Hitler said to Albert Speer on 28 June 1940, “Wasn’t Paris beautiful?” Beautiful, fashionable, historical, artistic and romantic — are all words that are as apt today as 72 years ago.

If there’s anything that Germanic Europe has to offer the traveller, it is a vivid, yet somewhat underplayed, history of culture and folklore that crosses the boundaries of many countries today. I was the lone Indian in a group of