Barbara Ireland, a writer and editor based in western New York State, is a former deputy travel editor and deputy Op-Ed page editor at The New York Times. While on the Times staff, she commissioned and edited many "36 Hours" columns and wrote a few herself. She is a graduate of Cornell University and was a John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University.

Culture, history, natural beauty, fine cuisine, artistic masterpieces, cutting-edge architecture and style Europe overflows with so many riches that a lifetime seems too short to appreciate them. But with the right guidance, you can go far in a single weekend. Stylishly written and carefully researched, this updated and expanded collection of the popular New York Times 36 Hours feature offers you 125 well-crafted itineraries for quick but memorable European trips, accompanied by hundreds of color photographs to fire your imagination. Explore the expected: the Renaissance in Florence, surfing in Biarritz, flamenco in Seville. And discover the unexpected: Sicilian mummies dressed in their Sunday best, a dry-land toboggan ride on Madeira, a hotel in Tallinn with a KGB spies nest on the penthouse floor. World capitals, ancient nations that once ruled wide domains, tiny countries with big personalities it s all Europe, and all fun to read about (whether you actually go or not) in this handsomely designed and illustrated book.

Features:

· 4,500 hours worth of insightful itineraries to make the most of your stay

· 125 European destinations, from major cities to lesser known gems

· Practical recommendations for over 500 restaurants and 400 hotels

· Color-coded tabs and ribbons to bookmark your favorite cities in each region

· Nearly 800 photos, most of them from The New York Times archive

· All stories have been updated and adapted for this volume by Barbara Ireland, a veteran Times travel editor

· New illustrations by Times illustrator Olimpia Zagnoli of Milan

· Easy-to-reference indexes

· Detailed city-by-city maps pinpoint every stop on your itinerary

Also available: 36 Hours: 150 Weekends in the USA & Canada