Hamba Travel Magazine
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From a detour close to home to a long road through East Africa. Pick a part of the world, or read them in order.
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Stories about Europe
43 stories from our editors. Filter by part of the world, or page back in time.
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Zollverein: Coal, Coke and Culture in Essen
An orange-lit escalator rises through the former coal washery at Zollverein. It now carries museum visitors into the building where belts and heavy machinery once sorted coal from one of Europe’s largest industrial complexes.
Portugal · Baixa
Van koperen koepel naar betonnen plooien: architectuur in Maputo
Het centraal station van Maputo draagt nog altijd de plechtige gevel van een koloniale spoorweghaven. Enkele straten verder beginnen betonnen roosters, galerijen en vinnen het licht te breken; in Polana eindigt die lijn bij een kerk waarvan dak, wand en draagconstructie één gevouwen schaal vormen.
Europe · Italy · Cremona
Cremona, where the violin is still made by hand
Near Cremona’s cathedral, Andrea Amati established a workshop that helped shape the violin. Nearly five centuries later, students and professional makers still select spruce, sharpen gouges and bend maple around wooden moulds in the city.
Europe · Portugal · Coruche
When Coruche’s Cork Oaks Turn Red
Freshly stripped cork oaks stand out at once: their exposed trunks are red-brown, with a white number painted across the new surface. Around Coruche, that colour marks a summer harvest built on sharp judgement, careful hands and nine years of waiting.
Europe · Spain · Asturias
Raised Bottles and Shared Plates in Oviedo’s Cider Houses
On Calle Gascona, a server raises a green bottle over one shoulder and sends a thin stream of cider onto the rim of a broad glass held low by the hip. The quick splash begins another round in Oviedo’s best-known street of sidrerías, where cider arrives by the bottle and each person receives a small pour.
Europe · Netherlands · Hegebeintum
High Ground, Open Water
Hegebeintum rises sharply above flat clay fields. Wierum stands where a village mound, a sea wall and the Wadden Sea lie close together. Walking between them shows how Frisian communities raised their homes above the tide long before continuous dikes fixed a boundary between land and sea.
Europe · United Kingdom
Levuka, between the wharf and the hills
Beach Street occupies a narrow strip between Levuka’s seawall and Ovalau’s steep volcanic slopes. Fiji’s former capital still carries its nineteenth-century port history, but residents use its shops, schools, churches, market and wharf every day.
Europe · Finland · Tampere
Rajaportti, Tampere’s living public sauna
On the steep ridge between lakes Näsijärvi and Pyhäjärvi, workers built Pispala with timber houses, narrow lanes and necessity. Rajaportti Sauna still operates from the courtyard where Maria Lahtinen began heating a wooden sauna for her household and neighbours before it opened to the public in 1906.
Ecuador · Panama · Cuenca
Cuenca and the Ecuadorian Hat Called Panama
Cuenca turns pale coastal fibre into shaped, finished hats for shops and export, but its workshops tell only part of an Ecuadorian craft rooted in Manabí. The name “Panama hat” records where overseas buyers encountered the hat, not where Ecuadorian makers produced it.
Europe · Croatia · Grožnjan
Europe’s 10 Most Atmospheric Small Places, Ranked
This is an editorial, deliberately subjective ranking. Rock, water and relief carry most weight, followed by the coherence of the buildings and the ordinary life still visible among them.
Europe · Asia · Pont du Gard
The world’s ten greatest bridges, ranked
These ten bridges are ranked by three things: the force of their design, the history held in their fabric, and the precision with which they meet their river, strait, valley or city. Pont du Gard starts the list; Stari Most finishes it above the Neretva.
Europe · Venice · Rio de Janeiro
The 10 Cities Best Understood from the Water
A fine skyline is not enough. In these ten cities, a ferry or small boat reveals how trade, terrain, buildings and daily travel grew around a river, canal or bay.