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Top destinations
Open a city and see its places on the map.
Places you should not miss
Each place has its own page: the story first, then how to visit.
- Northern China; this page: the sections near BeijingGreat Wall of ChinaMany walls, two thousand years. Start here, then choose a section: Badaling or Mutianyu.
- Rome, ItalyColosseumOpened in AD 80 with a hundred days of games. See the numbered arches, the ranked seats and the lifts under the arena.
- Paris, FranceThe LouvreThe Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory, and eight hundred years of building around them.
- Barcelona, SpainSagrada FamíliaGaudí's unfinished church: stone columns that branch like trees, and a tower 172.5 metres high completed in 2026.
- Paris, FranceEiffel TowerThree hundred metres of iron put up in two years for the 1889 world's fair, and never taken down.
- Beijing, ChinaForbidden CityThe Ming and Qing palace, finished in 1420. World Heritage since 1987.
- Vatican CityVatican MuseumsThe popes' collections in their own palace, ending in the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo's ceiling.
- Kyoto, JapanFushimi Inari ShrineThousands of red gates climbing a wooded hill in Kyoto, each one given by a worshipper.
- Athens, GreeceAcropolis of AthensThe rock above Athens: the Parthenon, the Erechtheion and its maidens, two ancient theatres, and a museum built to wait for missing sculptures.
- Athens, GreeceAcropolis MuseumThe sculptures of the Acropolis, in a glass building at its foot that looks straight up at the Parthenon.
- Seoul, South KoreaGyeongbokgungThe main palace of the Joseon kings, under Mount Bugak in Seoul: destroyed twice and still being rebuilt.
- Xi'an, Shaanxi, ChinaTerracotta ArmyOne ticket, two places: the clay army in its pits, and the unopened tomb it guards. Start here, then open each page.
Browse by country
Choose a country, then a province and a city.
- China22 places
- Italy1 place
- France3 places
- Spain1 place
- Vatican City2 places
- Japan4 places
- Greece2 places
- South Korea1 place
- United Kingdom1 place
- In preparation
- Palace of Versailles
- The Alhambra, Granada
- Tower of London
- Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
- The Pantheon, Rome
- St Mark's Square, Venice
A guide that knows why it matters
Most of us visit great places and leave knowing only that they are old. A sign gives a date. A tour gives twenty minutes. This is for the visitor who wants the rest.
Told object by object
Which statue is which, and why they sit in that order. What was happening elsewhere in the world the year this gate went up. Where to look, and what you are seeing.
Ten minutes or two hours
A simple tour for the essentials, and a deep one for travellers who want everything, and for parents who will be asked a hundred questions.
A stamp for being there
Check in on site and collect the place's stamp in your own passport of the world's cultural sites. It only works if you really went.
How we decide what to tell you
- Scholarship first
- Stories are researched from academic work and official surveys, and checked before they reach you.
- Doubt is marked, not hidden
- Where the record is unclear we say so, and give the competing accounts so you can judge.
- Legends kept apart from facts
- Local legends are worth hearing. They are told as legends, never mixed in with history.
- Written for visitors from elsewhere
- Every place comes with practical notes: tickets, where to start walking, and what a foreign visitor needs to know first.