So you've got one day left to kill in Rome and have completely maxed out your credit cards and blown your savings. You can either sit in your hostel room sulking or take advantage of the many things Rome offers da gratis.

1. A stroll up to the Colle Oppio Park provides fine views of the Colosseum and contains ruins from the Domus Aurea.

2. The Colosseum, the granddaddy of Roman sights: Walking around and peering in are free, and also enough to get a sense of its grandeur. Admire the nearby Arch of Constantine.

3. The Roman Forum displays 2000-year-old ruins, as well as the Mamertine Prison where the apostles Peter and Paul were imprisoned. Notice the nearby Arch of Settimio.

4. Witness the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II. Inside, visit the Museum of the Italian Renaissance, housing Italian historical art dating from renaissance times through WWI.

5. Gawk at Michelangelo's Capitoline Piazza and steps. Enjoy the piazza's copy of the bronze statue, Marcus Aurelius on Horseback. View the Roman Forum from the terrace.

6. Finally, on the last Sunday of each month, the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel are free. Visit other Roman churches for mosaics, sculptures, paintings, and relics.

It may take a lot of patience and time to see all the châteaux in the Loire Valley, but it's certainly possible for those up to the challenge. Some determined chateau-crawlers spend hours traveling by bike or car, but more intrepid souls can save themselves the long haul and visit the chateaux via hot air balloon. From the air, all parts of the estates can be fully appreciated, from the gardens' exquisite patterns to the buildings' turrets and facades.

Total excursion time is 3½hr., and actual flight time approximates 1hr. Balloons take off in the early morning, a few minutes after sunrise, and in the evening before sunset. As they prepare for departure, patrons savor the anticipation (and a complimentary champagne toast) before embarking on their once-in-a-lifetime adventure. For the most fearless travelers, the romance of a hot air balloon may seem too tame. Luckily, some companies also offer helicopter tours of the valley or opportunities to skydive onto the lawns of Chambord or Cheverny.

For hot air balloons, contact France Montgolfières, 24 r. Nationale, 41400 Montrichard. (02 54 32 20 48; www.franceballoons.com. €250.) For helicopters, contact Jet Systems, Aérodrome d'Amboise, 37150 Dierre. (02 47 30 20 21; www.jet-systems.fr. €57-229.)

At 220m above the floor of the Verzasca Valley, the Val Verzasca Dam is home to the world's highest fixed-point bungee jump. It took seven years of lobbying before the Swiss government granted Trekking Team AG a license to install jumping equipment there, and since then the company has maintained a perfect safety record. When I arrived, I thought I knew what I was in for. Then I saw the dam, and its immensity immediately melted my certainty.

Physics suggests that a falling body should cover the distance in under seven seconds, but until the youngster next to me on the bridge threw a rock into the void, I had no idea how long that seemed.

After jumps by eight others, none of whom flinched before takeoff, I found myself at the edge. One second I was standing with my toes curled around the end of a metal platform, a staff member hanging onto my vest, then came a three-second countdown and the hand was gone. The sensation of falling felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Contact Trekking Team at www.trekking.ch. Open Apr.-Oct. Sa-Su; Jul-Aug W-Su. Reservations required. 255SFr, students 195SFr; additional jumps on the same day 125SFr. Night jumps possible.

Bullfighting has been a part of Iberian culture for centuries, dating back to the Moorish occupation. Eager to expel the Muslim invaders, Iberian noblemen trained themselves for combat on horseback. This gave rise to the original form of bullfighting; soon, bullfighting on horseback (toureio equestre) became a national tradition in both Spain and Portugal.

It was a Portuguese nobleman, Dom Pedro Alcântara y Meneses, who founded the activity as it is known today, laying down the formal rules of the fight. When Spanish King Carlos II died childless in 1700, the crown passed to Felipe V, of the French house of Bourbon. Disgusted by bullfighting's brutality, the Bourbons banned it in the mid-1700s; to avoid the ban, commoners took to fighting bulls on foot, giving birth to the Spanish variety.

In Portugal, the traditional art of toureio equestre has persisted. Beginning in the 18th century, however, it became illegal to kill the bull within the ring. The objective of the toureio equestre thus turned from slaughter to displaying the agility of the horse. Fights last 10min. and consist of the matador navigating his horse so as to plant six darts in the bull's neck, perhaps a more graceful version of the timeless battle between man and beast.

In February 1940, the Nazis established Europe's largest Jewish ghetto in Lódz. In order to confine the city's 230,000 Jews to the 4.3 sq. km area, the Nazis drove out non-Jewish residents with warnings of infectious diseases, then ordered all of the city's Jews into the cramped district, and after surrounding the area with a wall, announced that the ghetto was "closed."

After the Nazis proclaimed that residents of the ghetto must work in exchange for their meager rations of food, the overcrowded ghetto became a massive textile factory: young girls even hand-stitched the emblems on Nazi officers' uniforms. Conditions worsened when 20,000 more Jews and 5000 Gypsies joined the original internees. In 1942, deportations of the infirm and children began. Until 1944, though, Lódz managed to escape the total liquidation that had been the fate of other ghettos.

With the approach of the Red Army in August 1944, Heinrich Himmler deported the ghetto's 70,000 remaining residents to Auschwitz and Majdanek, sparing only 800 Jews who stayed back as a cleaning crew. As the Russians were about to capture Lódz, the Nazis resolved to execute these also. Fortunately, the Russians' swift advance interrupted their plans, saving all 800 Jews. Of those deported, 20,000 survived—the highest number of survivors of any European ghetto.