Things to Do in Europe

Originally named the Decembrists’ Square, after the December 1825 uprising, Senate Square (Ploschad Dekabristov) is one of St. Petersburg’s most famous public squares, encircled by some of the city’s top attractions.  Linked to the central hub of Palace Square by the 407 meter-long Admiralty building – the one-time Russian Naval Headquarters – Senate Square is also home to the grand Senate Building and the early 19th-century Cavalry Manege, now home to the Central Exhibition Hall, and backs onto the grounds of the gold-domed St Isaac’s Cathedral.

Not far from the center of Helsinki, Seurasaari Island is an open-air museum of the Finnish traditional way of life. It has 87 buildings, 18th and 19th century traditional houses, manors and outbuildings from around Finland. Guides dressed in traditional costume demonstrate crafts such as spinning, embroidery and troll-making. Shops sell old fashioned treats, and folk-dancing performances are scheduled frequently during the summer. On Midsummer Eve a huge bonfire kicks off the celebrations, and a real wedding takes place in the Karuna Church.

The Seurasaari Open-Air Museum opened in the 1909, when it was only accessible by boat. It's been popular with locals and visitors ever since. On summer nights there are regularly scheduled concerts in Karuna Church. The buildings are closed during the winter, but the park is open for cross-country skiing and invigorating walks.

The Naturmuseum Senckenberg in Frankfurt is the second largest natural history museum in all of Germany. Senckenberg contains the most comprehensive exhibition of large dinosaurs in Europe. Outside, you are greeted by enormous life-size representations of dinosaurs. Inside, you can trace the tracks of a Titanosaurus towards its skeleton on a covered patio. One particularly fascinating attraction is a dinosaur fossil with its scaled skin preserved.  These dinosaur exhibits are exceptionally popular with children.

Although its dinosaurs are the major attraction, the Senckenberg Museum also has an expansive collection of animal exhibits from every era. The museum boasts the world's most expansive collection of stuffed birds, featuring over 2,000 species. Another remarkable exhibit is a cast of the famous Lucy, a skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis, a hominid from 3.2 million years ago.

With its slim cascade of water slicing through the air and pooling into the Seljalandsá River below, Seljalandsfoss is one of Iceland’s most undeniably photogenic waterfalls, located just off Iceland’s main Ring Road, between the Skógafoss and Selfoss waterfalls.

Plunging from a height of around 60 meters, Seljalandsfoss might not be Iceland’s widest or mightiest waterfall, but it’s certainly one of its most famous, forming a dramatic arch of water that dominates the picturesque Thórsmörk valley. Surrounded by wild flowers in the summer months and floodlit after nightfall, a visit to Seljalandsfoss provides ample opportunities for snap-happy tourists, but its most distinctive feature is its narrow chute of water, which allows a breathtaking vantage point from behind the falls. Uniquely, a footpath runs all the way around the waterfall, allowing visitors to get within meters of the rushing water, standing amidst the spray at the foot of the Eyjafjöll Mountains.