Ceuta lies in Africa. Why is the city outside the European customs territory?
A visit by the Spanish royal couple has put Ceuta back in the spotlight. Here, Spain’s border is also a special trade border.
Europe, one story further.
Cities & regions
From a Brussels conference to a Ghent quayside: what does an urban plan achieve?
The European Week of Regions and Cities ended on Wednesday in Brussels. A housing project at Ghent’s Oude Dokken shows how concrete the questions behind such a gathering are.
Venice and the water: 78 gates against a city that will not move
Steel gates lie under the inlets of the lagoon, rising when the tide comes. They work. The question is what happens if they are needed more often than intended.
Copenhagen: not a cycling people, but a decision after the oil crisis
Around 1970 the bicycle's share in Copenhagen had fallen to ten percent. What happened next was not national character but policy, and it began with petrol rationing.
Red Vienna: how tax money made the housing courtyards possible
Behind the monumental municipal courtyards lies a fiscal choice. Vienna used tax money to build affordable homes, with a special role for the progressive housing construction tax.
AI-generated imageThe Douro: what a boundary on paper does to a wine landscape
In 1756 the Douro became a regulated wine region. Behind the famous terraces there is also a business story: control of production, origin and trade.
The Eixample: why Barcelona has no sharp corners
Every block in Barcelona's extension has cut-off corners. That is not decoration but a calculation, made before there were cars.
The Prague clock: where twenty-four means sunset
On the Old Town Square hangs a clock that counts time in several ways at once. One of those ways has to shift with the seasons.
Reykjavik: a capital that runs on hot groundwater
Nine out of ten Icelandic homes are heated with water from the ground. That is not a natural wonder but a decision, taken when oil became too expensive.
Lisbon 1755: the disaster that invented earthquake engineering
On All Saints' Day a capital collapsed three times over: first the shaking, then the wave, then the fire. What was devised afterwards is still standing.
Horta in Brussels: letting the light in, and what happened next
He built houses in which daylight reaches the core and used steel where it did not belong. His most important building was demolished in 1965.
Tallinn: a thirteenth-century town plan that is still there
In Tallinn's old town the medieval street pattern is still remarkably easy to recognise. That does not mean every building has come down from the Middle Ages intact.
Alba and the white truffle: the season opens with the Palio degli Asini donkey race
Euromagazine · 3 October 2026
AI-generated imageBagna càuda: a warm sauce in the middle of the table
Garlic, anchovy and olive oil infuse together over the lowest heat into a warm sauce. Around it lies a pile of vegetables, raw and cooked, which everyone dips in themselves. Not a dish to eat in a hurry.
Trieste looks out to sea: three ways to follow the Barcolana
Euromagazine · 6 October 2026
AI-generated imageBasil pesto pasta, without a hot sauce pan
The pesto waits in the bowl until the pasta is ready. A splash of cooking water loosens the sauce; there is no need to fry or boil it separately.
A Bavarian festival beneath a Brussels triumphal arch
Editors · 9 October 2026
Bergen: why a city is wet two hundred days a year
Europe's rainiest city owes that to seven mountains and a sea in front of them. The mechanism is the same one that makes the foehn on the other side of such mountains.