Macaroni cheeses mysterious origins There was a bite in the cold Alpine fog lingering over the resort town of Fronalpstock in Switzerland’s Canton Schwyz. I wiped my wet boots on the mat and entered Gipfelrestaurant Fronalpstock, a wood-lined mountain tavern on the edge of the snow-capped Schwyzer Alps that overlooks the eerily turquoise Urnersee. I’d […]

Europe’s earliest written language With its sea-drowned caldera, black-sand beaches and crimson sunsets, Santorini is the archetypal Greek island fantasy. But its beauty hides a dark secret. Giannis Bellonias was standing on the edge of a craggy cliffside in Imerovigli, a village built on the apex of Santorini’s vertigo-inducing caldera, waiting for sunset from the […]

The tiny town with a population of one The middle of nowhere Five miles from the South Dakota border in the remote northern reaches of the US state of Nebraska, a long dirt road cuts through rolling prairie grasslands and golden wheat fields towards downtown Monowi, a place you can see in its entirety by […]

Canada’s vital role in the communications revolution The cool, crisp breeze dancing in from the Atlantic Ocean lifted my hair back from my face, and the bright sunshine highlighted a massive iceberg floating a few miles out, a powerful and sparkling contrast against a gentle blue sky. I carefully framed the iceberg over my left […]

What lunch looks like around the world There’s a lot to learn about a country’s work culture from how people take their lunch. But what does a lunch break look like around the world? We asked people from across the globe how they take their midday meal. Scroll down for seven very different ways of […]

The town that sold mountains to the world There’s a story that makes it abundantly clear how a small band of English holidaymakers changed Switzerland forever. It involves a bet between hotelier Johannes Badrutt and an aristocratic group of merchants and landowners that took place on a damp September evening in St Moritz in 1864. […]

 Buenos Aires’ mysterious secret tunnels In 1985, Jorge Eckstein, long-time resident of Buenos Aires’ historical San Telmo neighbourhood, purchased an abandoned mansion near his home that he intended to transform into a restaurant. Built in 1830, the mansion was grand but dilapidated. It was what many Argentines refer to as a ‘casa chorizo’ – so […]

The last beekeepers of Ethiopia’s Harenna forest The sun was beginning its evening dip as I set off into the Harenna Forest. Strange tubular shapes glowed in the treetops, catching the pale golden light. Wedged between branches, they looked like elongated wine barrels or giant cocoons. I was en route to witness a unique honey […]

The European city that loves strangers Few cities in the world rival the antiquity of Athens, where people have lived continuously for thousands of years. Athenians created the first forms of democracy, the plays and philosophy that shaped Western civilisation, and the classical buildings that still dot the Acropolis. Amid the ancient ruins, another survivor […]

The Norwegian town the world tried to erase? For centuries, this arctic Norwegian port has been at the mercy of Mother Nature and man, and yet has risen from the ashes with a deep and defiant response. Much farther north than the famous fjord inlets, Norway’s northernmost seaboard of Finnmark is a frontier on the […]