Simon Schama’s Top 10 Marvels, in order of creation

Many of these wonders are a bit of a trek but all are worth the mileage. Others are located in more familiar places such as Istanbul, Agra or Rome but not on the standard must-see lists.

1) Ice Age paintings in the caves of Tito Bustillo (c22,000BC-10,000BC)

Because of the damage done to fragile Palaeolithic paintings by human presence, many of the most spectacular sites such as Altamira and Lascaux are off-limits. But there are still some available for visits (book well ahead) and Tito Bustillo in the province of Asturias in northern Spain is one. Walk along a dry river bed for 25 minutes, through jagged glades of stalactites and stalagmites until you reach paintings of horses and reindeer, painted in violet, black and yellow; images of confounding naturalism: an unforgettably affecting communion across the millennia. ...