Resistance groups may be fighting pollution in Budapest, but there’s a long way to go from holding bicycle protests to creating a political impact. How can ecological thinking blossom in the Hungarian capital?

Whilst shopping malls spring up like mushrooms, more and more shops in the city centre stand empty. Where does the course lie between tradition and modernity in Budapest?

You can’t evade the underground in everyday life in Budapest, which has the second oldest metro system in Europe after London

Budapest is famous for being one of the world’s sex capitals. Pornography, sex toursim and prostitution converge in the Hungarian capital, to the delight of some and the frowns of others

Light comedies and export hits: Czech cinema rides on the wave of success. But in Prague young fresh filmmakers and independent cinemas push against the mainstream

The Czech capital is banishing a young Brit’s project from the city centre after the first Speaker’s Corner in Europe outside of the UK became a hotspot for extremists

A space without appeal next to Brussels South railway station is far from what we expect from the capital of Europe

On 1 January 2008, France followed Italy, Ireland, Great Britain and Spain by passing a law against smoking in public places. We went to see how things are coming along on the other side of the Alps. A report from the City of Lights

'Banlieue' is the colloquial reversal of 'lieu du ban', literally, 'place of exile'. In the French suburbs, out of work labourers are holed up in prison-style buildings, along with their children, to whom they pass on their despair

After European capitals London, Berlin and Amsterdam, Paris has the fourth biggest gay community. 700, 000 people participated in its 2007 gay parade. But life for gays and lesbians in the French capital is not exactly as rosy as the colour pink

High rents, fierce competition - just a couple of difficulties that 100, 000 people in Paris face when looking for accommodation

The district in south-west Germany is a pioneering development that puts into action innovative rules for communal living in a unique environment. But this paradise of purity is not without its faults

28% of Portuguese and 45% of Spaniards want to unify Spain and Portugal

General De Gaulle in France, Churchill in the UK. The Portuguese have voted the founder and leader of the authoritarian regime the 'greatest ever figure in Portuguese history'

The fifth and last in our ‘taxi’ series. In Brussels, you catch them from taxi locations specifically created to this end, at different spots in town

In a beige Mercedes with a yellow and black taxi sign on the roof and leather seats, the destination is the Berlin of yesterday, today and tomorrow

Third in our summer series tracking Europe's taxi drivers, where finding a taxi in the eternal city is like trying to find a needle in a haystack

The German capital is a real paradise for gays and lesbians. Despite the high level of general tolerance, the reality is that discrimination in the workplace and violent attacks still continue

The death and rebirth of two city icons provide an impressive picture of the nostalgia that characterises Germany

Last May, the German daily newspaper Tagesspeigel warned that in Berlin one child in three lives off 'Hartz IV' (government aid). This is a new high for Germany and is more than twice the national average. Is it an avatar of reunification?

At the foot of the Acropolis, a new museum is undergoing construction – but something important is missing: the British Museum is not prepared to return pieces of the world-famous Parthenon frieze to Athens

As 29 people of mainly Moroccan origin go on trial in Madrid for the March 11 bombings of 2004, life for Barcelona's Muslim community ticks on

A long tradition of international events and Olympics throwbacks - like Fòrum 2004 - have regenerated urban Barcelona, but haven’t always helped improve its European image

In Barcelona, unlicensed street performers, sleeping on park benches and drinking and urinating on its streets is illegal. How has the civic by-law affected society one year on?

As riots hit Copenhagen after the demolition of a legal youth culture house, Barcelona considers its 300 squats in the look up to May’s municipal elections

One night in Barcelona's famous 'Apolo' club, where the 'international master of turntablism' divides clubgoers with his mellow electronic strains

Ceauescu erected the Romanian parliament in the second largest building in the world

In 1896, Budapest welcomed the first metro line on the European mainland. Well over a century later, and the Hungarian capital’s public transport network desperately needs upgrading.

Being a geographical centre, Rome traces its own road in balancing the contradictary identities that flow in from the north and the south

Edda Billi, a Tuscan who has spent more than 40 years fighting tooth and nail for gender equality, recounts the history of the feminist movement in Rome

How does the ‘Eternal City’ juggle the need to preserve its past with the equally important need to construct its future?

The Vatican – city within a city – and the Roman Diocese, which together govern the 338 parishes, 247 colleges and 558 Catholic secondary education institutions, condition life in the Italian capital

The Romanian city of Sibiu, in the Transylvania region, is making waves alongside Luxembourg as joint European Capitals of Culture 2007

Connoisseurs from all over the world visit Brussels to stock up on pralines, the famous traditional Belgian chocolates

Francophone and Flemish, North African and Eurocrat… The European Capital mirrors the contradictions and cultural diversity of Europe

Neither coalition nor legal organisation, the ‘Lux Voor’ movement, founded in March 2006, radically questions contemporary Dutch politics. We take a look at this flourishing network

It is not easy to establish a national identity when foreigners make up 38% of a country’s population, especially when it is a country that has to sit between France and Germany. However, sometimes a small country can teach the European Union a wonderful lesson on integration.

Before long, demolition work will begin on the ‘Palace of the Republic’ in Berlin, a relic from GDR days. In other ex-socialist states there are similar buildings, and every one has its own story.

Europe's twenty- and thirty-somethings are enjoying the era of low-cost consumerism, particularly in air travel, telecommunications and food; a spending revolution which is increasing their sense of European identity.