Northland’s ‘Tarara’ reconnect with Dalmatian roots on Croatia rugby tour
More than a century after their forebears left what was then an impoverished corner of Europe, a Far North rugby team is using sport to rekindle old family ties.
Read more
Europe
“We were starving”: How my aunties saved their family from famine
In the Hunger Winter of 1944-45 Dutch families faced a terrible choice: Risk starving to death or walk hundreds of kilometres in sub-zero temperatures to find food.
Read more
Ukraine revisited: Invasion rekindles memories of long-ago trip
Towering monuments, vibrant cities, and a national identity which has somehow survived Soviet oppression and a turbulent history — those are a few of my memories from a trip to Ukraine long before the Russian invasion.
Read more
The Hunger Diary: My father and the Dutch famine
A chance discovery sheds light on the last famine in Western Europe: The Hunger Winter of 1944-45.
Read more
The Bone Church of Kutná Hora: Final resting place of 40,000 people or macabre tourist attraction?
The monks of Sedlec Abbey, in what is now the Czech Republic, turned a problem into a morbid masterpiece.
Read more
Portmeirion of the south: How the most remarkable village in Wales was almost built in New Zealand
Village’s creator had a “serious flirtation” with an island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf before choosing a bay near his home in Wales instead.
Read more
Being Dutch: What my heritage means to me
What does it mean to be a New Zealander of Dutch descent? And what if the country of my ancestors decides I no longer belong?
Read more
Albania in pictures
Destroyed factories, looted manhole covers, stunning scenery and staggering generosity: That was Albania in 1999.
Read more
Czechostalgia: A photographic ramble through 1990s Bohemia
Snow-covered landscapes, peeling plasterwork and views from my window: A sentimental selection of photos from Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in the early 1990s.
Read more
Far from home: The Czechs of Romania’s Banat Mountains
How a familiar tune in a remote corner of the Balkans led a hiker to rediscover a long-lost ethnic minority.
Read more
Is this the world’s most bizarre place for a castle?
It has everything you’d ever want in a medieval castle. There’s only one problem: It’s in the middle of a giant steel mill.
Read more
Former Yugoslavia in pictures
Images of the dizzyingly diverse former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Read more
Cares Gorge: Is this Spain’s best one-day walk?
The Cares Trail clings to the side of a 1.5km-deep gorge in the Picos de Europa mountains of northern Spain.
Read more
Spain and Portugal in pictures
A wonder of modern architecture, a spectacular mountain range, one of Europe’s deepest canyons, and the charming city that gave port wine – and a country – its name.
Read more
The Girl Fair: Matchmaking centuries before Tinder
Long before dating apps Romanian villagers would bring their daughters to a remote mountaintop in the hope of finding love.
Read more
Bagpipes in Bohemia: A festival full of surpises
The world’s biggest bagpipe festival is not in Scotland but in an obscure, post-industrial town in the Czech Republic.
Read more
The Merry Cemetery: Where folk art conquers grief
Anyone who tries to tell you death is no laughing matter clearly hasn’t been to Romania’s Merry Cemetery.
Read more
Is this the world’s strangest parade?
The 500th anniversary of the death of one of history’s most original — and macabre — artists deserves a parade. But an ordinary parade just won’t do.
Read more
Transnistria: How to visit a country that doesn’t exist
A Soviet time warp and unrecognised breakaway state, Transnistria is one of the strangest places in Europe.
Read more
Bohemia’s bagpipe festival in pictures
Every two years the International Bagpipe Festival draws pipers from all over Europe — and occasionally from as far away as New Zealand — to a small town in the Czech Republic.
Read more