Windsor Castle, a home of Queen Elizabeth II and one of Britain's most popular tourist attractions, is to get an extensive facelift to improve facilities for visitors.

Tourist areas at the medieval castle west of London will be redeveloped at an expected cost of £27 million ($38 million, 33 million euros), said the Royal Collection, which looks after the British monarchy's art.

The route taken by Hannibal over the Alps to invade Italy has been a matter of debate for 2,000 years, but scientists may now have the answer -- thanks to some ancient horse poo.

More than 15,000 horses and 37 elephants accompanied the 30,000-strong Carthaginian army in a march on the Roman Republic in 218 BC, which sparked years of bloody conflict.

The Vatican has set up a new office charged with promoting the use of the .Catholic domain name, in its latest move to upgrade its communications for the digital era.

With a staff of eight IT experts, the new office will seek to expand the use of the domain name by all Church and Church-affiliated bodies with the aim of assuring Internet users they are dealing with officially sanctioned sites.

India's version of craft brewing is seeing scores of thirsty tipplers sample everything from coconut stout to mango lager, as tastes mature in a country that has traditionally only downed strong liquor "to get a kick".

Bangalore has more than 25 thriving brewpubs -- a pub with a small brewery on the premises -- while India's other cosmopolitan cities boasting vast young populations and expanding middle classes are also catching on.

Palestinian tourism officials say construction workers in the Gaza Strip have discovered what they believe to be a Christian religious site from the Byzantine era.

Heyam al-Bitar, research director for the Hamas-run Tourism and Antiquities Ministry, said on Tuesday that the discovery included remnants of marble Corinthian pillars, foundations and crowns, some of them with a Greek cross.

France's national army museum has recreated the home where Napoleon lived his final years, bringing furniture and belongings from the remote Atlantic Island of St. Helena to Paris for the first time since he was exiled there 200 years ago.

The exhibition that opens Wednesday offers a flavor of the atmosphere of the damp, rat-infested Longwood House, where the emperor spent his last years as a prisoner of the British government, surrounded by books and souvenirs.

On the wall of a monastery in Syria's desert, jihadists from the Islamic State group left a grim warning: "The lions of the caliphate are here to devour you." 

The Syrian army on Sunday drove out the jihadists, but the damage they have caused in a place that was once a symbol of religious tolerance seems almost irreparable.

Two people were killed on Monday when a wall collapsed above a tea house in a popular tourist spot in the historic center of Istanbul, Turkish officials said.

The director of Russia's renowned Hermitage Museum, which has an important collection of sculptures from Palmyra, has offered its expertise to help restore the ancient Syrian city retaken by President Bashar Assad's forces from the Islamic State group.

Some male Muslim students in Switzerland will no longer need to shake hands with their female teachers, following a ruling that has caused an uproar and consternation in the country.