Clocks across the majority of European countries went forward by one hour early on Sunday as the continent moves to daylight saving time, also known as summer time.

Clocks in most European nations including Germany advanced by one hour at 2 am (0100 GMT) to 3 am, heralding longer evenings and brighter days.

This means that for the coming months parts of Europe will be on Central European Summer Time (CEST), before moving back to Central European Time (CET) in the autumn, when clocks go back again by an hour on October 25.

The aim of the change is to make better use of daylight in the shorter days of the winter in the northern hemisphere.

The signal for the automatic changeover of the clocks in Germany comes from the Federal Institute of Physics and Metrology (PTB) in the northern city of Braunschweig, also known as Brunswick in English.

The institute's experts ensure that radio-controlled clocks, station clocks and many industrial clocks are supplied with the signal via a long-wave transmitter called DCF77 in Mainflingen near Frankfurt.