Abandoned places

The French village of Remenauville had 138 inhabitants living and working in the shadow of its neo-Gothic church tower in the early 20th century. But World War I changed everything.

The German army fenced off the border between Belgium and the Netherlands from 1915 with a three-wire fence. Electric current of 2,000 volts was rushed through the middle wire.

In 1815, after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, Dutch King William I gave the go-ahead for constructing the New Dutch Waterline. This defence line extended over a distance of 85 kilometres between the Zuiderzee and the Biesbosch.

Spanish engineer and inventor Leonardo Torres Quevedo erected the world's first cable car suitable for passenger transport in 1907.

The Spanish Empire once spread over much of the world, but the Spanish-American War of 1898 dealt the global empire a death blow.

When the Belgian King Leopold II visited the Paris World Exhibition in 1900, he was delighted by the Tour du Monde attraction, a colourful mix of Japanese towers, Chinese porticos and Hindu-style galleries. All the architectural styles of the Far East were mixed there.

The Hartmannswillerkopf massif in the French Vosges Mountains overlooks the Alsace and was the scene of heavy fighting between the French and German armies from December 1914 onwards during the First World War.

The rock castle of Lutzelhardt was partly carved out of the sandy rocks of the 400-metre-high Adelsberg at some point in the 13th century.

Monday morning, February 21, 1916. It is a quarter past seven in the morning when the German army opens fire on the forts north and east of Verdun in France.

The Schengen Agreement has allowed free movement of people within the European Union since 1992. As internal borders disappeared, customs posts along the border became utterly useless.