When I visited Mallorca a couple of weeks ago, every guide said the exact same thing: you have to go to Sóller.

So I did. I had hoped to take the historic wooden train from Palma, but tickets were sold out, so I hopped on the bus instead. Luckily, I still got to ride the vintage tram down from the town to the port, which was a highlight of the trip.

The port sits in a nearly perfect horseshoe bay framed by the Serra de Tramuntana mountains, keeping the water calm, clear, and vivid blue. Whitewashed houses climb the surrounding hillsides, and the bay is dotted with sailboats.

I got incredibly lucky with the weather, as you can see in the photo above. If you only have time for one day trip outside of Palma, make it Port de Sóller. I can’t wait to return the next time I’m in Mallorca.

Eurostat's flash estimate for September is out, and it is not the news anyone was hoping for. Annual inflation in the euro area is expected to reach 3.8%, up from 3.2% in August and well above the 2.2% we had a year ago.

That is almost double the European Central Bank’s 2% target. As is so often the case, the culprit is energy. Energy prices are up 18.8% compared with last September, and they rose 3.9% in a single month. For perspective, a year ago energy was actually getting cheaper (−0.4%).

The good news, if there is any, is that the rest of the basket looks fairly calm. Strip out energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, and core inflation sits at 2.5%, barely up from 2.4% in August. Services are at 3.2%, food at 1.4% and industrial goods at just 1.1%.

In other words, this looks like an energy shock rather than prices running away across the board. At least for now. Let’s hope there is some agreement on the Iran war, because, not surprisingly, rising oil prices are fueling this energy-driven inflation.

I remember a few years back in Berlin, when locals would ask a Spanish colleague and friend of mine where he was from. Whenever he mentioned he was from the island of Mallorca, the reaction was almost always the same: a look of disbelief, followed by the inevitable question, “So what are you doing here, man?” I’d always been curious about the island and wanted to understand the appeal of the Balearics, and a few days ago I finally got the chance to see it for myself on a visit to Mallorca. It truly is beautiful, just as my friend had told me.

One of the activities I enjoy most when visiting a city is cycling, whenever possible, and on this trip, staying in Can Pastilla, I found that the hotel offered affordable full-day bike rentals. So I set off to visit the cathedral and its surroundings, as well as Bellver Castle, where I took the photo you can see above. I really enjoyed this visit, and I can’t wait to go back!

The Swiss town of Nyon in Vaud traces its roots back to 45 BC, when Julius Caesar founded the settlement as Colonia Iulia Equestris (also known to the Romans as Noviodunum).

Today, the ancient past still lives alongside the present. As you can see in the photo, the vestiges of three Roman columns still stand tall at the Esplanade des Marronniers overlooking Lake Geneva.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Roman ruins in Europe, but to be honest, every single time I stumble upon them, that same sense of awe and curiosity comes rushing back.

The latest EU statistics from Eurostat paint a worrying picture of obesity rates on the continent. As of 2025, 16.3% of EU adults are classified as obese (BMI of 30 or higher), and a further 35.4% fall into the “pre-obese” category (BMI 25–30).

Add those two together and you get more than half of the adult EU population currently carrying excess weight.

There’s also a clear gender split in the numbers. Men come out worse, with an obesity rate of 17.4% versus 15.3% for women, and a striking 41.9% of men classified as pre-obese compared to 29.3% of women.

What really caught my attention, though, was the country-level breakdown. Malta tops the obesity ranking at 26.6%, followed by Latvia (24.6%) and Finland (23.2%). Meanwhile Italy sits at the very bottom with just 7.0%, followed by Greece (12.8%) and Romania (12.9%).

Now, Italy and Greece topping the low end isn’t really a surprise, since the Mediterranean diet, with its olive oil, vegetables, legumes, and fish, has decades of research behind it linking it to lower obesity rates.

But Malta being the outlier at the top of the obesity list, despite sitting right in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, tells you that geography alone doesn’t guarantee the diet.

It’s not where you live, it’s what’s actually on your plate, and unfortunately, it looks like a lot of the traditional Mediterranean eating habits have quietly slipped away in some of these countries.

Next page