You can't help but feel a little frisson of excitement as you pass through the tall iron gates of the Shangri-La in Paris.

The magnificent Temple of Apollo at Delphi was once home to the Pythian Oracle, the most famous prophet in the ancient world. Although the great buildings here now lie in ruins, the site still has a powerful atmosphere - it's just the sort of place gods and oracles would be expected to dwell.

The ruins of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi still hold a strange power, writes Jim Eagles.

Dartmoor is incredibly beautiful, filled with quaint old cottages, cute ponies and horned sheep, rushing rivers, wide grassy moors and spectacular rocky outcrops. But when the mists roll across the landscape and the light fades, it's a rather malevolent place ... and it's not hard to see why Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes story 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' was based here.

The scientists who announced they had recorded subatomic particles breaking the speed of light last year have found a small problem.

The colourful people of Provence offer a glimpse into the idyllic nature of country living. Photographs by Babiche Martens.

The colourful people of Provence offer a glimpse into the idyllic nature of country living, Natalie Evans-Freke writes.

David Hill revels in an aristocratic experience at London's ritzy Ritz.

World shares advanced overnight amid expectations a deal on Greece's second financial rescue was imminent and that China was moving to increase liquidity at its banks.

Sarah Payne knows exactly where her best friend, Jane Bishop, made the fateful decision...

Legend has it that the 3000-year-old fortress of Mycenae - site of the romance between Helen and Paris - was founded by the hero Perseus and that he hired the Cyclops, the awful one-eyed giants, to build it.

Dynastic infighting left its mark at ancient Mycenae. Today, the brooding mood remains, writes Jim Eagles.

Europe's leaders are being taught lessons that they refuse to learn.