When you walk down to the end of Chalidon street and burst upon Chania, Crete’s old Venetian port, the first thing you think of is vacation.

I had been to Paris in my early 20s and managed to get in the highlights. For my return more than 10 years later, I wanted to explore a different, more offbeat side of the City of Lights.

ANALYSIS

British Airways' epic meltdown over a busy holiday weekend further fanned public outrage of an industry infamous for its focus on cost cuts over customer service, leaving the U.K. carrier scrambling to explain how a local computer outage could lead to thousands of stranded passengers.

I had savored Jamon Iberico, the luscious cured ham made from those pigs, and I knew I wanted more. That was enough to set me on a three-day journey to discover this unsung corner of Spain.

“Demand is overwhelming,” says Christoph Lieben-Seutter, general director of the Elbphilharmonie, a new concert hall in Hamburg, Germany. Subscriptions for classical concerts have doubled since the hall opened, tour operators are pressuring the organization to make more tickets available, and more than 1.5 million people have visited the public plaza since it opened last November.

If there is any attraction more popular than Kensington Palace, it’s the trio of museums that dominate the landscape on what is described as the “Museum Mile.”

One of the battles fought in World War I was for the St. Mihiel Salient in eastern France. In a bloody fight that lasted four days in August and September of 1918, the U.S. First Army defeated the Germans. The Montsec American Monument commemorates the victory and the Second Army’s operations in the area in November.

Antwerp is a diverse and cosmopolitan port city, one that wouldn’t exist were it not for the sluggish, slate-gray river Scheldt. “All an Antwerper has to do to connect with the rest of the world is simply dip his hand into the Scheldt’s water,” former Antwerp mayor Lode Craeybeckx once said.

This city’s Jet d’Eau (water jet), a fountain in the middle of its namesake lake, is as much a symbol of Geneva as Big Ben is of London, the Eiffel Tower is of Paris and the Colosseum is of Rome. On sunny days, it’s often colored by rainbows.

My Camino experience: 31 days of physical endurance through awe-inspiring landscapes, of contemplation punctuated by deep connections.

This small peninsula rewards the intrepid traveler. In long expanses, it’s little changed from the Iron Age, when fields were squared off by low stone outlines, which you still can make out on green hillsides by the sea. In fact, it’s only the occasional ruined tin mine that interrupts vast mosaics of heather and gorse, stretching from the coast roads to rocky cliffs.

Ferraria de Sao Joao and 26 other rural villages built wholly or partly of schist are now part of the Aldeias do Xisto (Schist Villages), an eco-tourism complex located in a mountainous region of Portugal’s interior that is geologically rich in this metamorphic rock.

In truth, Edinburgh has many faces. You might start your day researching the city’s (sometimes bloody) past, move on to a wind-swept hike of green hills and finish up with a plunge into the lively dining and bar-hopping scene.

Dingle is known for its pubs. Dick Mack’s has a walk of fame outside that lists the celebrities who’ve visited, among them Dolly Parton. Foxy John’s, a beloved spot, houses an old-fashioned hardware store and a bike rental business on the premises along with the classic pub.

Vermeer, the unique jewel in Dutch painting's crown, copied ideas from his contemporaries like every other artist, argues a new major exhibit at the Louvre Museum.

On the 50-minute drive from Iceland’s Keflavik International Airport to downtown Reykjavik, the landscape switched from long, flat stretches of dirt to patches of grass studded with rocks.

Delayed at the airport in Nuremberg, Germany, and thoroughly frazzled, we checked and re-checked our watches as the miles ticked by, with the Danube River and our Scenic River Cruises ship, the Pearl, nowhere to be seen.

San Gimignano is the epitome of a Tuscan hill town. About 25 miles from both Florence and Siena, it’s the region’s glamour girl: Visually striking and perfectly preserved, it gets all the fawning attention from passing tour buses. But despite its tourist-trap feel, it’s still worth slotting into your Italian itinerary — especially if you can sidestep the hordes who descend during the day.

As a seaside metropolis with a lively outdoor vibe and dozens of picturesque islands beckoning nearby, Athens is more often considered a summer tourist destination than a winter escape. But if you’ve got more than beaches on your mind, there’s plenty of upside to a brief, cool visit that avoids the crowds and heat of summer.

A a $2.4 billion plan to construct a two-mile tunnel underneath Stonehenge and widen the nearby highway has the support of English Heritage and UNESCO. But it has infuriated archaeologists who worry that the construction will destroy vital heritage.

Forget the three Rs. I went to Speyside, Scotland’s “single-malt capital of the world,” to brush up on the three Ws: whisky, wool and walking.

2017 in Europe: What’s in it for you? Plenty, according to a survey of travel magazines, tourism board calendars, museums, railways and bargain-flight providers.

Our goal during five nights and six days in Paris was to spend no more than a total $250 per day among the four of us. With our bargain accommodations price fixed at $150 per night, that left $100 per day for food, transportation, attractions and trinkets.

Starting in February, some guests at the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort in Garmisch-Partenkirchen may be a little on the furry side.

The USO is discontinuing its popular express and overnight leisure bus tours in three U.S. military communities in Germany, ending a long-standing operation that shuttled countless servicemembers and their families to popular destinations all over Europe.

PHOTO GALLERY

The Hamburger DOM’s winter edition wears a distinct Christmas coat and can make a welcome contrast from the almost too picture-perfect ambiance of more traditional Christmas markets.

It's the world's oldest nation and one of its tiniest, but San Marino is not on many travelers' bucket lists. It should be.

At The Kennedys museum, visitors can travel back in time to the day when President John F. Kennedy came to Berlin. A film of the speech plays on a continual loop in black-and-white inside a darkened room.

Since moving to the Netherlands two years ago, I’d become smitten with "voetveren," or foot ferries — small boats specifically for foot passengers and cyclists. So we planned a ferry-centric bike trip.

This avenue, stretching from Placa de Catalunya to the Christopher Columbus monument, is a pedestrian paradise squeezed in between the bustling traffic of the city.

The summer sun had barely risen over Venice’s quiet waterways when the voices started up again. Blaring in Mandarin Chinese and French from the loudspeakers of cruising tour boats, they told the centuries-old saga of this fabled, once-mighty city in a few minutes, as passengers sipped spritzes and took selfies in front of the passing palazzos and cathedrals. For the rest of the day, the voices would echo throughout this miracle of a city, known as La Serenissima, or the Most Serene One, about once every half an hour until night fell over St. Mark’s Square and the Doge’s Palace.

This was no walk in the park. Sheep grazing on the green fields cried out and I became awash in self-doubt. I didn’t know where I was, but I continued on my way.

Spending just one day in Barcelona is only enough time to realize that you need to spend more than a day there.

Street art is front and center in the Portuguese capital, which has transformed itself into an open-air museum, proudly awash in eye-catching murals.

The skies were cloudy as I strode across that famous bridge, the Ponte Vecchio, ready for a day of checking off Florentine must-sees.

From the top deck of the cruise ship River Tosca, the fabled Nile River was wide and blue and calm. And I had the deck of the 236-foot ship to myself.

On June 7, Versailles unveiled a large-scale exhibition of Olafur Eliasson’s contemporary art, including a waterfall. Following the likes of Jeff Koons and Anish Kapoor, Eliasson is the latest artist to take over the estate with art installations — a buzz-generating annual event that invites visitors to see the chateau in a new way.

Summer in Paris can be a steamy soup swimming with tourists. So follow the smart Parisians and get out of town. In two hours you can have your feet on the hot sands of a resort called Deauville.

We chose a cruise on AmaWaterways specifically because it offered bicycle excursions on an itinerary that started in Vienna, stopped in Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria, and finished a few miles south of Bucharest, Romania.

I just spent 10 days in England, and before you ask, no, I didn’t get a glimpse of the queen or Buckingham Palace.

TRAVEL

At first glance, Germany’s Reinheitsgebot seems straightforward enough. Known in English as the Beer Purity Law, it limits the ingredients in German beers to water, barley and hops.

Few people were surprised when construction crews working on the future U.S. Navy support site in the farming town of Gricignano in the mid 1990s began uncovering artifacts. Those artifacts are displayed today in the Archeological Museum of Agro Atellano.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy wants to end a long-standing and well-recognized tradition: the midafternoon nap.

Our European adventure started in Rota, Spain, where we enjoyed mild winter temperatures, the appealing countryside, friendly people and historical landmarks.

Madrid is an easy city to love. It’s clean, the people are friendly and the climate is mild and sunny. Best of all, this world capital has so many interesting sights that it doesn’t feel crowded.

Spring is just around the corner, which means it’s almost tulip time in Holland. Next Thursday, Keukenhof opens for the 67th time, and about a million flower lovers will descend on the famed gardens on the outskirts of Lisse.

In March 2015, a funny thing happened to the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort, an Armed Forces Recreation Center in the Bavarian Alps. The hotel and its grounds suddenly transformed into a 1980s Olympic ski lodge in Canada.

When you sail on a ship like the 208-passenger Star Breeze, a vessel nimble enough to squeeze up to almost any tiny cove or narrow gorge, it’s a good idea to bone up on the ports-of-call in advance.

How many islands dot Ireland’s Clew Bay? As many as days of the year, goes the saying.

After eight days of tastings in London, my suitcase was crammed with more chocolate than clothes.

In Europe, Italy tops the list for most popular destination as listed by the U.S. Tour Operators Association. Here’s a look at the rest of the top spots recommended by the travel industry.

At just 37, Great British Chef Nathan Outlaw has four restaurants in England (three bearing Michelin stars), a chef academy and several books to his name, including “Nathan Outlaw’s British Seafood.” We met him at his flagship eatery in Port Isaac to talk about his favorite subject: All things fish.

Fans of the BBC's epic 18th-century drama “Poldark” have discovered not only the rippled abs of its handsome star, Aidan Turner, but they've also fallen in love with the craggy, windswept landscape of the English county of Cornwall. I recently became a "set-jetter" and watched the cast filming.

The Bastogne War Museum, opened in the spring of 2014, gives the visitor a personal experience of the Battle of the Bulge, as exhibits trace the history of World War II and what led to it.

This region on France’s mid-Atlantic coast is a vacation paradise, with islands, beaches, canals, pleasant cities, incredible seafood — and cognac.

Called “P Street” by Americans at nearby Lask Air Base, Piotrkowska Street in Lodz, Poland, is the city’s main shopping avenue, art district and party zone all in one.

GALLERY

The Staedel, Frankfurt, Germany’s esteemed art museum, wraps up its 200th anniversary celebrations with an exhibit of masterworks borrowed from some of the world’s most prestigious art museums.

It was my first day out on a walk across Scotland, and I’d stumbled upon one of the most beautiful camping spots I’d ever seen.

A visit to Georgia and its capital Tbilisi reveals that over the centuries it has been on the crossroads of east and west.

Researchers have discovered evidence of standing stones believed to be the remnants of a major prehistoric stone monument near the Stonehenge ruins.

On a recent assignment I spent a couple of nights in Minden, a northern German town on the Weser River.

Lying in the shadows of the Pyrenees, the mountain range that separates Spain from France, La Rioja is split in two regions that have one thing in common. Together, they constitute Spain’s most prolific wine-producing region.

The history and setting of cities like Tallinn and Riga, Latvia, and their tourist-friendly prices, offer ample reason for a visit, especially for U.S. servicemembers stationed in Europe.

Some servicemembers and retirees will no longer be able to use an Armed Forces Recreation Center in Garmisch following a recent review of the center’s reservations policies, the military said Tuesday.

Trier, Germany, sits comfortably in the midst of Western Europe, minutes from Luxembourg and close to France, all European Union members. Sharing the euro, the town’s 105,000 residents share a regional sensibility with their neighbors

Photo gallery

The Overlord Museum and the Omaha Beach Memorial Museum are near each other in Normandy, making a fine pair to visit to deepen your knowledge of WWII's D-Day.

Put the skis away. Time to tune up the bikes and get back in the saddle. I convinced my husband, Bob, who has done little cycling during the past few years, that he needed to get moving again.

Today, with the hip districts in the former East Berlin going upscale fashionable, the west’s Kreuzberg district is again the Bohemian, radical heart of Berlin — as it was before the fall of the Wall.

It is one of Berlin’s most popular tourist attractions. Some come to see democracy in action, but most come to wander up through the lofty glass and metal dome that crowns it.

The German-Russian Museum is housed in the historic building in Berlin-Karlshorst where, shortly after midnight May 9, 1945, the Nazis signed the surrender document ending World War II in Europe.

This summer an international audience will discover what the locals already know: that Utrecht is a vibrant, architecturally distinctive place hidden in the shadow of Amsterdam, its famous neighbor to the north.

Whether viewed from the castle tower or from the streets and walkways that hug the Ljubljanica River below, the capital of Slovenia is a visual treat. A whole day can be spent exploring some of Ljubljana’s 17 bridges.

On a map, Halkidiki looks a bit like an octopus. But instead of eight arms, it has three, which dangle into the Aegean Sea from the main body — a mountainous landscape covered in olive groves, Aleppo pine forests and heather.

Learn from one traveler's mistakes

If you are fortunate enough to travel to the British Isles for a week, do as I say, not as I did.

When I first saw a photo of the East-German made Trabant, I fell in love. When I read that a tour company lets you drive one through East Berlin, I was already imagining myself behind the wheel of one of the adorably boxy little polluters.

In Reims, we take a tour of France's sparkling Champagne region.

Lonely Planet recently named Toulouse — a dynamic university city that is home to Airbus — one of the top 10 cities to visit in 2015. Exploring the tastes of the city is a joy.

Culinary Backstreets was started by Americans five years ago as a food blog, Istanbul Eats, with the goal of sharing authentic, tasty Istanbul restaurants with visitors.

If you go to Mons, Belgium, next year, you’ll discover a host of events to celebrate its status as cultural capital of Europe.

My favorite thing about Speyer, Germany, at Christmastime happens after the Christmas goose is cooked.

GALLERY

Dovrefjell National Park is popular with Norwegian trekkers, but most foreign tourists don’t make it here, and with its seemingly endless trails, you can go hours without bumping into any living thing that doesn’t have hooves and a bad temper.

Portes du Soleil (“Gateway to the Sun”) ski region with slopes in both Switzerland and France claims to be the largest ski area in the world.

Resting at the foot of the Zugspitze mountain in one of the most scenic parts of Germany, Edelweiss Lodge and Resort has for the past 10 years catered to American military personnel in Europe and their families.

Against a backdrop of stylish cafes, beautiful architecture and a buzzing street scene, it’s easy to forget during a stroll through Lviv that this is a country at war.

GALLERY

Ironically, Berlin's most popular tourist attraction in large part no longer exists. But there are places where you can see remains of the Berlin Wall and feel the chill that separated not only East and West Germany, but also the world.

The Greek islands have enchanted travelers for thousands of years. Maybe it’s because Greece serves as the backdrop for some of the world’s oldest myths and legends. Stories of Hercules, Achilles and Helen of Troy, like a magnet, pull us to the islands’ rocky shores. Choosing which Greek island to visit can be daunting, however.

The history and setting of cities like Tallinn and Riga, Latvia, and their tourist-friendly prices, offer ample reason for a visit, especially for U.S. servicemembers stationed in Europe.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the artist whose cabaret posters have become synonymous with Paris and Montmartre, the area of Paris famous for its bohemian lifestyle and the haunt of artists, writers and philosophers in the late 1800s.

The “church of the chickens” is only one of the homespun, non-touristy and somewhat otherworldly attractions found along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, or the Way of St. James — an ancient pilgrim route supposedly traveled by the apostle to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ on the Iberian peninsula.

This Spanish island has a strong cycling pedigree and is an annual training destination for Tour de France riders. For those who haven’t perched on a saddle for years, it's also a great place to get reacquainted with bicycling.

Leukerbad, a spa town high in the Alps, is all about water, mainly thermal water bubbling from 65 springs that fill the town’s 30 pools. But it is also about needing a soak in those waters after high-altitude outdoor sports.

It rises nearly 500 feet out of the water and can be seen from miles away. It is perhaps, with the exception of the Eiffel Tower, France’s most distinct tourist sight. It is the fortified medieval abbey of Mont-St-Michel.

We’ve come to Seville, the capital of Andalusia and Spain’s fourth-largest city, to learn more about the history and character of this region.

Casualties were high in World War II's Operation Cobra. Many Americans who fell here never left France, and 4,408 are buried at Brittany American Cemetery on the outskirts of the small town of St. James.

Independent winemaker Anthony Hammond tends grapes on 5.5 hectares in Germany’s Rheingau region, considered one of Germany’s premiere Riesling areas. Riesling is riding a wave of popularity like never before.

After the tight confines of town, both Jag and driver strain to be let loose. Shifting into fourth gear, we’re away with a throaty roar. Steering is light and responsive — the big yellow E-Type Jaguar has finally communed with its passengers and we’re now all having a blast.

The Mediterranean island of Corsica is known for its beaches. Glorious expanses of golden sand interrupted by jagged, rocky cliffs stretch for miles.

Mega-photo gallery

A stroll through Jaffa is a walk from the present to the past and back again.

Some European cities are impossible to navigate without a car or public transportation, but Gdansk, Poland’s, Old Town is just right for exploring on foot.

A coffee shop proved to me that I didn’t know beans about coffee. I came to this realization after attending a public coffee-tasting at Hot Numbers, a coffee shop and roaster in Cambridge, England. Properly called a “cupping,” the process, led by two shop employees, involved roughly two hours of sniffing, slurping and analyzing coffee and concluded with a quiz, which I failed.