Soft bob riding in Sigulda, Latvia

Members of bobsleigh teams in the Winter Olympics tend to be muscular sprinters who push their sled then jump aboard once it’s moving. We, by contrast, get comfy before being given a helping hand by the man who just explained we must keep our hands inside of the soft bob as we travel along the track.

Things to do in Scheveningen

Scheveningen is one of the locations across the Netherlands that mark the onset of the new herring season, each June, with celebratory feasts. Known as flag day — Vlaggetjesdag in Dutch — it sees people donning traditional attire while the country’s red, white and blue horizontal tricolour flaps from flagpoles and pokes in miniature from wooden cocktail sticks stuck into succulent slices of herring.

The Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg’s waterfront icon

Paris has the Eiffel Tower, Sydney has its opera house and, of course, New York has the Statue of Liberty. In our age of social media and punchy, image-led digital communications icons have become more important than ever. The opening of Hamburg’s new waterfront landmark, the Elbphilharmonie, led to an inevitable flurry of activity on Instagram, Twitter and blogs in northern Germany and beyond.

Behind the Scenes: Stuttgart Airport, Germany

“What I like about working at Stuttgart Airport is the variety of my job and working together with people. It’s not just sitting in the office but talking with people and seeing what people do,” says Ralf Brenner, the Safety Manager at Germany’s sixth busiest airport, while we’re in the baggage sorting area.