Castelli e fortezze, palazzi, ponti storici e opere d'arte fuori dai circuiti, che quasi nessuno va a vedere.
In Madrid, a metro station closed in 1966 is now a free museum: 1920s tilework and advertising signs left perfectly intact.
Jun 28, 2026
Air-raid shelter 307 in Poble-sec, Barcelona: 200 metres of Civil War tunnels, visitable only on tours run by the MUHBA museum.
Jun 28, 2026
The oldest house in Athens is an Ottoman konaki in Plaka: a wine press, a courtyard with a well, and free admission at 96 Adrianou street.
Jun 28, 2026
On the Golden Horn, in Hasköy, an 18th-century Ottoman kiosk-palace with Venetian mirrors and a museum of Turkish musical instruments.
Jun 28, 2026
In Karaköy, a minute from the ferries, a wholly underground mosque in the dungeons of a Byzantine fortress. Squat pillars and three tombs.
Jun 28, 2026
Above Merano, Castel Tirolo guards a double chapel and Romanesque marble portals, reachable only on foot by leaving the car down in the valley.
Jun 23, 2026
In Florence, near San Marco, the Chiostro dello Scalzo holds Andrea del Sarto's Stories of Saint John the Baptist, free of charge.
Jun 23, 2026
A stone's throw from the Imperial Forums, the Renaissance loggia of the Knights of Rhodes looks out over the Forum of Augustus: an almost secret medieval balcony.
Jun 23, 2026
On the Epipoli plateau above Siracusa stands one of the most imposing Greek fortresses: walls, moats and tunnels that are almost always deserted.
Jun 23, 2026