How come I, as a Briton, can name vast numbers of Dutch towns and cities, but struggle to think of more than a couple of Greek placenames? Why are the German cities I’m most aware of not always the most populous? And, most baffling of all, why is my 15-year-old son more familiar with a Swedish village with 6,000 inhabitants than he is with Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city?
As he and I completed an addictive online quiz that challenged us to list as many European placenames as we could, these were the questions that occupied me. Although to be honest, the first two were actually quite easy to answer: it was football’s fault.
