What actually changed, not what usually gets repeated.

Local knowledge · 7 min read

Prague's famous sights line up along a single walk, from Old Town Square over Charles Bridge to the Castle. That line is why first visits feel crowded. The rest of the city is where the room is.

Local knowledge · 7 min read

Munich's old town fits into a morning. The rest of the city is museums, parks and beer gardens spread out in every direction - and in 2026, a few well-known sights are closed or only half open.

Local knowledge · 8 min read

Vienna is an easy city to get around. The hard part is that the Habsburgs left behind more palaces than one trip can use, and each of them wants half a day.

Local knowledge · 8 min read

Istanbul's headline sights sit within ten minutes of each other. That's the good news. The less obvious news is that prayer times, closing days and the water decide far more of your day than the map does.

Local knowledge · 8 min read

Venice is small enough to cross on foot in under an hour, and dense enough that you'll get lost doing it. What's scarce here isn't things to see. It's the quiet hours to see them in.

Local knowledge · 8 min read

Barcelona is four cities stacked on top of each other: Gaudí's, the medieval one, the hill and the sea. Most first visits spend too much of their time on the first and too little on the other three.

Local knowledge · 8 min read

London's biggest surprise for first-time visitors is how much of its best is free. Its biggest trap is Sunday. Everything else is a question of how you split the two.

Local knowledge · 9 min read

Paris has more worth seeing than any first trip can hold. The useful question isn't what exists - it's which kind of Paris you want, and how much of it fits.

Local knowledge · 9 min read

What to see in Rome, how much of it fits in a day, and which stops sit close enough together to share one.

Local knowledge · 8 min read

What to see in Berlin, how much of it fits in a day, and which stops sit close enough together to share one.

Local knowledge · 5 min read

The Olympiaturm is closed for renovation, and the operator expects it to reopen from October 2027 (as of 31 October 2026). Here's what we found, and the viewpoint we added to the guide instead.