capital of the Austrian Littoral region,  and the city’s trade links were further enhanced by the completion of the Austrian Southern Railway in 1857, which connected Trieste to Vienna via Slovenia.

Archduke Maximilian and Miramare Castle

Located five miles to the north of the city center, Miramare Castle and its surrounding park are some of Trieste’s most famous attractions, welcoming some one million visitors each year. The castle was built between 1856 and 1860 for Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria, the younger brother of Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. The archduke had been made an officer of the Austrian Navy in 1852 and appointed commander-in-chief in 1854. Since the Austrian Navy was based in Trieste, the archduke sought to build a suitable palatial residence for him and his wife, Charlotte.

The castle’s eclectic design reflected the personal tastes of Archduke Maximilian. The ground floor was intended for the personal use of Maximilian and Charlotte. Maximilian’s study and bedroom were based on the cabins of the frigate Novara, which completed a circumnavigation of the world in 1857-1859, commissioned by Maximilian. Other highlights include the library and the Throne Room on the first floor.

A few years after Maximilian and Charlotte moved into Miramare, the archduke accepted an invitation from Mexican conservatives to become emperor of Mexico. The couple duly left for Mexico aboard the Novara in 1864. Although he was able to establish a government in Mexico City with French military assistance, Maximilian’s reign as Emperor of Mexico was tragically brief.

The conservatives were no match for Benito Juarez’s Republicans, and after Napoleon III withdrew the French troops, Maximilian was captured by the Republicans in May 1867 and executed on June 19, 1867. In 1868, the Novara brought Maximilian’s body from Mexico to Miramare en route to the Imperial Crypt in Vienna.

After Maximilian’s death, Miramare continued to host members of the Habsburg imperial family, and Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) stayed in the castle on more than a dozen occasions. After Trieste became part of Italy in the aftermath of the First World War, Miramare became the residence of Duke Amadeo of Aosta, the cousin of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.

City of Culture

Trieste’s success as a trade hub made it a cosmopolitan city during the 19th century. Small but wealthy communities of Greek and Serbian merchants sponsored the construction of Orthodox churches, while the Great Synagogue of Trieste, built in 1912, served the city’s rich and influential Jewish community. The city’s architecture, particularly in the Borgo Teresiano, resembled that of the Austrian capital of Vienna.

As a major European center of the coffee trade, Trieste came to be known for its coffee culture, and it continues to be regarded as Italy’s coffee capital. The city’s famous coffee houses attracted several prominent writers and intellectuals at the turn of the 20th century. Italian writers Umberto Saba and Italo Svevo were born in the city, and Trieste served as James Joyce’s primary residence from 1905 to 1920. The Caffè Pirona in Trieste was a favorite spot for all three, and according to local legend, Joyce began writing Ulysses in the café.

During this period, Trieste was also subject to ethnic and social unrest as the Austrian authorities struggled to deal with nationalist sentiment among the city’s Italian and Slavic populations. According to the 1910 census, 52% of the population spoke Italian, and 25% spoke Slovenian, compared to the 5% of German speakers, most of whom were government officials. In December 1882, the Italian nationalist Guglielmo Oberdan was arrested and executed for planning an assassination attempt on Emperor Franz Joseph during the latter’s visit to Trieste.

The History of Trieste During the World Wars

Following the outbreak of World War I, Italy joined the Allies in 1915 intent on annexing Trieste and other Italian-speaking territories, called terre irridente (unredeemed territories) in Italian, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Most of the city’s inhabitants refused to fight for the Austrians and instead enlisted in the Italian Army.

After the collapse of the Austrian war effort in late 1918, Italian troops occupied the city in November. The Italian annexation of Trieste was formalized in the Treaty of Rapallo of 1920, signed between Italy and newly independent Yugoslavia. Under the agreement, Trieste was transferred to Italy, but its surrounding hinterland became part of Yugoslavia. The partition led to a decline in the city’s economic fortunes.

During the interwar period, Trieste lived under Italian fascism, and the passage of anti-Jewish legislation in 1938 prompted attacks against the Jewish community. During the interwar period, Trieste served as the major European transit hub for European Jews emigrating to Palestine. During the Second World War, Trieste escaped heavy fighting until late 1943, when it became part of the Italian Social Republic, commonly known as the Republic of Salò, the German puppet regime headed by Mussolini in northern Italy. In 1944 and 1945, the city witnessed attacks by Slovene Partisans and Allied air raids targeting port facilities.

The Yugoslav forces took over the city at the beginning of May and launched brutal reprisals, known in Italy as the “Foibe massacres,” against Italians and anti-Communist Slovenes. They withdrew on June 12 after an agreement with the British. The city came under joint Anglo-American administration and was mentioned in Winston Churchill’s famous speech in March 1946 when he declared, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an “iron curtain” has descended across the continent.” The Anglo-American occupation was formalized in 1947 with the establishment of the Free Territory of Trieste. In 1954, the city returned to Italy, but border disputes with Yugoslavia were not resolved until 1975.

Trieste’s economy experienced a revival at the turn of the 21st century after Slovenia gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and joined the European Union and Schengen Area in 2004. This eliminated border controls between Italy and Slovenia and restored Trieste’s trade links with its historical hinterland.

Although not as famous as other Italian tourist destinations such as Rome, Florence, or Venice, Trieste has been attracting large numbers of foreign tourists in recent years. It remains a center of the coffee trade, and its historic coffee houses continue to attract a large number of artists and intellectuals. Trieste serves as a prominent hub for scientific research in Europe, hosting organizations such as the International Centre for Theoretical Physics and the World Academy of Sciences.

At the height of its power in 117 CE, the Roman Empire spanned from the south of Scotland all the way to Mesopotamia. However, Rome and its European colonies took center stage when it came to architectural marvels that are still left standing today. These are found all over the Old Continent and range from elaborate bathhouses to towering aqueducts and impressive multi-purpose amphitheaters. The following 10 sites and buildings are a living testimony to the longevity of Roman engineering.

1. Porta Nigra (Germany)

At the time of its construction in the late 2nd century CE, the Romans likely did not give much thought to the city gate depicted in the picture above. After all, it was just one of four gatehouses leading into Augusta Treverorum, or the present-day city of Trier in the west of Germany. However, Porta Nigra is the only gate standing today, some 1,850 years after its construction.

The original name was lost to history, while the current one means “A Black Gate,” indicating the darkened color of the gray sandstone that developed over the centuries. Although there is no traffic going through it today, the structure is still exposed to air pollution, since it sits next to a busy road.

During the Middle Ages, the UNESCO World Heritage Site served as a church (the round towers at the front formed the sides of the church) with a monastery next to it. Porta Nigra got its original form back during Napoleon’s reign and has not changed much since. The locals refer to it as de Pocht, or The Gate.

2. Pompeii (Italy)

Pompeii is more than a Roman site; it is an entire city frozen in time. In August 79 CE, Pompeii, together with nearby Herculaneum, was buried under a thick layer of volcanic ash and pumice after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The event was catastrophic to the extent that the location of the ancient town southeast of modern Naples was lost for centuries. When the site was rediscovered at the very end of the 16th century, Pompeii, once a port city, lay inland, as volcanic activity had reshaped the Campanian coastline.

Archaeological excavation did not begin until the mid-18th century, and the European public was enthralled with the classical city that emerged from the ashes. Visitors today get a chance to walk down streets paved with basalt stone blocks and laid out in a grid typical of Roman settlements. They can see various once-opulent villas, the majestic Forum against the backdrop of Mount Vesuvius, public bathhouses, frescos with vivid colors, the amphitheater, and more. Archaeologists are still unearthing parts of the city, as they have only excavated two-thirds of Pompeii so far.

3. The Aqueduct of Segovia (Spain)

When we think of ancient Roman sites, we often refer to ruins. However, the Aqueduct of Segovia was in active use until 1973. It is located in the city of Segovia, the capital of a province of the same name, just northwest of Madrid.

Near the end of the 1st century CE, Roman engineers constructed an imposing aqueduct to channel water from nearby mountains into the settlement. Today, the Old Town, together with the Aqueduct, has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The most imposing section of the 15-kilometer-long aqueduct is the double-arched bridge that is twice as tall as the Hollywood sign. At Plaza del Azoguejo in the city center, the structure stands the highest at some 28 meters. The Romans constructed the entire aqueduct using unmortared granite blocks, which give it its distinct look today (pictured above). The 24,000 blocks have been conducting water to Segovia’s fountains for nearly two millennia, a testament to the skill of ancient engineers.

4. The Roman Baths (England)

The next site on our list gave the name to Bath, a city in Somerset, England. The Romans built it around 70 CE, and the baths, or thermae, had remained in use until the end of the empire’s rule over Britain in the 5th century CE.

The bathhouses’ location is over naturally occurring hot springs rich in several dozen minerals, which made them perfect not just for bathing but also for healing. The water’s temperature is around 46 °C. However, this water is not suitable for swimming today, as it flows through lead pipes and is not treated, rendering it unsafe for human use.

The Roman baths were largely unused during the Middle Ages, so most of the gaudy structures we see nowadays as part of the complex are originally from the 1700s. The terraces on classical colonnades and statues date back to the time when Bath was a popular spa city. This architectural style is how Georgians imagined classical architecture. However, the bases of pools and the aforementioned plumbing are authentically Roman.

5. Fort City of Viminacium (Serbia)

Historians estimate that as many as 18 Roman emperors were born in what is today Serbia, the single region outside of the Italian peninsula with the most emperors. The most famous of them, arguably, is Constantine the Great.

Other notable sites in the Balkan country include the imperial city of Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica), imperial residences and villas, such as Mediana (Niš) and Felix Romuliana (Gamzigrad), as well as the remnants of Trajan’s Bridge over the Danube (near Kladovo), the longest permanent bridge in Antiquity.

However, the most interesting site is Viminacium, near the town of Kostolac in Eastern Serbia. The capital of the Roman province of Moesia Prima was both a major city, with an estimated population of 40,000 at its peak, and a military camp (castrum). Around the 1st century CE, a city developed around the camp, which sat on the Via Militaris, an ancient Roman road that started in present-day Belgrade and continued to Singidunum. The Huns pillaged Viminacium in the 5th century CE, only for it to finally disappear after the arrival of Slavs a century later.

6. The Library of Celsus in Ephesus (Türkiye)

The Library of Celsus was the third most famous library in classical Antiquity, right behind the Great Library of Alexandria and the Library of Pergamum. It is located on the Ionian coast of modern-day Türkiye, near the town of Selçuk. It was part of the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, which is today a popular tourist destination and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2015.

The library bears the name of the former Roman proconsul of Asia, commissioned by his son at the beginning of the 2nd century CE. The structure doubled as a mausoleum for the aforementioned proconsul.

The picturesque two-storied façade features 16 columns, decorated with mythological figures and floral motifs. Between the columns, four female statues in niches adorn the front side of the library. They symbolize the moral traits a high Roman official was expected to possess, such as Wisdom, Insight, Virtue, and Knowledge. The statues are modern reproductions (c. 1910), while the originals are on display at the Ephesus Museum, part of the Museum of Art History in Vienna.

7. Pont du Gard (France)

The second aqueduct on our list is not in an urban environment but in a natural one, further stressing its grandeur. Pont du Gard, translated as “The Bridge on the Gardon river,” is the highest Roman aqueduct in the world, standing at 49 meters above the river (at low water).

The Romans constructed it in the mid-1st century CE, during the reign of Claudius or maybe even Nero, to bring water to the colony of Nemausus (present-day Nîmes), some 50 kilometers away. This part of southern France is rich in examples of ancient architecture, as Nîmes is known as “The French Rome.”

The aqueduct bridge features three rows of arches constructed using shelly limestone and weighing 50,000 tons in total. However, the most impressive fact about the structure is the gradient, that is, the tiny downward slope of the water channel. On Pont du Gard, the gradient is just 25 centimeters per kilometer, one of the lowest values of the period.

8. The Colosseum in Rome (Italy)

The Colosseum in the Italian capital is the building most people associate with the Roman Empire. Its official name is Amphitheatrum Flavium, or the Flavian Amphitheatre, in honor of the three emperors from the Flavian dynasty that took part in its construction during the 1st century CE. The amphitheater is a type of open-air public structure that is most similar to a stadium today.

The Colosseum in Rome is the largest amphitheater from Antiquity still standing, with an original capacity of up to 80,000 spectators. Other sizable amphitheaters exist(ed) in Capua near Naples, El Jem in Tunisia, and in Pula, Croatia.

The elliptical amphitheater hosted all sorts of spectacles, such as gladiator fights, battle reenactments, dramas, executions, animal hunts, and even mock sea battles in its early years. During Roman times, the Colosseum was primarily an entertainment venue.

After the 6th century, the structure gradually fell into disuse, as the Roman Empire weakened and earthquakes caused the collapse of some segments. It served partly as a cemetery, a castle, a Christian holy site, and it eventually became an archaeological site, which is now a tourist destination, drawing an average of seven million visitors annually.

8. Odeon of Herodes Atticus (Greece)

Just under the famous Parthenon, on the southwestern slope of the Acropolis of Athens, sits a stone theater from Roman times. Herodes Atticus, a native of Marathon and a Roman senator, ordered its construction in memory of his wife. The year of completion was 161 CE.

The tiered stone stands have the shape of a horseshoe, and there is a three-story wall behind the stage. When the Odeon was still in use, it also boasted a wooden roof made from cedar from Lebanon. The theater could hold around 5,000 spectators, despite appearing small due to the steep incline of the auditorium.

The structure was Roman in form but Greek in its use as a stage for music and oratory. This was symbolic of the new Roman Athens that Hadrian and other rulers envisioned as an imperial city built upon, quite literally, its Greek heritage.

The Odeon served this purpose until the mid-3rd century, when the Germanic tribe of Heruli destroyed it. The structure fell into disrepair, and by the 19th century, only the arches were visible above the ground, as most of the theater was buried in the hillside. Greek architects reconstructed the ancient venue during the 1950s, and today, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus once again hosts musical events.

10. Hadrian’s Wall (England)

Emperor Hadrian ruled the Roman Empire for 21 years and left a significant architectural legacy, most notably, finalizing the reconstruction of the Pantheon in Rome. However, he is most famous today for a structure outside of the capital that bears his name: Hadrian’s Wall.

The construction of this defensive fortification began in 122 CE in the north of present-day England. The wall stretched for some 117 kilometers from the island’s Irish Sea coast in the west to the eastern coast and the North Sea. It was essentially a massive stone wall with ditches on both sides, turrets, gatehouses, and small fortresses that ran its length.

The structure’s subsequent name, the Picts’ Wall, reveals the reasons behind its construction. It was a defensive frontier to separate the province of Britannica, which the Romans deemed civilized, from the northern tribes, most notably, the Caledonians (and later, the Picts), whom the Romans designated as “barbarians.” The wall was a statement of Roman power, serving as both a military installation and a customs house to regulate the flow of people and goods.

The original height of the wall was four and a half meters, although there are no preserved sections of this height. In the centuries after the Romans left Britain (410 CE), the locals largely dismantled Hadrian’s Wall and repurposed its stones for roads, churches, and farmhouses.

Since 1926, Route 66 has let travelers experience the United States of America one nostalgic roadside oddity at a time. What awaits along the Mother Road as it enters its second century?

America’s Route 66 Celebrates 100 Years in 2026

Route 66 was officially established on November 11, 1926. The highway linked small towns and cities across eight states, from Chicago, Illinois, to Los Angeles, California. It carried Dust Bowl migrants westward, fueled local economies, and inspired music, literature, and films.

The diners, gas stations, and neon lights that popped up along Route 66 created a distinctive roadside culture and aesthetic that we still celebrate 100 years later. These eight stops on Route 66 still offer American roadtrippers a tangible connection to the past.

1. Roy’s Motel & Café, California

Roy’s Motel & Café in Amboy, California, was built in the 1950s. It is recognized for its massive Googie-style neon sign, mid-century architecture, and desolate Mojave Desert setting. The site includes angular motel rooms, a café, and gas pumps, providing lodging, food, and fuel for travelers crossing the desert.

2. Shea’s Gas Station Museum, Illinois

Shea’s Gas Station in Springfield, Illinois, operated from the 1940s through the 1980s.  The station served both local customers and Route 66 travelers, providing fuel, maintenance, and a community hub. Today, it functions as a museum, preserving original features, including original gas pumps, service station tools, and signage.

3. Nob Hill Neon Gateways, New Mexico

Albuquerque’s Nob Hill Neon Gateways, commissioned as a public art project in 1993, are twin neon arches that frame Central Avenue and mark Route 66’s path through the city. They are distinguished by their bright neon lighting, structural design, and urban placement, signaling the transition from highway to city street. The gates still serve as functional roadway markers.

4. U-Drop Inn, Texas

The U-Drop Inn in Shamrock, Texas, opened in 1936 as a café and gas station and is notable for its Art Deco facade, stepped tower, and curved canopy. The building served travelers and the local community for decades, offering food, fuel, and a place to rest. Today, it operates as a visitor center and museum while retaining original architectural details and signage.

5. Blue Whale of Catoosa, Oklahoma

Constructed in 1972 as a public swimming attraction, the Blue Whale of Catoosa is an oversized concrete sculpture measuring roughly 80 feet long. Zoologist Hugh S. Davis created it as a surprise anniversary gift for his wife and a swimming hole for his grandchildren. Now, it is recognized as a beloved, whimsical folk-art landmark.

6. Rock Café, Oklahoma

Built in 1939 in Stroud, Oklahoma, the Rock Café is constructed from locally quarried sandstone, rough-hewn on the exterior. The café served travelers and locals for decades, offering meals and a social stop along the highway. After surviving a 2008 fire, the original stonework and interior were restored, and the building continues to operate as a restaurant.

7. Rainbow Bridge, Kansas

The Rainbow Bridge in Riverton, Kansas, dates back to 1923. It is notable for its graceful concrete arches, its small span over the Spring River, and its rarity. It is the last remaining bridge on Route 66 that uses the Marsh Arch concrete design.

8. Wigwam Motel No. 6, Arizona

The Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona, opened in 1950. It is part of the Wigwam Villages chain of motels that first opened in the 1930s. The Arizona motel’s 15 concrete tipis—mistakenly called wigwams—feature original signage and mid-century design, and guests can still stay in the rooms today.

College towns in the United States have a unique charm. Many colleges were built to be the nucleus of thriving communities that attracted academics, creatives, and bright young things. This created melting pots where not only academic ideas, but also good food, great music, and fantastic art emerged. Visiting today can feel like stepping back in time as you walk the planned streets, explore the uplifting architecture, and breathe in the air of possibility and optimism. Start exploring with this list of ten must-visit historic towns in the United States.

1. Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is home to both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, better known as MIT, and Harvard University. Founded in 1630 by Puritan settlers, Harvard was established in 1636 and is now the oldest higher learning institution in the US. You can see plenty of architectural landmarks on campus, such as the Memorial Hall, Widener Library, and the iconic John Harvard statue.

MIT was founded in 1861, but was originally in Boston, and just two days after it was chartered, the Civil War broke out. In 1912, MIT acquired the land in Cambridge where it is currently situated, and a new neoclassical “new technology” campus was designed by William W. Bosworth, largely funded by investment from Kodak. The new campus opened in 1916.

Cambridge is also known for its Revolutionary War sites, such as Cambridge Common. This is where General George Washington took command of the Continental Army in 1775, setting up his headquarters at what is now the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters. The historic home also became poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s residence. It remains a key landmark today.

Mount Auburn Cemetery, founded in 1831, is located near Cambridge. This is America’s first garden cemetery and a peaceful place where historical figures like writer Margaret Fuller rest.

2. Charlottesville, Virginia

The heart of Charlottesville’s identity is formed by the University of Virginia, which was established in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson. The campus was designed from scratch by Jefferson as an innovative “academical village,” centered around the iconic Rotunda, modeled after the Roman Pantheon. Today, the Rotunda and surrounding Lawn remain architectural highlights and are part of a UNESCO World Heritage site along with Monticello, Jefferson’s nearby estate. When you’re here, make sure to marvel at the beautiful gardens and explore the historical exhibits.

If you’re interested in visiting historical sites around Charlottesville, then the Downtown Mall should be at the top of your list. This is a bustling pedestrian street filled with shops, historic architecture, and restaurants. Monticello and nearby presidential homes like James Monroe’s Highland also make for a good visit if you want to learn more about early American history.

3. Princeton, New Jersey

This charming college town is primarily known for Princeton University. The latter was founded as the College of New Jersey in 1746. Located in the heart of town, it’s surrounded by significant historical sites and lush, carefully landscaped grounds that reflect centuries-old architectural styles, from Georgian to Collegiate Gothic.

Nassau Hall is one of the most notable landmarks as it’s the oldest building on Princeton University’s campus. This hall served as a meeting place for the Continental Congress in 1783. This allowed Princeton to become the nation’s capital for a brief period. Nearby, you can find the Morven Museum & Garden. This one was once the home of Declaration signer Richard Stockton. If you want to know more about colonial life and New Jersey’s historical heritage, then it’s a must to visit this museum.

Another popular spot is Palmer Square, which features a mix of eateries, shops, and historical architecture. History and architecture enthusiasts enjoy taking guided walking tours in Princeton. These are offered by the Historical Society of Princeton, and they take you to places such as Bainbridge House and the University Chapel, where you can learn about the area’s Revolutionary War history.

4. New Haven, Connecticut

New Haven makes it to the list of the top college towns in America thanks to Yale University and Southern Connecticut State University. These two respected institutions bring academic prestige and significantly contribute to the rich cultural scene in New Haven.

Yale, the Ivy League university, was founded in 1701 and deeply influenced the character of the town with its Collegiate Gothic and Georgian architecture. The university’s cultural offerings are diverse, from Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which houses literary treasures, to the Yale University Art Gallery, famous for its impressive art collections.

The Southern Connecticut State University started in 1893 as the New Haven State Normal School for training teachers. As the school grew and added courses, it joined the Connecticut State University System in 1983.

The layout of New Haven, including the historic New Haven Green, dates back to 1638. This makes it one of America’s earliest planned cities. The Green is surrounded by historic sites and regularly hosts cultural events. Apart from the campus, you can also explore East Rock Park for panoramic views. Another thing to do is visit the Grove Street Cemetery, America’s first chartered burial ground.

5. Williamsburg, Virginia

This quintessential college town was founded in 1699 as the capital of Virginia. It’s known for its orderly streets and prominent public buildings, including the Capitol and Governor’s Palace. Governor Francis Nicholson intended Williamsburg to be a center for governance, education, and culture. The city remained Old Dominion’s political hub until the capital moved to Richmond in 1780.

Today, Williamsburg is home to the College of William & Mary. This is the second-oldest college in the US. It’s also where notable figures like Thomas Jefferson studied. The Colonial Williamsburg area in the city allows you to witness preserved and reconstructed 18th-century buildings. Some of these include Bruton Parish Church and the Raleigh Tavern, a significant meeting spot during revolutionary debates.

If you love the outdoors, the Colonial Parkway provides you with scenic routes to nearby Jamestown and Yorktown, with the three towns forming the “historic triangle.”

6. Annapolis, Maryland

McDowell Hall, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland. Source: Wikimedia Commons[/caption]

Annapolis has deep connections to both American history and naval tradition. It is known for the United States Naval Academy, which was founded in 1845, as well as St. John’s College, one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the US (founded in 1696). These institutions hold events that contribute to Annapolis’ student life and culture. These include the annual croquet match between the Naval Academy and St. John’s, bringing students and locals together.

Annapolis is obviously rich with many historic sites, such as the Maryland State House, the oldest US Capitol still in legislative use. This site is famous for its role in George Washington’s resignation as Commander-in-Chief and the signing of the Treaty of Paris. The William Paca House and Garden is located nearby. This is an 18th-century mansion that offers a glimpse into colonial life with its charming architecture and gardens.

7. Berkeley, California

Berkeley is best known for the University of California, established in 1868. As the flagship campus of the UC system, the university has become a hub for academic excellence. It also turned into a center of progressive movements, especially during the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s.

The UC Berkeley campus is worth exploring only for its iconic spots, such as the Sather Tower, known as the Campanile. You won’t be able to resist the sweeping views of the Bay Area that this spot offers. Also, another important landmark on campus is the Sproul Plaza, where many historic demonstrations took place.

You’ll also enjoy exploring Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue, which is a lively street lined with unique shops, cafes, and historic sites that capture the college town’s eclectic, activist spirit. Visit the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), where you can see an extensive art collection and film screenings.

8. Athens, Georgia

Founded in 1785, the University of Georgia (UGA) has largely shaped the rich history and culture of the classic college town that is Athens. UGA’s historic North Campus is known as the birthplace of public higher education in the US, and without the slightest doubt, it’s a must to explore this spot, with its grand archway, historic buildings, and picturesque green spaces.

Athens itself was named after the Greek capital in tribute to its scholarly ambitions. Over the years, the town has grown into a lively cultural hub.

Aside from its college history, Athens is also famous for its music scene, which birthed bands like R.E.M. and the B-52s. You can explore this legacy on the Athens Music History Walking Tour or by visiting the iconic Georgia Theatre and 40 Watt Club for live performances.

If art is your thing, head to the Georgia Museum of Art and Lyndon House Arts Center. You can also stroll down historic streets in Athens and see the charming shops, Southern-style eateries, and local landmarks.

9. Oxford, Mississippi

This is not only a college town, but it also deserves the title of a literary haven. Established in 1837, Oxford was named after its British counterpart in hopes of becoming a center for higher education. Needless to say, this vision came true as soon as 1848 when the University of Mississippi, “Ole Miss,” was founded. The university remains a central part of the identity of Oxford today. The campus is historic in itself, as it houses landmarks like the Lyceum and areas that are significant to the Civil Rights Movement.

The historic town square is the heart of Oxford. It features the Lafayette County Courthouse, which dates back to 1873, surrounded by local shops, cafes, and the renowned Square Books bookstore.

One place to explore is Rowan Oak. This is the home of Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner. It now serves as a museum where you can learn about his life and work. Other famous authors linked to Oxford include John Grisham, Larry Brown, and Willie Morris.

10. Ithaca, New York

Nestled in the Finger Lakes region, Ithaca is home to Cornell University as well as Ithaca College. The town boasts a mix of historic sites, academic life, and scenic attractions. It was founded in the early 1800s and quickly became a bustling center rich with landmarks such as DeWitt Park, an area that dates back to the founding of the town. Another landmark is the Ithaca Commons, a pedestrian zone filled with historic buildings, restaurants, and shops.

Ithaca also has plenty of natural sites that it’s famous for, such as Taughannock Falls State Park. Here, you can view one of the highest waterfalls east of the Rockies. Stewart Park, at the southern tip of Cayuga Lake, has historic ties to the silent film industry and offers walking trails and a restored carousel. As a history lover, you can also visit the History Center in Tompkins County, which preserves local artifacts and offers self-guided tours of Ithaca’s historic districts.