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The palace of Knossos; a forerunner for the title of ‘earliest civilisation in Europe’ and the birth place of one the pioneering cultures of the Bronze age.Crossing the stone threshold brought the hair on my arms to stiff attention as I felt the invigorating rush I’ve come to associate with exploring such sites.The vast scale was immediately apparent and I had to remind myself this palace was not a 16th century fort ruin, but in fact a relic of the bronze age.The fertile, hydrated landscape spelled out in plain language exactly why this Cretan site had been occupied by farming people for at least 9,000 years.

Misty Alpine passes; crashing rivers that rise suddenly from nowhere; men descended from great bears; hills filled with dwarves & a dragon living under the mountain of a lake side town.. It’s easy to follow Tolkien’s imagination through the beautiful Swiss landscape, after all, it was the trip a young J.R.R made to the country that fuelled much of the creation for his Middle Earth.