Europe travel guides

50 cities in Europe: where to stay, rough daily budgets, getting around and when to go, plus how to meet the people who live there.

• AmsterdamNetherlandsA ring of seventeenth-century canals, gabled houses and bikes at every turn.
• AthensGreeceThe Acropolis watches over a sprawling, energetic modern city of rooftop bars and neighbourhood tavernas.
• BarcelonaSpainGaudí's buildings, a medieval Gothic Quarter and a city beach a short walk from the centre.
• BerlinGermanyA city that wears its twentieth-century history openly, from the remains of the Wall to former airfields turned parks.
• BolognaItalyA red-brick university city with kilometres of covered porticoes and some of Italy's most serious cooking.
• BrusselsBelgiumA bilingual capital where a gilded medieval square sits a short walk from the institutions of the European Union.
• BucharestRomaniaBelle Époque mansions, Orthodox churches and vast communist-era boulevards sit side by side in Romania's capital.
• BudapestHungaryTwo cities joined by the Danube: hilly, historic Buda on one bank and flat, lively Pest on the other.
• CopenhagenDenmarkA city built around bikes and clean harbour water, where people swim in the middle of town in summer.
• DublinIrelandIreland's capital is a walkable city of Georgian squares, old pubs and literary history, with the sea and hills on its doorstep.
• DubrovnikCroatiaA walled old town of polished limestone streets above the clear Adriatic.
• EdinburghUnited KingdomScotland's capital has a castle on one volcanic crag and Arthur's Seat rising beside the city.
• FlorenceItalyThe cradle of the Renaissance packs Brunelleschi's dome, Michelangelo's David and the Uffizi into a compact centre.
• GranadaSpainThe Alhambra crowns a hill above Granada, with the Sierra Nevada behind it, snow-capped for much of the year.
• HamburgGermanyA big port city built around water, with canals, lakes and container cranes on the Elbe.
• HelsinkiFinlandA calm, design-minded capital on a peninsula of islands and inlets.
• IstanbulTürkiyeTwo continents, one city: Byzantine domes, Ottoman bazaars and a ferry ride across the Bosphorus that costs less than a coffee.
• KotorMontenegroA walled Venetian town tucked into the deepest corner of a fjord-like bay, with mountains rising straight behind it.
• KrakówPolandPoland's former royal capital came through the Second World War largely intact, so its medieval square and churches still stand.
• LagosPortugalA small Algarve town with an outsized traveller scene: golden sea cliffs, sea caves and a walkable old centre inside the city walls.
• LisbonPortugalSeven hills, yellow trams and a riverfront that glows at sunset.
• LjubljanaSloveniaA small, green capital on a river lined with willows and café terraces, with a castle on the hill above.
• LondonUnited KingdomA sprawling capital of free national museums, royal parks and neighbourhoods that each feel like a separate town.
• MadridSpainSpain's high, sunny capital pairs world-class art museums with a street life that starts late and runs later.
• MálagaSpainPicasso's birthplace has become a city of museums, a Moorish fortress and a busy port, with a city beach minutes from the centre.
• MarseilleFranceFrance's oldest city is a working Mediterranean port, rough at the edges and full of character.
• MilanItalyItaly's business and fashion capital hides more than it shows: a Gothic cathedral, Leonardo's Last Supper and canal-side bars.
• MunichGermanyBavaria's capital pairs grand museums and palaces with beer gardens under chestnut trees.
• NaplesItalyLoud, layered and proudly itself, Naples is the birthplace of pizza and the gateway to Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast.
• NiceFrancePastel facades, a pebble beach and the long sweep of the Promenade des Anglais give Nice its easy Riviera rhythm.
• OsloNorwayA compact capital at the head of a fjord, with forest and lakes on the edge of town.
• PalermoItalySicily's capital is loud, layered and endlessly hungry, with Arab, Norman and Baroque buildings side by side.
• ParisFranceBoulevards, river quays and museums you could spend weeks in, but also twenty distinct arrondissements with their own markets and cafés.
• PortoPortugalA granite city stacked above the Douro, with tiled church fronts, port lodges across the river and a strong café culture.
• PragueCzechiaA medieval centre that came through the twentieth century largely intact, with a castle above the river and spires on every skyline.
• ReykjavíkIcelandThe world's northernmost capital is small, colourful and easy to walk.
• RigaLatviaLatvia's capital pairs a medieval old town with one of the world's richest collections of Art Nouveau buildings.
• RomeItalyAncient ruins sit between apartment blocks, and a walk to dinner can pass two thousand years of history.
• SantoriniGreeceWhitewashed villages cling to the rim of a flooded volcanic caldera, with sheer cliffs dropping to deep blue water.
• SevilleSpainThe capital of Andalusia, home to the Real Alcázar, one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in the world and orange trees along almost every street.
• SofiaBulgariaRoman ruins, Orthodox domes and Soviet-era blocks share the streets of a capital that sits at the foot of a mountain.
• SplitCroatiaA Roman emperor's palace became the old town, and people still live, eat and drink inside its walls.
• StockholmSwedenSpread across fourteen islands where Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic, Stockholm is a city of water, bridges and well-kept old streets.
• TallinnEstoniaA walled medieval old town sits beside one of Europe's most digital capitals.
• TbilisiGeorgiaWooden balconies, sulphur baths and a famous hospitality tradition.
• ValenciaSpainSpain's third city mixes a medieval old town, futuristic architecture and long city beaches.
• VeniceItalyA city of canals, footbridges and palaces built on the lagoon, with no cars in the historic centre.
• ViennaAustriaImperial palaces, grand coffee houses and a serious music tradition, set in a city that is green, orderly and easy to get around.
• WarsawPolandAlmost destroyed in 1944, Warsaw rebuilt its old town brick by brick and grew a confident modern skyline beside it.
• ZürichSwitzerlandSwitzerland's largest city sits on a clear lake with mountains on the horizon.

Every city guide