There's nothing quite like being shown around by a local, who is passionate and knowledgeable about their city. Only a local could take you around their favourite street art spots and point out all the hidden gems you would have missed otherwise. While some parts of Milan can be snooty and luxurious, giving you world class art institutions, others are filled with life by alternative contemporary artists. Get a more intimate look at Milan's art scene with a 90-minute tour — you'll be begging for more!

The huge national banner and colonial-era cannon outside this gracious colonial building underline its status as the official residence of the governor of East Java. The gardens are often used for cultural events, colourful official ceremonies on national holidays and state occasions.

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 into the 16th century and visit a museum the likes of which you have never yet seen. An interesting and modern audio-visual presentation will give you the opportunity of becoming familiar with the life and works of the greatest Croatian Renaissance comedian from Dubrovnik, Marin Držić.