Syracuse, Agrigento, Palermo

The largest island in the Mediterranean, Sicily’s strategic importance has given it a violent, eventful and colourful history. Doric temples, Roman mosaics, elegant and powerful Norman architecture and a wealth of Baroque and Renaissance palaces and churches are a reminder of its great past.

9 nights price from £3986 per person

Geneva

Join readers of New Scientist magazine to discover the world's greatest physics laboratory, accompanied by particle physicist Darren Price.

5 nights price from £3579 per person

Prague

Join astronomer and lecturer Martin Griffiths for a journey to the heart of early modern science on our tour of mediaeval Prague in the footsteps of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.

5 nights price from £2369 per person

Palermo

The era of Norman power in Sicily, starting in the 11th century, produced a series of stunning artistic and cultural landmarks, concentrated in the area surrounding the capital, Palermo.

5 nights price from £2957 per person

With a network which once extended more than 150 miles, the Birmingham Canal Navigations could have rightly claimed a greater number of canals than Venice.

6 nights price from £1872 per person

Paris

Discover the foundations of the modern science of medicine in Paris, where the ‘Paris School’ of hygiene and hospital teaching flourished. From mummified écorché figures to bone-lined catacombs, the early history of medicine is sometimes gruesome but always fascinating.

4 nights price from £2757 per person

Tenerife

Visit an array of telescopes and take part in expert-led stargazing at Europe's most important astronomy sites in La Palma and Tenerife. Accompanied by New Scientist Astronomer Dr Stuart Clark, you will also visit rare sub-tropical rainforests, volcanoes and ancient cave petroglyphs.

7 nights price from £3489 per person

Cairo and Giza, Luxor, Aswan

The Nile Valley was the cradle of early civilisation, where a sophisticated society created some of the world’s most enduring monuments – from the Pyramids and Sphinx, to the great temples at Karnak, Luxor and Aswan and the extraordinary tombs etched into the Valley of the Kings.

9 nights price from £5996 per person

Vienna

Vienna at the turn of the last century was Europe’s most important cultural and academic melting-pot, which combined a wealthy civil society with a period of tolerance for the Jewish community, and a flourishing scientific, artistic and musical sphere.

4 nights price from £2486 per person

Marrakech

With its deep pink terracotta walls, the scent of orange blossom and jacaranda-lined boulevards, and the sounds of snake charmers, muezzins and dancing water sellers in Djemaa El Fna Square, Marrakech has a unique, hedonistic quality.

5 nights price from £3196 per person