The Top Travel Destinations with Kevin Flanagan

Beneath one of St Petersburg's most gilded palaces lies a cold, vaulted cellar where, one December night in 1916, aristocrats poisoned, shot and finally drowned Grigori Rasputin — the monk who would not die. Kevin descends the staircase, stands among the wax figures at the fatal supper table, and discovers a room that is so disturbing it leaves some people in a cold sweat. It also later inspired his novel, The Secret of the Sacred Spear. Travel, it seems, can be fertile ground for a soaring imagination.
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Vienna: schnitzel, Sachertorte, coffee-house afternoons — and, hidden in the Hofburg's Imperial Treasury, an iron spearhead legend calls the Spear of Destiny: the lance of Longinus, coveted by emperors and stolen by Hitler himself. Kevin follows it from Vienna to a claustrophobic Nuremberg bunker — and reveals how standing before this relic inspired his novel, The Secret of the Sacred Spear.
You can also follow The Top Travel Destinations on social media for updates: 
Instagram: ⁠@thetoptraveldestinations⁠
X: ⁠@becreativekev

French graves have been iconic tourist attractions ever since Père Lachaise Cemetery opened in 1804.

In this episode, Kevin recounts an emotional visit to one of France's lesser-known but equally remarkable cemeteries, Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, the final resting place of many Russian émigrés who fled the October Revolution — including perhaps the greatest Russian ballet dancer of his, or any, generation: the legendary Rudolf Nureyev, whom Kevin danced alongside with the London Festival Ballet.
You can also follow The Top Travel Destinations on social media for updates: 
Instagram: ⁠@thetoptraveldestinations⁠
X: ⁠@becreativekev

Venice should not exist — yet thirteen centuries on, it's still fighting the sea. In this episode, Kevin tells the story of MOSE, the colossal, controversial and staggeringly expensive flood barrier holding back the Adriatic, and what every traveller should know before visiting the city it protects.
You can also follow The Top Travel Destinations on social media for updates: 
Instagram: ⁠@thetoptraveldestinations⁠
X: ⁠@becreativekev

Travelling to the most dangerous airport in the world at Katmandu, under the shadow of Mount Everest, the day after a plane crashed. That was a trip that certainly took me out of my routine!
You can also follow The Top Travel Destinations on social media for updates: 
Instagram: ⁠@thetoptraveldestinations⁠
X: ⁠@becreativekev