Virtual knowledge of a place before the real journey

Travel is one of the most fascinating activities we know. The purposes for which we travel are many – for rest, to visit family and friends, for fun, for instruction. If you go on an organised trip, there are specialists who will set out your itinerary, list the historical and cultural sites for you to visit, and during the journey tell you all about the history of the towns and cities you are to visit.

But it is no less fascinating to put together your itinerary yourself, and now this is easier than ever before. Via the Internet you can book tickets and hotel rooms along the whole of your chosen route and even rent a car. You can even take a virtual stroll around the world’s great cities. But if your journey is to be an interesting and instructive one, you need to draw up your itinerary and make a list of the cities, museums, architectural monuments you want to visit. This information is also to be had via the Internet, and although it largely has the character of advertising material, it can nevertheless serve as a basis for devising your route.

But sometimes it is desirable to have a more detailed picture of the sites you have chosen to visit. For this too you can make use of various forms of electronic information. There is a large number of films showing the history and culture of cities and of civilisations. These films vary in style and content, but they will serve to give you a picture of a new place that will help you to feel more at home there and to understand the historical and cultural origins of cities, of architecture, of the masterpieces of world culture.

You can also obtain such a detailed view from multi-media programmes: the history of a place’s development, maps of the locality, views of its buildings, a wide range of illustrations, connected through hyperlinks. All this information and more is available for study before you start your journey, or your visit to an architectural or historical site, either abroad or in your own region.

On this site we would like to show you examples of multi-media programmes which inform you about some of the world’s well-known cities, and about other historical sites, perhaps less well-known but no less interesting.