About 15 kilometres westward along the coastline from Brest is the scenic lighthouse Phare du Petit Minou. The structure itself is, unfortunately, no longer open to the public, but the premises are free to be explored, along with the nearby fort and bunker.

Boquete has become one of the most important coffee growing regions in the world with 1600 independent coffee producers and more than 25 companies that process coffee. Boquete, produces the best and most expensive coffee in the world, the Arabic Geisha (Gesha). Besides Geisha, Boquete boasts a wide variety of beans that have won international awards. Here visitors can leisurely sample tasting menus, modeled after Napa Valley wine tours, at coffee plantations. Finca Lerida Hotel & Coffee Plantation: Alto Quiel, Bajo Boquete +507 720 1111

The beguinages of Flanders and the Netherlands are always oases of calm and stillness, where you might still expect to see an old beguine mumbling her prayers in a doorway. Two of Ghent’s three beguinages have been included on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Although the Old St Elizabeth Beguinage, in Begijnhofdries in Ghent, is no longer enclosed by a wall, making it simply part of the city, it still has a unique atmosphere. Today the Old St Elizabeth Beguinage is known as ‘holy corner’, a place of religious tolerance, because it has no less than three different churches: one is Roman Catholic, one is Orthodox and the other is Protestant. From bleachfield to orchard This open beguinage grew into something of a ‘beguine city’ in the 13th century, with a church, the ‘Grootjuffer’s House’, an infirmary, a chapel, more than a hundred houses for beguines, a bleachfield (a field where linen was laid out to bleach) and an orchard. After the French Revolution, with increasing industrialisation, the inhabitants moved to their new beguinage in Sint-Amandsberg in 1873.

Step back thousands of years at this archaeological treasure within Tomoka State Park. The site preserves the remnants of a Timucuan Indian community, one of the earliest Native American settlements on Florida’s Central East Coast. These mounds and shell middens—layers of discarded shells, pottery, and other artifacts—offer a glimpse into the daily lives and ceremonial practices of the Timucua people.