Re-enactments

Walk the narrow, cobblestoned streets of the town of Le Puy-en-Velay in mid-September, and you'll swear you are in 16th-century France (if you ignore the cigarettes and cellphones). Aristocrats in fur-lined velvet cloaks stroll alongside peasants in plain tunics leading donkeys, jugglers perform, and vendors hawk meat pies.

No sooner had we sat down in the semi-reconstructed Hippodrome at Jerash, Jordan's Roman city, a massive arena that once seated 15,000 spectators then, in the distance, I witnessed the appearance of a part of a Roman Legion, in a few minutes a re-enactment of the golden days of Rome came alive before us.

Rival teams from different quarters of Pisa fought for symbolic possession of a bridge over the Arno River. In those times, the games often degenerated into brutal and bloody man to man fighting.

Brussels' Grand Place is packed with spectators, including the Royal Family and their guests, for the annual Ommegang, or 'walk about' in Dutch, the major annual event in the city since 1549. Although historians believe it began as a religious ritual in the 14th Century, the huge parade and festival is now devoid of religious connotations and focuses on local folklore and heritage.

Bellowing out his command loudly in Russian from right behind my ear, the captain sharply snaps me from my momentary lull in the baking Baltic sun.