Standing before the Tang Dynasty Three Pagodas of Dali ● Walking the ancient pilgrimage circuit of Barkhor Street in Lhasa ● Descending into Tiger Leaping Gorge — one of the world's deepest canyons ● Exploring the whitewashed lanes and murals of the oldest Naxi settlement at the foot of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain ● Standing before the Potala Palace, seat of the Dalai Lamas for three centuries ● Visiting Yungdrung Ling, one of Tibet's great Bon monasteries

The Grand Egyptian Museum's Tutankhamun immersive exhibition with digital projections into the boy king's golden world ● Giza's Great Pyramid built from two million stone blocks by 100,000 labourers ● Abu Simbel's colossal temple where Ramesses II's four 20-metre statues guard Nubia's threshold ● the Valley of the Kings where pharaohs carved elaborate underground palaces into pyramid-shaped cliffs ● Karnak Temple's hypostyle hall with 134 massive columns supporting three-millennia-old stone roofs ● camel trek across desert sands to St. Simeon's 6th-century monastery rising dramatically against limestone escarpments

Mysterious Machu Picchu-a must see! ● Exploring Cuzco and the "Sacred Valley of the Incas" ● Colourful Chinchero & Pisac markets ● The Floating Islands of Puno ● Sacred island of the Sun

The Great Pyramids and Sphinx at Giza ● the spectacular Grand Egyptian Museum with Tutankhamun's treasures ● pre-dawn excursion to Abu Simbel's colossal rock-cut temples ● three-night Nile cruise from Aswan to Luxor sailing past Kom Ombo and Edfu ● Luxor's magnificent Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings explored with private guides ● camel trek to St. Simeon Monastery and felucca sail on the Nile

Guided walking tours of Palermo, Taormina, Rome ● Ancient Greek Temples at Agrigento ● The Doric Greek temples of Paestum ● Compelling Pompeii ● Rome - The Vatican & the Sistine Chapel

Sistine Chapel contemplation ● Michelangelo's David and the Uffizi without summer's crush ● Ravenna's Byzantine mosaics — the Western world's most spectacular outside Istanbul ● Giotto's revolutionary frescoes from Assisi to Padova — the arc of Western art's greatest turning point ● Cinque Terre by boat and on foot ● Siena's medieval lanes and San Gimignano's towers, unchanged since the 13th century ● Venice by vaporetto, on foot, and at the pace the city rewards

Helsinki's Temppeliaukio rock church and Suomenlinna fortress ● Stockholm's Vasa Museum and Nobel Prize halls ● overnight Baltic Sea ferries ● Copenhagen's Rosenborg Castle and canal cruise ● Oslo's Viking Ship Museum ● Flåm Railway and Nærøyfjord cruise ● Bergen's Hanseatic wharf

World-class whale watching in nutrient-rich Atlantic waters ● Emerald crater lakes and geothermal springs in volcanic calderas ● Madeira's ingeniously terraced mountainsides and subtropical "floating garden" ● Unique Guanche heritage blending with Spanish island culture ● Endemic flora and fauna found nowhere else on Earth ● Dramatic volcanic panoramas from Teide's peaks to Lanzarote's lunar landscapes

Chagall windows at Fraumünster ● Jungfraujoch at 3,454 metres ● eight-hour Glacier Express journey through UNESCO rail landscapes ● Gornergrat cog railway beneath the Matterhorn ● medieval Bern, Lucerne, and Fribourg ● St. Gallen's baroque library and manuscripts