SECRET EUROPE
BELGIUM
Graanmarkt 13, Antwerp
Hazel Lubbock, Digital Platform Editor
Graanmarkt 13 takes the concept store concept to the next level. This elegant townhouse is home to a ground-floor shop, stocking work by emerging fashion and interior designers, a vegetable-forward basement restaurant by chef Seppe Nobels and a gorgeous (and bookable) rooftop apartment for up to six people. Belgian architect Vincent Van Duysen’s cool concrete interiors (pictured below) create a harmonious link between each of the spaces, which feel like homely layers rather than distinct floors. It’s the kind of place you wish you lived in. And you can – for a few days, at least (00-32-3-337-79-91; Graanmarkt 13).
BOSNIA
Mostar Aircraft Hangar, Gnojnice
Joe Davis, Online Marketing Coordinator
Take a taxi to this site, 6km outside the city of Mostar’s Old Town, and at first glance, it feels as if you’ve arrived at an illegal rubbish tip – but this debris-filled aircraft hangar was a top-secret hideaway for fighter jets during the Yugoslav Wars. You can still see the camopainted polystyrene made to look like rock, and navigate through a warren of ‘blast doors’. Anywhere else in Europe, this would be a ticketed historic site with a gift shop.
CROATIA
Mljet
Matt Phillips, Destination Editor
I only had eyes for Korčula. The Adriatic island off the coast of Croatia, with its majestically fortified town of the same name (picture a pint-sized Dubrovnik), had called to me ever since unfavourable wind directions had forced me to give it a miss during a previous sailing holiday.
Yet, as I dropped anchor in the shadow of Korčula’s ramparts on day three of my latest sailing adventure, I was still thinking about the island of Mljet. I’d cruised along its ruggedly beautiful north coast the previous evening at sunset, tucked the yacht up near some ancient Roman ruins in the quaint village of Polače for some sleep, and then spent my morning running through the forested hills of Mljet National Park. It was all a revelation.
So, after taking in the Gothic and Renaissance architecture in the citadel of Korčula, I soon set sail back to Mljet. I hugged the island’s southwestern shore, looking into the dense forests of the national park, home to pristine saltwater lakes, before I stopped for some lunch on-board within a stunning cliff-bound bay.
