VisitingEuropa.com

Portugal is set to try and lure tourists with a new “Europe’s West Coast” campaign.
The move comes amid fierce competition from other sunny European destinations such as Spain and France, reports Reuters.
The aim of the drive is to try and convince tourists that the country has a lot more to offer than a rich past.
Speaking to Reuters, Manuel Pinho, the country’s economy minister, said: “It is an innovative project. For the first time all institutions responsible for the campaign worked together to make it happen.”
The “West Coast” campaign seeks to put potential visitors in mind of the glamour of the US west coast when they think about Portugal.
In the past some analysts have claimed that Portugal has failed to fully cash in on the tourism market due to a poor marketing strategy.
The country has a long and varied history and in the past was the centre of one of the largest empires in the world.
This article was brought to you by holidaylettings.co.uk, the UK’s No.1 holiday home website.

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ROTHENBURG OB DER TAUBER, Germany — Cloaked in black and brandishing a deadly medieval weapon, Hans-Georg Baumgartner strides purposefully into Market Square at dusk. The crowd parts — not out of fear, but fascination. Cameras flash.
Meet the Night Watchman, a lowly figure in this town centuries ago, but in Baumgartner’s incarnation a tour guide with a rock-star aura and a wit so calculatingly clever he’s been called a medieval Jerry Seinfeld.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Baumgartner’s Watchman tour has helped make Rothenburg — Germany’s best-preserved walled town and the jewel of the medieval trade route known as the Romantic Road — one of the country’s most popular tourist sites.
Rick Steves, the ubiquitous Europe travel impresario savvy in what American tourists will pay to see, calls the watchman tour “flat-out the most entertaining hour of medieval wonder anywhere in Germany.”
While Baumgartner is at the top of the tourist food chain, he’s by no means Rothenburg’s only attraction. Besides its 2å-mile fortifying wall, the town is known for the heavy — some might say leaden — Schneeball pastry, medieval crime museum and a hybrid saxophone-trombone instrument invented by a local innkeeper with a passion for Dixieland. Christmas shops sell knickknacks year-round, but a seasonal Christmas market offers puppet shows, concerts and walks during the holiday season. There’s often a line to get into the Kaethe Wolfahrt Christmas shop, an ornament and cuckoo clock emporium popular among U.S. military personnel. (Read on …)

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When you consider its position as an international banking centre, along with its country’s reputation for strict neutrality and well-oiled precision, you might expect Zürich to be slightly dull.
Not a bit of it.
This is a place rich in culture, beauty and fun. In fact, Switzerland’s largest city is regularly acknowledged as having the world’s highest quality of life, with a combination of safety, cleanliness, fine cuisine and recreation opportunities rarely found elsewhere. Bounded on three sides by verdant hills, and on the other by Lake Zürich, and with a rich architectural heritage, everywhere you look there’s a pleasing view.
The Romans set up a customs post here, so it’s no real surprise Zürich is now a major centre for banking and commerce. The Old Town has a 2,000-year history, and its narrow, winding, cobbled streets offer surprises at every turn. Take a tram through the city’s fashionable boulevards and continue up into the hills surrounding the centre, and you’ll find grand houses and views of the lake and faraway Alps. (Read on …)

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