America's favorite travel guide returns to transport viewers to Europe's cities, villages and countryside. Don't blink as we blitz through Europe's tiniest countries on this episode of RICK STEVES' EUROPE:
Vatican City, the planet's smallest country, boasts the its biggest church.
The Vatican is home to the most glorious church in all Christendom, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Vatican Museum, which displays some of the greatest art of western civilization.
The fairy-tale princedom of Monaco lures high rollers with its fancy casino and glamorous views.
On the Mediterranean Sea, basking between the French and Italian Rivieras, the principality of Monaco barely fits on its one square mile of territory. From the famous casino to the palace atop its fortified hill, a visit to Monaco is a Riviera "must."
Italy's last independent hill town, San Marino, still looks formidable, as does the castle-guarded principality of Liechtenstein.
Located just a few miles inland from the Adriatic coast, the Republic of San Marino brags it's the world's oldest and smallest republic. It's remained sovereign and independent from Italy through almost all its 1700-year history. Located in the rugged Apennine Mountains, San Marino takes you back to the age of city-states, an era of pageantry, pride and fierce independence.
Nestled between Switzerland and Austria, the principality of Liechtenstein is a quirky remnant of medieval feudal politics, where women were not given the vote until 1984.
And amid the rugged beauty of the Pyrenees, tiny Andorra draws shoppers and hikers alike.
Just little more than a generation ago, Andorra morphed from a rough-and-tumble smugglers' haven to a high tech, high altitude shoppers' haven, with pockets of old-world charm hiding out in the town center.
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Distributed by American Public Television.
