For sale in CIS only! Since 1997 John Lichfield, The Independent 's correspondent in France, has been sending dispatches back to the newspaper in London. More than transient news stories, the popular 'Our Man in Paris' series consists of essays on a...

For sale in CIS only! Lord Byron completed his Grand Tour of the Mediterranean between 1809 and 1811, leaving England at the age of twenty-one as an undiscovered soul and returning as "Byron", with all that implies: the brand, the baggage and the br...

For sale in CIS only! Gustave Flaubert called the Loire "the most French of French rivers". It is the longest river in France and the most varied in scenery and moods. Beginning as a mountain stream in the Ardeche, it issues, 630 miles later, into t...

For sale in CIS only! Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul: these are only three names that have been given to the city that straddles two continents, was the capital of two multinational empires and is today a vibrant commercial and artistic city, t...

For sale in CIS only! The Danube is the longest river in western and central Europe. Rising amidst the beautiful wooded hills of Germany's Black Forest, it touches or winds its way through ten countries and four capital cities before emptying into t...

For sale in CIS only! Few countries are as marked by their history as the Maltese islands of Malta and Gozo. At least five centuries before St. Paul was shipwrecked on Malta's northern shore on his way to Rome and martyrdom, what are perhaps the old...

For sale in CIS only! Before Russians crossed the Urals Mountains in the sixteenth century to settle their "colony" in North Asia, they heard rumours about bountiful fur, of bizarre people without eyes who ate by shrugging their shoulders and of a l...

For sale in CIS only! Scattered off the west coast of mainland Greece are the seven Ionian Islands, celebrated for their spectacular landscapes, olive groves and classical associations. Together with the mountainous mainland region of Epirus, the co...

For sale in CIS only! The philosopher and writer Krystin Lach-Szyrma came to Britain in 1820 as tutor to two Polish princes, as their Grand Tour took them to Enlightenment Scotland, where they spent two years studying at Edinburgh University. After...

For sale in CIS only! Situated on Lake Malaren on one of the world's most beautiful harbours, Stockholm has set the benchmark for civilized city-living since the time of the Vikings. Its medieval regal period saw the Vasa dynasty turn a small town i...