MetroUK: El Gouna is everything I normally dislike: a resort town with luxury hotels and a lack of historical depth. But, in large pockets of the town, something special is happening.

The Sun: Ustica, a tiny island about 30 miles north of Palermo and probably Sicily’s best-kept secret.

MetroUK: A beautiful collection of islands in the middle of the Atlantic.

MetroUK: The little known, but beautiful mountainous Greek region.

WITH the recent upsurge in vocal Catalonian independence advocates, and even more recently the ‘illegal’ referendum where two million votes were cast declaring the wish to separate from the rest of Spain — the voice of the Catalan people is beginning to be heard on the world stage. It was as good a time as any to take to the streets of Catalonia and ask the people who live here what makes them proud of this place.

NO PART OF THE WORLD within the last ten years has been scrutinized as much or stereotyped as heavily as the Muslim world. Although a minority of these countries have warranted the criticism, the media has unjustly painted the remaining majority as being similarly run, hateful of the west, and as places to be avoided.