England is the largest of the four countries that make up the British Isles, and is the largest island in Europe. Because seagulls thrive on seacoasts, they flock here. Fog is common along the coasts. London, the country’s capital, has about 113 foggy days each year.
Buckingham Palace in London is one of the Royal Family’s many homes. Tea is a traditional British drink that is served at the palace and in homes throughout the country.
Every July, about 150 bicycle riders race in the famous Tour de France. But each day, people (and their pets!) can be seen touring the country on motorbikes, scooters, Rollerblades, and skateboards.
Each spring and fall, clothing designers from around the world show off their new styles—usually on models wearing high-heeled shoes—during Paris Fashion Week.
The arts flourish in France—in places like Montmartre, a section of Paris, the capital city, where owners of galleries (places to show off works of art) help artists sell their work and become known to the public, and also at the international film festival in Cannes, a popular resort city in southern France.
Snails (escargots) are delicacies that are served in many French restaurants.
Rabbits were first brought to Italy by Romans in the third century B.C. and have been a popular farm animal ever since. Rabbit meat is a basic part of the diet in this country.
St. Peter’s Basilica is the largest church in the world and is known for its great dome, which brightens all of Rome, Italy’s capital.
The city of Venice is built on about 118 islands in the Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea, and hundreds of bridges cross the canals there. People (and cats) often travel around the city in motorboats and gondolas, which are long, narrow, flat-bottomed boats.
St. Mark’s Square, in the center of Venice, is a meeting place for residents and tourists—and pigeons, too!
Bullfighting is Spain’s best-known and most unusual spectacle, but today many people think it is cruel to kill bulls—or any animals—for sport, and hope it will end soon. Soccer—or fútbol in Spanish—is the country’s most popular sport, and many cities have stadiums that hold 100,000 or more fans.
Vienna, the capital of Austria, is famous for its music festivals honoring great composers who once lived and worked there, including Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Haydn, Mahler, and the Strauss family. The Vienna Opera House attracts music lovers from many nations and is one of the city’s most treasured buildings.
The first Olympic Games (athletic contests) were held in 776 B.C. on the plains of Olympia in southern Greece. The festivals honored Zeus, king of the gods in Greek mythology, and took place every four years. In 1924 winter sports were added, and in 1994 the event switched to a two-year cycle, with winter and summer games alternating.
The Olympics take place in different cities around the world and include many sports, from boxing to yachting in the summer games (in which approximately ten thousand athletes compete) to ice-skating and bobsledding in the winter games (with about two thousand contestants). The Olympic Games help to promote world peace as well as good sportsmanship.
Holland, or the Netherlands, ships its famous tulip bulbs—nearly four thousand varieties of them!—to countries around the world. Dutch is the language spoken in the Netherlands and is the name given to the country’s people.
