Oslo, Norway’s capital and biggest city, has gone through several names in its 1,000-odd years of existence. Although Oslo was the original name, after a catastrophic fire in 1624, King Christian IV declared that the town should be rebuilt in the area below the Akershus Fortress. He changed its name to Christiania, in honor of himself. Beginning in 1877, the name was spelled Kristiania. In 1925, it was changed back to Oslo.

Moldova’s capital city of Chisinau is home to the world’s single largest wine collection by number of bottles, as recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records. Founded in 1969, wine producer Milestii Mici has over 2 million bottles stored under the streets of Chisinau. The gallery is so large that the aisles of wine are organized into their own “streets” across dozens of miles of caves.

Chocolate stores within the Brussels Airport sell more than 800 tons of chocolate per year. The Belgian Chocolate House and the Chocolate Kiosk are two of the biggest shops within the airport. Chocolate lovers can also visit a museum dedicated to chocolate about an hour’s drive outside Brussels, in the city of Bruges.

The Triple Crown of Motorsport consists of the Indy 500 in Indianapolis; the 24 Hours of Le Mans, France; and the Monaco Grand Prix. Though it’s one of the most glamorous events, Monaco’s race is actually one of the slowest races because it takes place on Monaco’s narrow city streets. Many downtown residents of the capital can watch the race from the balconies of their residences.

The world’s first Ferris wheel debuted as the centerpiece of the Chicago’s World Fair in 1893. While it was an immediate success, the original Ferris wheel was dismantled in the early 1900s. The Wiener Riesenrad in Vienna is the oldest Ferris wheel in the world, opened in 1897 for the 50th anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph I’s rule and still operating today.

Helsinki, Lisbon, and Copenhagen are the largest cities in their respective countries, but Switzerland’s most populous city is Zurich, which is not its capital. Though the Swiss constitution technically doesn’t define a capital, Bern has been the country’s de facto capital and seat of government since 1848. The city is home to approximately 130,000 people, about one-third of Zurich’s population.

Visible from many parts of the Polish capital, the 778-foot-tall Palace of Culture and Science is Warsaw’s second-tallest building and the sixth-tallest in the European Union. Built in 1955, the skyscraper is home to theaters (both stage and screen), museums, restaurants, and the city's main tourist office. There's also an outdoor observation deck on the 30th floor, from which you can take in panoramas of Warsaw.

The Hague is the center of much of the world’s international legal proceedings. Located in the Dutch capital is the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial seat for the United Nations. The Hague is also the location of the International Criminal Court. It is the third-largest city in the Netherlands by population, behind Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Arthur Guinness had quite a bit of foresight when, in 1759, he signed a 9,000-year lease to take over Dublin's unused St. James’s Gate Brewery for £45 per year. Granted, at that time, this was equivalent to nearly £9,000 ($12,500) today, but fortunately for Guinness, he was able to quickly build a successful beer business. Today, the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin is Ireland’s most visited tourist attraction.

While Hungary is primarily a Catholic country, one of its most notable places of worship is the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest, which is the largest of its kind in Europe. Built in the 1850s, the magnificent complex is also the second-largest synagogue in the world, behind the Great Beth Midrash Gur in Jerusalem.

Cyprus, Luxembourg, Monaco, and San Marino are all relatively tiny countries, with a combined population of just under 1 million. But while Monaco, Luxembourg, and San Marino all share an exact name with their capitals, Cyprus’ capital city is Nicosia. The official languages of this island nation in the Eastern Mediterranean are Greek and Turkish.

Museum Island is the nickname for a grouping of five museums on Spree Island in Berlin. The Altes Museum was established in 1830, followed by the Neues Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie (which features work from artists such as Paul Cézanne and Pierre-Auguste Renoir), the Bode-Museum (which features an extensive sculpture collection), and the Pergamon Museum.

The modern-day Olympics were born in Greece in 1896, and they returned to the capital of Greece in 2004. However, London has hosted the Olympics three times, in 1908, 1948, and 2012. The city was also selected one other time, but the Games were canceled due to World War II. Other European capitals that have hosted the Olympics include Rome, Oslo, Sarajevo, Moscow, Helsinki, Stockholm, Paris, and Amsterdam.

Both Amsterdam and the Hague are considered capitals of the Netherlands. According to the country’s constitution, Amsterdam — the largest city and economic center of the Netherlands — is the capital. However, the seat of government and administrative center of the country is in the Hague, which is also home to the Netherlands’ Supreme Court.

According to legend, Rome was founded in ancient times by Romulus and Remus, who were sons of the war god Mars. As the story goes, the twins were abandoned and then raised by a wolf at the present site of Rome. Romulus and Remus decided to build a city there and eventually battled for control, and the city was named for the winner: Romulus.

Sandwiched high in the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France, the microstate of Andorra covers a terrain of just 181 square miles. Home to only about 77,000 people, it is the 16th-smallest country in the world and the sixth-smallest in Europe. And due to its mountainous location, its capital, Andorra la Vella, is the highest capital city in Europe, at an elevation of 3,356 feet.

Technically a capital city itself, Vatican City is also the world’s smallest country, located entirely within Italy’s capital of Rome. The pope is the head of state, and the Vatican even prints its own money, passports, license plates. The city-state covers roughly 120 acres and has a population of less than 1,000 people.

If you’ve toured London, chances are you’ve done it in one of the city's iconic red double-decker buses. In the early 1900s, several bus companies competed to become the leading transport provider in London, and the London General Omnibus Company stood out from the pack with their bright red buses. London Transport officially adopted the color for all their buses in 1933, and the consistently red buses remain today.

Alfred Nobel was a chemist, inventor, and philanthropist who left his fortune to establish the Nobel Prize, which is awarded from his birthplace of Stockholm, Sweden. For more than a century, the Nobel Prize has given out awards in the categories of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. Stockholm is also where the Right Livelihood Award (sometimes referred to as the “alternative Nobel”) is presented.

The City of Light, or “la Ville Lumiére,” is the French capital’s most famous nickname. One theory about how Paris got the moniker is that Paris was the first city in Europe to incorporate electric street lights in the late 1870s. Another theory is that the name began when King Louis XIV fought against a rise in crime by requiring Parisians to keep their houses lit after sunset.

Slovakia’s capital of Bratislava is bordered to the west by Austria (whose capital of Vienna is less than 50 miles away) and to the south by Hungary. It is the only national capital that borders two foreign countries. Bratislava is the largest city in Slovakia but one of the smallest national capitals in Europe, home to only around 440,000 people.