Things to Do in Europe

Designed by Marseillais architect Pierre Puget and constructed between 1671 and 1749, the 3-storey, arcaded courtyard of the Centre de la Vieille Charité wraps around Provence's most imposing Baroque church. Initially built as a charity shelter for the town's poor but it was more like a prison: 17th century France was tough. Chasse-gueux (beggar-hunters) were paid to round up the poor and put them into almshouses which were effectively workhouses. In 1736, the Centre housed 850, by 1760 it was 1059 but by 1781 it was less acceptable to imprison people just for being poor and the number dropped to 250.

Spared during the French Revolution and used as an asylum, the Centre then became a barracks, a soldiers' rest home and, later, low-cost housing for people who lost their homes during WWII, the stunning arched pink-stone courtyard of the Centre de la Vieille Charite now houses Marseille's beautiful Musee d'Archeologie Mediterraneenne and Musee d'Arts Africains, Oceaniens & Amerindiens. The latter houses a diverse and often striking collection, including masks from the Americas, Africa and the Pacific.

Antwerp’s main railway station is a much-loved city landmark, a spectacular domed building of majestic proportions on Koningin Astridplain and nicknamed the Spoorwegkathedraal (Railway Cathedral) by its local fans. It was designed by Flemish architect Louis Delacenserie and was completed in 1905; it is 400 m (1,300 ft) long with a grandiose façade completely covered in fancy patterned brickwork and gilded flourishes. Along with a massive central dome topped by an ornate cupola, it has eight smaller towers and an interior lavishly decorated in different shades and patterns of marble. The platforms are covered by a vast glass-and-iron vaulted ceiling designed by Clement van Bogaert, while Jan van Asperen was responsible for the elevated section of track that passes four km (2.5 miles) through the city; this was completed in 1898 and ornamented with over 200 white stone mini-towers. An extensive restoration of the station was started in 1993 and finally completed in 2009, when a shopping mall and two further platforms were added to the complex. Today the station has four levels and 14 tracks; it is used daily by 50,000 passengers traveling to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels and all stations in between.

The Musée National Marc Chagall houses the largest public collection of of the Russian-born artist's seminal paintings of Old Testament scenes. Be sure to peek through a plate-glass window across a reflecting pond to view a mosaic of the rose window at Metz Cathedral. Chagall (1887 – 1985) is buried in St-Paul de Vence, a town not far from Nice.

The main hall contains 12 huge interpretations (1954 - 67) of stories from Genesis and Exodus. In an antechamber, an unusual mosaic of Elijah in his fiery chariot, surrounded by signs of the zodiac, is viewed through a plate-glass window and reflected in a small pond. Five paintings based on the Song of Songs (1960s) form the most startling series, an explosion of passionate red (in contrast to the sea greens, deep purples and blues of the main room) dedicated to his wife Vava.