For the best view of Oviedo, you should go to the top of Monte Naranco. The view from here is truly breath taking, especially during evenings. You can reach the top by walking, biking or driving.

The Haus der Kunst is an internationally leading centre for contemporary art featuring an interdisciplinary programme. Every year the gallery presents about ten exhibitions of new talents and established artists. Since 2011, a selection of video art from the Goetz Collection has been shown in several displays in the former air raid shelter. In addition to exhibitions and events, the institution prioritises research, study, and the dissemination of knowledge.

The beguinages of Flanders and the Netherlands are always oases of calm and stillness, where you might still expect to see an old beguine mumbling her prayers in a doorway. Two of Ghent’s three beguinages have been included on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Although the Old St Elizabeth Beguinage, in Begijnhofdries in Ghent, is no longer enclosed by a wall, making it simply part of the city, it still has a unique atmosphere. Today the Old St Elizabeth Beguinage is known as ‘holy corner’, a place of religious tolerance, because it has no less than three different churches: one is Roman Catholic, one is Orthodox and the other is Protestant. From bleachfield to orchard This open beguinage grew into something of a ‘beguine city’ in the 13th century, with a church, the ‘Grootjuffer’s House’, an infirmary, a chapel, more than a hundred houses for beguines, a bleachfield (a field where linen was laid out to bleach) and an orchard. After the French Revolution, with increasing industrialisation, the inhabitants moved to their new beguinage in Sint-Amandsberg in 1873.

The windmills made their first appearance in Paralimni in the beginning of the twentieth century and were used by farmers to pump water up for the irrigation of their fields. Soon they multiplied in number, and as a result, Protaras, its most productive area, is often referred to as the land of windmills. The windmills were later replaced by mechanical pumps. Today, the large number of windmills shows the productivity of the past while affording a quaint, nostalgic beauty to the landscape of the area.