EUROPE

COPENHAGEN. Small "allotment" gardens are a Danish tradition dating back to the late 1800s when many city dwellers leased a small piece of land outside the city to grow vegetables, fruits and flowers. Over time, a specialized, jewel-box form of architecture emerged as garden lovers created petite cottages to fit both their fancy and their tiny lots. The Danes' happiness with being in the countryside produced a kingdom of imaginative playhouses, sometimes with Russian onion domes or Moorish details. Honoring this tradition, two Danish architects persuaded 13 top international colleagues, including Italy's Aldo Rossi and Japan's Arata Isozaki, to fashion their own exquisite allotment houses. The results are on display as part of the exhibit "Copenhagen 96, Cultural Capital of Europe." Through Dec. 31.

FLORENCE. Admirers of Caravaggio need no longer journey to Malta to view one of the Italian master's most acclaimed works. Normally on display at Valletta's Cathedral of St. John, Beheading of the Baptist is being shown at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence until Sept. 30. The 3.6-m by 5.2-m canvas depicting the execution of Saint John the Baptist is Caravaggio's largest painting and the only one he signed; he scribbled his name with the "blood" flowing from the martyr's neck, thereby identifying his own troubled life with that of the persecuted prophet. The work, which dates from 1608, was commissioned for the cathedral in Valletta. It is being shown along with two other paintings from the period, Cupid Asleep and Portrait of a Knight of Malta, both on loan from Palazzo Pitti in Florence.

SOUTH PACIFIC

MIDWAY ATOLL. For the first time since World War II, tourists can visit Midway Atoll, the site of an epic U.S. victory over Japan in 1942 and now a nature refuge abounding with wildlife and plants. The first commercial trips to the three-islet atoll are available from San Francisco-based Oceanic Society Expeditions (price: from $1,550). The destination is an ornithologist's paradise--home to the world's largest Laysan albatross (gooney bird) colony, and more than a dozen other migratory seabirds and shorebirds. Endangered species that can still be sighted on Midway include the Hawaiian monk seal and short-tailed albatross.

ASIA

HONG KONG. Unlikely as it seems, the crowded shipping lanes of Hong Kong harbor also shelter some very hardy dolphins. Three times a week, sightseers board a vessel crewed by a local group called Hong Kong Dolphin Watch, which plies the British colony's outlying islands in search of the rare Chinese pink dolphin, selected by China as the mascot for next year's change-of-sovereignty celebrations. Unfortunately, the mix of shipping traffic, pollution and the construction of a new airport adjacent to the mammals' main habitat is taking its toll: the pink dolphin's population appears to be dwindling.