Pena Palace looks like a child drew it. Yellow towers, red walls, a Moorish gate next to a Manueline window next to a crenellated rampart, all piled on a granite peak above Sintra. It was built in the 19th century as a romantic fantasy for Portugal's royal family, and it still…
You can't see Porto properly from Porto. The old town climbs a steep bank above the Douro, and from inside it you get stairways, tiled facades and…
The Royal Palace of Madrid is the largest royal palace in Western Europe, with 3,418 rooms. The king doesn't live there. He uses it for state…
For most of its life the Sagrada Família was the building that would never be finished. In 2026 it got close enough to change the joke. On 20…
Salamanca is built of a sandstone the locals call piedra de Villamayor, after the quarry village nearby. In daylight it's a warm cream. As the sun…
Most of Taormina's visitors come for the view: the Greek theatre on the cliff, Etna smoking behind it, the sea far below. Come on the right weekend…
Venice in June is a queue with canals. Venice in January is a city. Same bridges, same palazzi, a fraction of the people, and a low winter sun that…
A Viennese coffee house sells coffee the way a library sells chairs. You pay for the drink. What you're really getting is the table, for as long as…
Wawel Hill is where Poland crowned and buried its kings for centuries, and it still feels like the country's front room. A castle, a cathedral, a…
Walk through Wrocław looking at the cathedrals and the gabled houses and you'll miss half the city. The other half is about knee height. Small bronze…
