Things to Do in Europe

With its snow-white limestone facade and fanciful turrets peeking out from the forested mountain tops of the Hohenschwangau valley, Neuschwanstein Castle (Schloss Neuschwanstein) could easily have been lifted from the pages of a fairy tale. In a way, it has—the German castle famously inspired Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle.

Nevsky Prospekt (Не́вский проспе́кт) is the most famous street in Russia and main street of St. Petersberg, spanning from the Admiralty (Адмиралтейства) to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery (Александро-Невской лавры).

As a major central street in the city, Nevsky Prospekt is oft the stomping grounds for many holiday, national, and other celebrations, such as Victory Day, and Day of the City, hosting events from festivals to parades.

The street is also home to many sculptures that captures both Russian heroes and historical figures including Nevsky himself, Catherine the Great, city hero of Leningrad Obelisk, Kutuzov, and one of Mikhail Barclay do Tolly, located in the Kazan area.

The Neue Pinakothek forms part of an extraordinary concentration of art museums just outside Munich’s old town. Its exterior – a gloomy postmodern mish-mash which has aged poorly – is the least impressive of the three museums bearing the “Pinakothek” tag, but once inside all is forgiven.

The collection is largely 19th century art, with a bit of scope creep into the adjoining centuries, and it was first established by King Ludwig I whose philhellenism made Munich a showcase of neo-classicism. There is an impressive showing of English works – Gainsborough, Turner, Constable – as well as masterpieces of German and French Romanticism. Look out for Carl Spitzweg’s The Poor Poet, an affectionate dig at the Romantic cult of the impoverished, garret-dwelling writer. Many visitors will be delighted by the Impressionist collection, which boasts works by almost all of the movement’s leading lights as well as those who came immediately before or after: Monet, Manet, Cezanne and Gauguin, to name a few.

Located in London’s theater land of Covent Garden, the New London Theatre is owned by Lord Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group, and although there have been theaters and music halls on this site since the 17th century, it was redesigned in the early 2000s by Croatian architect Paul Tvrtkovic. Along with its vast, 18-m (60-ft) stage, contemporary acoustics and a new orchestra pit, the new auditorium seats an audience of 960 on two levels and it is currently showing sell-out performances of the deeply moving and award-winning musical War Horse, adapted from the novel by former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo and featuring life-size puppets of horses on stage.

Long upheld as the lifeline of the city, the Neva River runs straight through the heart of St Petersburg, with its many tributaries and canal ways crisscrossing the city center. For visitors to St. Petersburg, following the path of the Neva River makes a popular route for walking tours and sightseeing cruises, with many of the city’s top attractions lining its banks. The grand façades of the Anichkov Palace, the Winter Palace and the Mariinsky Theatre, the Classicist buildings of New Holland Island, the historic Peter and Paul Fortress and the lush Summer Gardens all face onto the waterfront, punctuated by iconic drawbridges like the Peter the Great Bridge and the Palace Bridge.

Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews first came to Prague in the 10th century and over the years they became a thriving part of the city’s cultural and financial community.  Their first cemetery was located in Josefov, where most of Prague’s Jewish resident were required to settle; by the 1890s there were 23,500 Jews living in the city and the Old Jewish Cemetery was full. A new one was built in the suburb of Žižkov, many times bigger with capacity for around 100,000 graves; it is Art Nouveau in style, with imposing entrance gates, ornate mausoleums and majestic family tombs adorned with statuary and inscriptions. Its peaceful and orderly tree-lined avenues are a respite from the hectic street life of central Prague, although tragic reminders of World War II include a memorial wall inscribed with the names of the victims of the Holocaust who perished in Terezín concentration camp. The influential writer Franz Kafka is famously buried there; his literary fans make a pilgrimage to his tomb on the anniversary of his death on June 3, 1924.