A bicycle tour of amsterdam. Alternative angle will discover new perspectives them from famous tourist sites. And volcanic paradise why people are flocking to the nordic country of iceland. Where you start off in the dutch capital of amsterdam a city that simply never gets boring now amsterdam is a perfect getaway for the weekend it boasts the the unesco World Heritage canal system a wealth of museums not to mention the parks restaurants and of course coffee shops and unlike many other capitals amsterdam is relatively small so you can reach pretty much everything on foot but if you want to do is the dutch do then youd better get on a bike which is what we did to explore the city. Dam is hands down europes capital of bicycle riders its home to an estimated nine hundred thousand bikes thats more than the population of the city center. In two thousand and one the worlds first bicycle perking garage was built at the citys central rail station shaun cody has been offering individual sightseeing tours of the capital with this company joyride tours for the past seven years naturally by bike for mean when the most interesting things about amsterdam isnt just the beautiful city but its also the citizens that make up the city its people from all over the world and it actually just beat out new york as having the most variety of nationalities in any city in the world its also a very small city so i find it quite enjoyable thats only a one point six million where the suburbs maybe a hundred thousand the city center so you get this International City feel but youre in a very small livable enjoyable city. And many of codys tours start off it damn square at the birthplace of amsterdam and the thirteenth century local fisherman down to the river and settled in a village they called unstaged. This square is also home to the seventeenth century royal palace recently this was not a real house this was the Mayors Office in amsterdam and if you look at it thats why its not an oppressive building if you compare it to her size or Windsor Castle its not impressive at all but originally this was the largest civic building in europe and it celebrated the power of the republic. In the seventeenth century amsterdam rose to become a key center of International Trade amassing unimagined whirls this is when the world famous can now ring area it was developed swamp land was drained using a system of one hundred sixty. Five canals in concentric arcs today the urban ensemble is a unesco World Heritage site often the houses along the canals were commissioned by wealthy merchants and many were countenanced which is why the houses are modest in design wealth was displayed in more subtle ways. This black house here is a good indication of that its a very thorough house its quite tall and if you look at the glass on it compared to the house right behind me the see its got very large windows this was a way of showing the wealth of the old days. Posts no fewer than forty four museums one is the Van Gogh Museum it houses a collection of two hundred works by the dutch artist. Another must see is the Heights Museum the National Museum of the netherlands it was already a traffic friendly building when it opened in eight hundred eighty five and today it could well be the only museum that you can ride a bike through. It holds works by dutch golden age masters like the mia and rembrandt. The rights as a was built around the eighteen hundreds and its designed by a german rather than a pure calipers and if you arrive in amsterdam by train and you see the central train station its actually designed by the same architect actually so thats why they look very similar in design. One of amsterdams top tourist destinations lies on the prints and cost the end frank house every day long lines formed outside the museum in twenty sixteen it attracted almost one point three million visitors and this is where the thirteen year old jewish girl and frank went into hiding with their family during World War Two to escape the nazis and where she wrote her world famous diary. A tour of the secret annex conveys the claustrophobic conditions of the hiding place the rooms are run furnished but theres an exhibit of personal on. Jaques that belonged to the people who hid here. And work by bike through amsterdam the netherlands are famous for their cheeses so the next stop on our tour is one of the many cheese shops in the city council is trump has all the classics on offer among them im intolerant and up inside. The soil in the midlands is very. You can its very good for growing really fine grass so keeping cows is really a thing for the dutch to give a lot of milk of course. To make the cheese we make a lot of cheese we eat a lot of cheese the dutch are an average the tallest people of the of the planet and thats the myth is that because the evil of cheese. And codys tour ends at a more recently installed landmark the giant i am stirred a marketing logo is a popular photo op for visitors and one that captures the inclusive spirit of this open city. From the dutch capital to the german one berlin is a favorite destination for people of all ages because of its diversity and there is something for everyone here from world class museums art exhibitions and music of every genre to the wealth of history that this city boasts and one of the most historical landmarks here is the Brandenburg Gate now it has stood tall for over two hundred years and if it can talk it would tell you about the time that berlin was a small walled city or about its vibrant years in the one nine hundred twenty s. Or even the more darker periods of german history which followed this famous mind you made not only has great historical significance it also connects the former east with the west so heres a closer look now at one of berlins defining symbols. The Brandenburg Gate is the german capital is most important slammed right in the heart of. Twenty meters high with a wing gauge on each side its the culmination of the grand obstacle to. The crushing fleet we should have in the second half of this triumphal arch built in the late eighteenth century. Which crowned by a six metre tall quadriga four team of four horses pulling a chariot steered by victoria the roman goddess of victory when first created victoria was new but was later given to guard and she brought peace to the city historian sater particularly for you has to sign for the structures message. The not often i come to. The seven hundred eighty eight so a significant event in pressure and. The second was able to conclude an Important Alliance with britain and the republic of the netherlands in celebration he built this triumphal arch here and. Modeled his early near classical design in sandstone on the entrance to the acropolis in athens the sculptor your shadow was responsible for the quadriga and many of the gates other adornments. Book about the Brandenburg Gate and points out some differences from the greek model. Good behavior bad sign and i checked with the fish for him asked his architect langerhans to make the Brandenburg Gate as open as possible so that you could look through it to tear garden park and this long axis stretching to the western horizon. Is investigation hard its fun to see the difference clearly by comparing this picture of the almost steady marble architecture of the acropolis and the beautiful one point perspective through the Brandenburg Gate. Is assured. I passed big t. V. And. All the Brandenburg Gate attracts visitors from all over the world. Who. Would do just the magnificence of the building how tall it is carvings that are in each individual pillar is quite spectacular i felt so tiny when you are in front of this. Building this is like my first time to europe and i have never been able to experience anything such as grand as this for almost four decades the Brandenburg Gate was a symbol of German Division it lay stranded in the no mans land between east and west berlin only after the fall of the berlin wall in one thousand nine hundred nine did it become accessible to all under symbol of german unity. Impressions leave you craving a moment of quiet contemplation come to the room of silence in the neighboring. This is still the silence here is fascinating and calming we can engage in talks to go further outside in the room of silence you regain composure and your inner center in the image and if youd like to take the Brandenburg Gate home with you you can get a mini version of it in the souvenir shops as a memento of a very special place. Tourist hot spots like the Brandenburg Gate is where you might find british photographer all over curtis but dont expect to see him taking a typical shot of this landmark thats because curtis likes to capture the atmosphere surrounding the area and how many people wouldnt even recognize the famous landmarks his picture is because the focus is on something completely different but changing the perspective on things is definitely interesting. This is Buckingham Palace as we know it the official London Residence of the british monarch and a tourist attraction thats been photographed millions of times. British photographer all of a carters turned his back on the palace to capture an entirely different picture. The picture was taken because i found the humor of the way people some of these locations particularly interesting the very unselfconscious they stand in became really a ways they do peculiar things like im completely invisible but im just another tourist to them with this method current is produced on the usual images for his series of vault fox it provides a glimpse behind the scenes the famous sites arent visible they can be gassed or bast for example behind this fog is the taj mahal in india. And this is what all of a curtis saw when he turned his back on the cover see him again row. I took this photo at the foot of the statue of liberty. The long view spending one place the more the landscape year olds it starts to speak back to you and i realize that one of the things that these locations have in common is that people spend very little time there have a cup of tea and ice cream and they going to take a box yep in that scene it done it. For this project all of account is told the whole world for four years taking photos in the vicinity of forty four Tourist Attractions. In two thousand and sixteen the vault fast exhibition was on show with the Royal Geographic Society in london. It all started with the pyramids in egypt. I was in cairo on a job and took the opportunity to visit the pyramids like any tourist would when i got. I was surprised by how familiar the place was even though id never visited before so i walked around the base of the pyramid and found myself looking back out to the suburbs of giza and i was really struck by the in Congress Nature when i was seeing this brand new private golf course sandwiched between the old city and the desert. Place was the start of a journey thats also taken him to Rio De Janeiro and the Lincoln Memorial in washington. Turned his back on the great wall of china. As well as lenins two in moscow that the ask me look strong not hat overlooked in the sense that we look over them. But there was a look to the sense of the neglected not just photographically the neglected environmentally and then a glinted architecture. For now curtis has had enough of photographing Tourist Attractions although he discovers one moment that. We got three cowboys over here i mean for me that is fantastically interesting its surreal its in congress. And its very funny. You know i would never have scripted that in a million years and yet they are. You may remember back in two thousand and ten when one of icelands volcano is with a very long name which i will not attempt to say erupted again brought air traffic to a standstill across europe well you would have thought that that would have kept tourists away from the country but just the opposite happened the number of visitors to iceland over the last seven years has taken off in mostly because of the volcanic activity we decided to visit socalled golden ring this is where you will find some of the countrys most beautiful landscapes but first we wanted to check out the capital reykjavik. Breaks the worlds northernmost capital its located on the volcanic island of iceland in the middle of the north atlantic deal and harbor fishing boats are more beside whale watching boat every morning they head out to sea. The harpa concert hall right on the waterfront opened in twenty eleven its glass facade designed by artist literalise and has made it the citys new landmark photographer Antonio Barrick so its dog here is always discovering new motifs its such a good architecture and so very photogenic its special. Nothing in a carry case like this i havent seen anything like this actually anywhere in the world. The concert hall was long a bone of contention here many icelanders were unhappy that it took four years and cost one hundred sixty Million Euros to construct. And. There have been a couple of fields with this building and it costs taxpayers here in iceland a lot of money so is this a hate love relationship. From the its just a short walk to another of reiki of a landmark buildings the hot girls care. Built in one thousand nine hundred six its icelands Largest Church and sits on a hill overlooking the old town it isnt so good for a camera its like our eiffel tower also i really like the sounds of this one inside. Theres a choir singing one can really feel the music. Were in luck the organ is just rehearsing for the next Church Service and he lets us listen in. An elevator takes us up to what grahams care cusick seventy four metre high tower from here you can see over the entire city and reykjavik spake. The wilderness starts right outside the city limits iceland is one of the most sparsely populated countries in europe. But their National Park visitors can witness for themselves the results of continental drift the two tectonic plates here move apart two centimeters each year. What we see here is the beginning of the rift between the continents or on this side we can see b. And of the north american continental fights and then if you look over the wall they expect to see that became a fifty. One fifty kilometers away visitors can witness another force of nature. One of the worlds most reliable fountain geysers it erupts every few minutes spewing water up to forty meters in the air the energy is amazing here its very impressive and we have meet me jump. It was so impressive next to procure lies the great guys here which lends its name to the worlds other spouting hot springs nowadays it rarely erupts nearby is icelands famous waterfall the good force or golden foams here water plunges more than thirty meters down into a canyon all the sights together make up the famous Golden Circle tour. It takes about an hour to get back to reykjavik in the heart of the city steam pours out of the ground here to the earth is seething under the surface. We meet up with antonia again she wants to show us her favorite place old town with its colorful fishermans hut its. This street this one of the oldest streets in kerry and it has a lot of history i know there are stories around it. Due to its proximity to the harbor legend has it that the souls of dead sailors haunt the old town some say occasionally elves and trolls come here to. With evening approaching. Antonia is on her way. And we visit a restaurant by the harbor called the cycling or sea baron its said to serve up the worlds best lobster soup in close quarters fishermen and tourists enjoy soup and barbecued seafood kababs. Nestled in on the phone cannick landscape by the water for a cubic keeps visitors busy day and night to. Go to the completely opposite end of the continent now and our special today in Southern France where at the hotel du cap it involved right on the mediterranean now this place has hosted all the usual suspects of the last centurys jetset including Ernest HemingwayPablo Picasso milan and detrain and more and after over one hundred years in business the hotel hasnt lost any of its glamour. Hell tell you come is connected to the pub you want it in rocked by a huge pump that was completed just a First Century ago ever since this exclusive estate has been known as the hotel you cut it in hawk. Nestled amongst pines and palm trees is the Hotel Entrance when we should abandon new york has been receiving guests for more than thirty years. Ok i. Thought. I wanted guests to feel at home even if the hotel has a one hundred fifty year long history during which many of last risk guests and stadia. Is all it was used for. The hotels nine hector estate is a sanctuary from the outside world thats a luxury appreciated by its prominent guests many of his own are regulars here. Hotel manager long fan who harridan and she has complete discretion. In this. As they can be sure that nothing and no one will disturb them not the proper roxy or anyone else is only of the moment they enter the hotel its like being at home family of course its a palace but its also a very private establishment. Only the look as good as them is of. Some famous gaffes have left behind a souvenir of their visit. Dustin hoffman hes a really nice guy whos been coming here for a long time that he likes it here. And this is from ca lagerfeld has left us a lot of drawings you can see hes very creative. Take them all for the cover. Journey that im this is by johnny depp its a bit more rock n roll but thats the great thing about el duque up its open to that its a fel