Europe

Van Nellefabriek

A masterpiece of modernist industrial design from the inter-war period.

A huge empty market square in Krakow, Poland. At the far end is a tall square tower.

Historic Centre of Kraków

An important market town for hundreds of years and an outstanding example of urban planning, with a range of historical architectural styles.

View over the old town of Dubrovnik: lots of red roofs and the blue sea beyond that.

Old City of Dubrovnik

A well-preserved medieval, Renaissance and Baroque city inside extensive intact fortifications.

Mont-Saint-Michel appears as a pile of stone structures up a hill, forming a conical shape with a recognizably Gothic church spire at the top.

Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay

A magnificent Gothic abbey on top of a small island in a bay with dramatic tides.

A short length of street in Provins lined with medieval-period houses. The one on the left is half-timbered.

Provins, Town of Medieval Fairs

A beautifully intact example of a medieval trading city.

A round building with a semi-spherical green roof, surrounded by very precise formal gardens with low hedges and flowers.

Gardens and Castle at Kroměříž

A palace and three gardens, one of which represents the epitome of Baroque garden design.

A bridge leads to an arched gateway with a square tower next to it in Regensburg, Germany.

Old Town of Regensburg with Stadtamhof

A beautifully-preserved and very picturesque medieval trading city.

In the foreground, a church with a square bell tower. In the background, on a hill, the castle Castelgrande in Bellinzona. Beyond that, a higher mountain.

Three Castles, Defensive Wall and Ramparts of the Market-Town of Bellinzona

Medieval-era fortifications that once guarded a key strategic pass in the southern Alps.

A view into a wide gorge - a river cut through the bottom, and low shrubs or grasses along both banks and up the sides of the gorge.

The Causses and the Cévennes, Mediterranean agro-pastoral Cultural Landscape

A rural landscape shaped by centuries of farming, where old agricultural techniques are still in use.

Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak

A 4th-century tomb containing frescoes that are masterpieces of Hellenistic Thracia.

A view of Edinburgh castle, with a sunset sky behind it. The castle has an arched entryway and much higher walls behind the entry, with rounded walls and crenellations.

Old and New Towns of Edinburgh

A medieval Old Town and a neoclassical New Town that harmonize beautifully and that influenced European urban planning.

Two large arches in the center serve as the gateway. Two floors above lined with arched windows, an extra floor forms a short tower on the left side of the gateway. The whole is made of carved stone that looks dirty.

Roman Monuments, Cathedral of St Peter and Church of Our Lady in Trier

A collection of Roman ruins showing the importance of the “Rome of the North” in Germany.

Looking down an aisle or cloister of the cathedral: gothic arches overhead, gothic windows on the left, tombs set between the arches on the right.

Burgos Cathedral

A magnificent example of Gothic architecture.

The Church of St. Trophime in Arles has a Romanesque entranceway, shown in this photo. Rounded arches above a double door, pillars on each side of the door.

Arles, Roman and Romanesque Monuments

A grand Roman city and its later Romanesque additions, well-preserved in Arles city center.

A partial view of the Jeronimos Monastery shows a very ornate arched entrance, with lots of decorative embellishment around and above it. Along the roofline are filigreed crenellations and a corner of the building has a dome-topped little tower.

Monastery of the Hieronymites and Tower of Belém in Lisbon

Two striking buildings from Portugal’s “Golden Age” of global exploration and seafaring.

Grimeton Radio Station

For radio buffs, a surviving operational example of pre-electronic radio technology.

A view looking up the drive to the castle. It stands on a hill, and in this photo 4 of the octagonal towers show, with two of them framing the main entrance.

Castel del Monte

An unusual castle expressing Frederick II’s search for perfection, leading him to design the castle around the number 8.

A nighttime shot with, on the left, the wall of a building with 2 stories, each a row of rounded archways. Beyond that, a stately-lookng building: white with classical columns lining the front. Between the two, a lighted sculpture: a high arch, lit white, with a large white star where it touches the ground.

City of Verona

A city exemplifying 2000 years of uninterrupted artistic and architectural development.

St Kilda

An isolated island of dramatic landscapes: a nature sanctuary, with ample evidence of human fortitude in such a remote spot.

A small building standing apart from other buildings, the gatehouse at Lorsch has two stories. The ground floor is open, with 3 arches front and back, so, from this front view, you can see through the building. The upper story has 3 small windows. The facade has rather intricate stonework, with a checkerboard pattern of red and light brown bricks. A half-round structure has been added at each end.

Abbey and Altenmünster of Lorsch

A rare example of architecture from the Carolingian period.

Speyer Cathedral

A landmark of Romanesque architecture dating to the 11th century.

A row of houses on the other side of a river: very much a Dutch style of facade, tall and narrow with a variety of different roof shapes. Unlike in the Netherlands, though, they are painted in lots of different colors. In front of them, between the water and the buildings: outdoor cafe seating with umbrellas.

Historic Area of Willemstad, Inner City and Harbour, Curaçao

A colorful, dynamic and diverse Caribbean island capital with four distinct historical districts.

A round, 2-3 story structure with stone walls, an ornate Arabic-inspired entrance and window frames.

Cultural Landscape of Sintra

A fine collection of fanciful Romantic-style palaces and castles.

A very ornate building of stone: arched openings all along the ground floor, windows on the upper two floors that are all surrounded by decorative stonework and with iron balconies, and a small bell tower in the center top with three bells in a row.

Old City of Salamanca

An ancient city with stunning architecture in Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles.

The photo looks up at the building, and shows the roof lines: it has crenellations, but more ornate than the usual castle crenellations: these have decorative carvings. the lower part of the building is painted pastel yellow.

La Lonja de la Seda de Valencia

A masterpiece of late-Gothic architecture, used as a trading hall in the silk trade.

High rocks like columns. Front center, low in the photo, is a monastery, in white plaster with a red roof, on a small outcropping. Behind it is a far taller rock, and at the very top right of the photo, more buildings are visible, looking tiny on the top of the rock. Mountains in the distance behind.

Meteora

Perched on high rocks, these monasteries served as places of retreat and prayer for monastic communities.

A cobbled street curves ahead, lined by simple two-story houses, each covered in plaster and painted a pastel white or brown.

Jewish Quarter and St Procopius’ Basilica in Třebíč

A historical Jewish neighborhood and a Catholic Basilica illustrate how Jews and Christians co-existed peacefully.

Closeup of the top of an archway and the wall above it. Every inch is carved with extremely detailed decorations : swirls and complicated shapes, along with some Arabic writing.

Alhambra, Generalife and Albayzín, Granada

A remarkably well-preserved complex of medieval Muslim architecture mixing Moorish and Spanish elements.

The fortress walls on the left, with rounded towers flanking a gate. A stone bridge with multiple arches leads into the gate. Along the wall are two further round guard towers with pointed roofs.

Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne

A classic medieval fortified town with intact walls, a castle, and a Gothic cathedral.

On the left, the facade of a large building, perhaps a church, made of stone with a flat facade but decorative windows. Straight ahead, a view over the red roofs of the city.

Historic Centre of Oporto

A beautiful urban landscape with diverse historical architecture in a range of styles.

A low-ceilinged room, carved out of rock. At the back are two archways (carved, not built). Two people stand in the left-hand archway, showing that the height is about twice a human's height. The right-hand one is larger, and through it more rough-hewn space can be seen in another "room."

Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum

A mysterious underground burial site dating to 4000 BC.

In this partial view of Park Guell, two buildings are visible against a much wider view of the city and the sea. The two buildings are brown stone with colorful roofs that make them look like something out of a fairy tale: then come to a point in a series of wavy shapes. The house on the right also has a tall spire in blue and white tiles with a cross on the top.

Works of Antoni Gaudí

Outstanding works of modernist architecture bringing together a variety of influences from the 19th and 20th centuries.

A row of houses, each painted a different color, mostly in shades of yellows, whites and reds. Each is 3 stories with a peaked roof. The line a wharf where boats are docked..

Bryggen

A beautifully-preserved area of wooden houses and warehouses, once part of the Hanseatic League international trading network.

A palace: not huge, but elegant. Two stories, plus another under the roof, which has a small cupola-like tower in the middle. The walls are yellow with white trim.

Classical Weimar

An influential cultural center in the late 18th and early 19th century as demonstrated today in the quality of its architecture and parks.

A young man dressed in walking clothes and carrying a small backpack passes a sign reading "Santiago de la Compostela 790"

Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino Francés and Routes of Northern Spain

Ancient long-distance pilgrimage routes, still walked today.

The castle is perched on a hill, with a single square tower in its middle. The left'hand wing is brick and/or stone, while the right-hand wing is white plaster with exposed timber beams.

Wartburg Castle

An imposing castle, important because of its role in Martin Luther’s life.