The Danube irrigates Bulgarian crops and provides Bulgarian fishermen their catch. Guest contributor Darmon Richter takes time out in the riverside town of Silistra to reflect on Bulgaria’s complex relationship with the Danube.
Welcome to hidden europe. We promise a fresh perspective on well trodden trails, and a cool look at undiscovered corners.
Our brief is Europe wide, and we criss-cross the continent to bring our readers some of Europe’s very best travel writing. We approach every topic with passion, insight, conviction and authority.
We invite you to look beyond the usual tourist trails — or, if you prefer, stay at home, take out an atlas and enjoy our enthusiasm for the offbeat, the eclectic and the everyday.
hidden europe is a curated collection of words in print and online that has, over two decades, celebrated European
lives and landscapes as part of the publishers’ wider commitment to promote liberal values and mindsets.
Click on the sketch-map below to search for articles relating to your favourite country (on some devices you will see a list of country names instead). Yet no map is perfect, and for countries not shown on the interactive map — and to explore topics, regions or place names — just use the search box below the map.
We regularly make the full version of texts available that were published in hidden europe magazine.
On average we'll add one article every two weeks. Other articles are available as an excerpt on this website.
We have published 70 issues of hidden europe travel magazine and over 500 issues of our electronic newsletter called Letter from Europe. Enjoy a selection of articles and blog posts below.
The Danube irrigates Bulgarian crops and provides Bulgarian fishermen their catch. Guest contributor Darmon Richter takes time out in the riverside town of Silistra to reflect on Bulgaria’s complex relationship with the Danube.
To the south of Palermo in Sicily lies the town of Piana degli Albanesi. The first thing to strike the casual visitor who passes the comune’s boundary line is the customary sign announcing the name of the settlement. Underneath the Italian are the words Hora e Arbëreshëvet with the diaereses hinting at altogether different origins. Susanne and Andrew Edwards investigate Sicily’s Albanian connections.
Laurence Mitchell takes us the Bulgarian–Turkish borderlands to discover the tombs of Thracian kings and upstart beach resorts which wait in vain for guests. First stop is Malko Tarnovo, a former mining town tucked away in the forests just north of the border.
Is the United Kingdom too compact ever to justify taking a domestic flight? With many travellers these days eager to make positive environmental choices, short flights of just an hour or two may soon become a thing of the past. But readers may be surprised to discover that Britain’s longest domestic flight extends to over five hours.
Berlin-based writer Paul Scraton follows in the footsteps of author Vladimir Nabokov as he explores the hills above Montreux. Paul discovers that butterflies and literature make natural partners.
A fortnight of sun, sea and sand beckons! Two weeks of freedom. But is that holiday really a chance to escape the political and moral dilemmas which occupy our minds for the other fifty weeks of the years? We consider some of the ethical issues around European travel.