When you’ve strolled around the City of Love visiting icons like the Lourve, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and eaten more than your share of fresh baguettes and gooey cheese, here are five off-the-beaten-track things to write home about.

Julia Shallcrass visits Amsterdam, which colours its history with fun and interactive museums.

The Spencer Family have lived in the same house for 500 years; I've been living in mine for 15, yet they don't seem to have accumulated nearly so much clutter, writes Jill Worrall.

Italy's most prominent anti-Mafia campaigner has appeared in court to sue the Mobsters who ordered his death.

In the rocky Croatian hills, Jim Eagles enjoys the comfort of fiery spirits and food.

This intriguing city with Slovakian and Hungarian heritage is next year’s European Capital of Culture.

The southern port of Marseilles is unlike other French cities. That becomes apparent as soon as the visitor steps from the train at Saint-Charles terminus, high above the city.

Communist East Germany allowed Western drug companies to use its medical patients as unwitting guinea pigs for tests.

Santa Claus? No grown-up believes in him any more! And yet, even the adults can be seen standing reverently when visiting Santa's office in Finland.

Megan Singleton visits a Turkish gem where Bond shines.

Julia Shallcrass explores the ancient remnants of Rome, from its dark history to the Vatican City.

Jenna Hand sees the best of Vienna on the cheap.

In Cairo, Kevin Pilley gets a taste for one of the Arab world's most evocative treats.

While it may be true that the Irish like their Guinness, it's even truer they like their whiskey as well.

Everyone worries that the All Blacks will have their minds on summer back home instead of the test against England this Sunday.

Discipline, or lack of, has become a prevailing theme throughout the autumn tests and of all the statistics to emerge in the past few weeks, writes Gregor Paul.