Locations

Three green spires over a town on the flat Vojvodina plain — visible from the road long before you get there.

The fortress standing where the Danube narrows towards the Iron Gates, its towers stepping up the rock. In November the reeds along the bank grow taller than a person.

The County Hall closing off the main square at dusk, flags out along the front. A few streets away, twin towers over the crossroads. The whole town is walkable and full of old trees.

An unforgettable night at the Petrovaradin Fortress! Went mainly for The Prodigy, and the legends did not disappoint — the energy was insane. Also discovered I Hate Models — danced my heart out to his set. What a night!

Wooded ridges of Fruška Gora rolling out towards the plain — the only hills for a long way in any direction.

The twin towers of the cathedral over the main square, in a town small enough to cross on foot in fifteen minutes.

Raichle Palace: a secession house covered in blue floral patterning, standing on an ordinary street corner as though there were nothing unusual about it.

Inside the church of Saint Sava — dome and apse covered end to end in gold mosaic, with a chandelier hanging in the middle of all of it.

An ethno village outside town: wooden churches with shingle roofs and a stone bridge over water gone completely green.

Novi Sad is the second-largest city in Serbia and is situated on the banks of the Danube River. The city is known for its rich cultural life, including the historic Petrovaradin Fortress and the annual EXIT music festival, which attracts thousands of visitors from around the world.

Alanya is a popular resort city in southern Turkey, located on the Mediterranean coast. It’s known for its beautiful sandy beaches, the historic Alanya Castle, and picturesque landscapes that attract tourists from around the world.

The city from above: a grid of avenues running out to the horizon, low blocks and cranes all the way. Down at the river in March, the ice still holding and the embankment taped off.

Saint Basil’s lit up at night with the moon coming out behind the domes, no two of them alike. Further north, the main gate of VDNKh with the pavilions glowing at the end of the avenue.

Saint Isaac’s under its gilded dome, seen across the lawn. Out in Kronstadt, the Naval Cathedral takes the low autumn light on its whole facade.

The station at night two days before New Year, the town’s name in red neon over the roof and everything else under snow.

The Bremen Town Musicians in bronze against the brick wall of St Peter’s, tucked into a corner of the old town.

Inside St Peter’s — Bernini’s bronze baldachin standing under the dome, lit from the windows far above it.

The Colosseum from street level, and the Arch of Constantine standing right beside it. Both sit close enough to the road that you turn a corner and they are simply there.

An Italian flag snapping in the wind on the coastal path, with the village and its round harbour tucked into the cove below.

The village stacked up its cliff above a harbour barely big enough for the boats, painted in every colour the owners could get hold of. The Cinque Terre view everyone comes for.

The cathedral by the old port, striped in banded limestone under green domes — closer to Byzantium than to anything else in France.

The west portal of La Seu, carved out of sandstone the same colour as the island. Behind the cathedral walls, shaded courtyards full of potted bougainvillea.

Umbrella pines leaning out over the coast road, the sea showing through the gaps between them.

A single umbrella pine holding down the seafront promenade — clearly there long before the road was laid around it.

Calatrava’s opera house sitting in its own shallow lake at the City of Arts and Sciences, all white shell and no straight lines. Across town, the old centre answers with baroque stonework.

Inside Hagia Sophia, gold mosaic still showing through the vaults overhead. From the hills above Beyoğlu the city runs out past the rooftops to towers on the horizon.

The basilica at dusk, doubled in the still water of the Ebro. Worth the walk to the far bank.

Looking down from the walls of the old town across whitewashed roofs to the harbour, where the boats get steadily larger towards the far end of the quay.

The Oceanographic Museum built straight onto the cliff face above the water, and the palace square up on the rock behind it.

From the pinnacles of the old cathedral on its hill, the city runs out flat to the horizon in every direction.

The rose window and octagonal bell tower of the old priory church, catching the low afternoon sun. Gaudí was born in this town.

Burj Khalifa going up into the haze until you lose the top of it. An hour out of the city, a balloon standing inflated on the dunes.

The Roman aqueduct outside town: two tiers of arches still standing in the scrub, close enough to walk up and put a hand on.

A tower on Pickering Street with gardens hanging off every few floors, and after dark the Supertrees at Gardens by the Bay lit from inside.

A small sheltered beach on the Patong coast — warm, shallow water that stays waist-deep a long way out, with forested headlands closing in on both sides.

A quiet cove just north of Patong: shallow turquoise water, granite boulders at the waterline and a jetty running out towards the headland.

Red lanterns packed tight under a temple roof on Penang, and round the corner one of the wall murals the old town is covered in.

The serrated rock pillars that give the mountain its name, seen from the cable car hauling itself up from the valley floor.

Sagrada Família still wrapped in cranes, its towers pushing up out of the trees. A few blocks away on Passeig de Gràcia, ordinary apartment buildings turn into carved stone and wrought-iron balconies.

The southern tip of Phuket, where visitors stack stone cairns along the ridge under a lone sugar palm. Below the headland the coast folds into a quiet bay.

Motor yachts moored in front of Thai-style villas on the calm eastern side of the island, a world away from the beaches on the west coast.

Limestone cliffs dropping straight into the Andaman Sea, seen from a speedboat working its way around the islands. The water changes colour every hundred metres.

The view down from the granite boulders over the main beach — white sand, a line of moored boats, and water clear enough to see their shadows on the bottom.

A temple roof rising out of the greenery with a limestone karst wall standing directly behind it — the landscape inland from Phang Nga Bay in one frame.

The largest temple on Phuket. Every surface of the spire is covered in gilt and glass mosaic, which against a hard blue sky is almost too bright to look at.

Dusk over the hill country on the road climbing towards Nuwara Eliya, ridge behind ridge going blue into the distance. Tea covers everything that is not too steep to stand on.

White church spires rising over a low street of shopfronts. This stretch of coast has more of them than anywhere else on the island.

Coconut palms leaning down almost to the waterline on the north-west coast, the sand turning orange as the light goes. Behind the beach they stand in ranks all the way inland.

The Royal Botanical Garden outside Kandy, where a palm carries a whole crown of seed pods the size of a fist directly overhead.

The white balustrade running around the temple compound by the lake, with palms coming up over the wall behind it.

The town, together with Forza d’Agrò, was the location for the scenes set in Corleone of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather

We admired the stunningly beautiful bay in Taormina.

We looked at the Fountain of Arethusa, it’s very beautiful.

We admired the beautiful architecture of Catania and visited the majestic Mount Etna volcano.