Exploring cultures and communities – the slow way

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Letter from Europe

Election thoughts

  • 6 Nov 2016
We watched the run-up, the live TV debates and the tough exchanges veering at times towards acrimony. We've followed the arguments on national security, foreign policy and the question of who has the personal authority and good judgement to lead ...
(photo © Redeyed / dreamstime.com)
hidden europe note

Small is beautiful: the view from the Vatican

  • 4 Mar 2013
Rarely has the Vatican been so much in the spotlight as over the last week or two. The dog days of a papacy have never in recent times been quite so clearly defined as they were in February 2013. Benedict’s announcement on 12 February ushered in 16 ...
Letter from Europe

Napoleon never made it to San Marino

  • 16 Jul 2012
hidden europe 37 is published today. You can review the full table of contents with summaries and extracts from every article on our website. More on that anon, but let's stop for a while on the edge of a Polish forest. In the very centre of the ...
Teetering on the brink: the capital of San Marino clusters around the summit of Mount Titano (photo © hidden europe).
Magazine article

La Serenissima: San Marino
  

No other country in Europe can boast so beautiful a name: La Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino. But to experience the serenity of San Marino, you really need to stay overnight in the capital, which clusters around the summit of Monte Titano. ...
The train to nowhere: all that is left of the San Marino railway (photo © hidden europe).
Magazine article

Stranded in San Marino
  

San Marino may no longer have a passenger railway. It does however still have a train, thus marking out San Marino as one of two countries in Europe that have a train but no railway. The surviving train in San Marino is a graceful addition to the ...
Letter from Europe

A duo of diarchies

  • 12 Jul 2012
Europe boasts an engaging mix of microstates, some less acknowledged internationally than others. The mainland of western Europe numbers five independent nation states that are all among the smallest in the world. Andorra, Liechtenstein, San ...