There is something enthralling about spending a few days losing yourself in this city’s narrow cobblestone streets lined with pretty pastel-coloured buildings while mastering its steep hills fuelled by good coffee and pastel de nata.

Famous for innovation, precision and punctuality, the Swiss have again broken ground, in more ways than one.

This is the third time in three days that I’m devouring a schnitzel bigger than my face. The pork cutlet pours over my giant plate, it’s pounded paper thin with a crispy golden exterior. I cut a triangle-sized bite, squeeze fresh lemon, dousing the morsel in its juices, and then smear it through the remnants of my potato salad. I wash the perfect bite down with a gulp of blond beer. This is so good! I’m already negotiating how I can fit in a fourth stop on my travels.

The scene opens with a beautiful landscape: hills, valleys and a lone car racing along a winding road above steep cliffs. This is something we’ve all seen in high-end car commercials, but if you visit Iceland, it is something you can experience for yourself.

GLASGOW - When I arrived at the airport in this handsome Scottish city with the industrial past, I’m greeted by a kilted man named Colin, who whisks me into a classy black taxi and we head for the historic Merchant City District.

ISTANBUL - Bahar dumps pales of soapy, warm water over my body, and limb by limb she scrubs me down. I’m lying in my birthday suit underneath the dome of a Turkish hammam. The heat and the methodical sound of water hitting the stone floor are lulling me to sleep. And when I open my eyes in between rinsing, I’m surrounded by foggy steam and the outline of other women, barely clad as they’re bathed, too.

I love cemeteries, because they’re alive with history. European gravesites especially fascinate me. A stroll through Paris’ Pere Lachaise Cemetery, where the likes of Chopin and Jim Morrison are buried, or Edinburgh’s 16th-century Greyfriars Kirkyard with its touching legend of Greyfriars’ Bobby (a faithful Skye terrier who spent 14 years guarding the gravesite of his master), or London’s Westminster Cathedral, where kings, queens, explorers and the giants of English literature lie in crypt...

The young backpackers walking the streets of this enchanting city clutching Starbucks cups attract contemptuous stares from some elderly locals. One grandmotherly type sneers at a group of Americans balancing their designer coffee in one hand while texting friends back home with the other.

This is a city of contradictions. Situated where Asia meets Europe, it’s a collection of ancient mosques and modern museums, old world customs and 21st century mores.

It was a lesson I learned long ago, that the best place to taste a wine is in the cave of its birth. There is a magic that makes the experience much more memorable than the same bottle sampled on a Friday night, say, at a neighbourhood eatery far from its roots.