Small but not too beautiful
Europe’s micro-countries may be places where people are up to no good, but so are bigger ones
THE top of the Spanish Steps in Rome is as good a place as any to appreciate the strangeness of Europe, for it is perhaps the only place from which to survey three sovereign entities. Most of the view is, of course, in Italy. But in the distance is the dome of St Peter’s in the Vatican, a separate city-state. And, just below, a large red-and-white flag billowing above Rome’s glitziest shopping area signals the presence of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Small but not too beautiful”
From the August 13th 2016 edition
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