The imposing red-brick mills of its industrial past are a stunning example of urban regeneration in the former ‘city of a thousand chimneys’

Sometimes travel delivers a real shock. I’m moving along the boulevards in the Polish city of Łódź, enjoying the excellent cafes and warm sunshine, when I spot the vans. They are parked up on the verge, with racks of clothing and heavily laden tables behind. I can’t resist a Sunday morning market and walk towards a group of men huddled around a car that is covered in blankets. And then it happens. They turn – and I see they are weighing pistols in their hands. I recognise the lean profile of a German Luger, and then the bulkier Colt 45.

There is a second of doubt. I hesitate. They replace the weapons on the display and walk away laughing. I approach. On the car roof is a row of dusty soldiers’ helmets. “We were repairing a pavement in the centre of town,” says the seller cheerfully, handing me a badge to inspect. “Imagine! For 80 years, all this stuff was just under our feet.”

You share your low-key alternatives to overcrowded hotspots, from an island city in the Med to a Norwegian art nouveau gem
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Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna won me over precisely because it feels like Italy with the volume turned down. I stayed in a small family-run hotel near Via delle Volte, where mornings began with quiet cobbled streets and the smell of fresh pastries. The Palazzo dei Diamanti was almost empty when I visited, giving me space to enjoy its Renaissance art without crowds. Evenings meant cycling past terracotta walls to tiny trattorias serving pumpkin cappellacci, a traditional pasta dish. It’s a city that lets you slow down, breathe and enjoy its beauty.
John

Built in the 60s and 70s to curb a holiday exodus to Spain, with apartments inspired by Mayan pyramids and featuring ‘intergalactic curves’, La Grande-Motte is having another moment in the sun with fans of modern architecture

My dream holiday is a trip back in time. Not to see the results of seismic Pompeii or 15th-century Machu Picchu – although I love both – but somewhere created specifically between the mid 1950s and 1970s, when cities were getting weird. I love postwar architourism, exploring urban planning at its most frenzied and optimistic. I have relished trips to Niemeyer’s Brasília and Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh in India, where the monumental and visionary modernist architecture and interiors are at odds with the minimal population. So La Grande-Motte, the retro futurist folly of a resort town on the southern coast of France, a 30-minute drive from Montpellier, had long been on my “must visit” list.

The tourist board of this Occitanie seaside town likes to flag up some superficial parallels between it and the aforementioned cities, but this isn’t a high-concept capital city or administrative hub. It was built in the late 1960s and early 1970s purely to persuade the French to stop going south to the Costa Brava in Spain. As part of an initiative by the French government, a stretch of windswept mosquito-infested coast between Montpellier and Perpignan, including Gruissan and Port Leucate, was reimagined as an alternative to the Côte d’Azur with several new-build beach towns. La Grande-Motte would be the weirdest project. It was made for fun. It’s also well positioned to visit the nearby salt marshes and 13th-century walled-in town of Aigues-Mortes, for when you want to feel as if you’ve ticked a few more holiday boxes.

The regeneration of historic warehouses has transformed this former red-light district into one of the port city’s most vibrant areas

A thin peninsula just south of Rotterdam’s centre, Katendrecht was once at the heart of the world’s busiest port, home to continental Europe’s first Chinatown and a lively sailors’ quarter. Its later reputation as a red light district has been shrugged off – part of the city’s wider reinvention in the aftermath of extensive second world war bombing.

This overlooked quarter swaps the grandeur of tourist-saturated central Rome for murals, graffiti, cheap eateries and a working-class rhythm

One of Europe’s hotspots, central Rome has increasingly come to resemble a tube station during rush hour: stifling, overpacked and claustrophobia-inducing. Last year, the Eternal City welcomed a record number of tourists, driven in part by the 2025 Vatican Jubilee - 22.9 million arrivals stayed in the city, almost 10 times the number of residents.

These traditional restaurants are the culinary backbone of this gastronomic capital, but finding the real deal means tackling offal – and red wine – for breakfast

I first went to a bouchon as a 20-year-old Erasmus student. I’d accidentally ended up spending a semester of my year abroad in the Auvergne countryside, which meant every weekend I’d thumb a ride to the nearest big city – Lyon. I didn’t know much about Lyon, except that it was famous for its food – in particular the hearty fare served up at these traditional restaurants with their red gingham tablecloths and chalkboard menus. So when I found myself eating stringy, overpriced beef muscle that cost more than my night at a hostel, I wondered what the hype was about.

But after nearly five years living in the city, I’ve now learned how to avoid the tourist traps (which largely line Vieux Lyon between souvenir shops selling fridge magnets and sweet shops). Historically, most bouchons weren’t in Lyon’s old town anyway, writes Yves Rouèche in Histoire(s) De La Gastronomie Lyonnaise, but in the neighbourhoods of Vaise, Croix-Rousse and La Guillotière, the gateways to the city in the Renaissance period where merchants and travellers stopped for the night.

Matosinhos was built on fish, but today its retro seafood restaurants and canneries sit alongside great art spaces, museums and landmark architecture

This once declining industrial city is on the up, but not so much that it has been ruined – yet. See it now, mid-gentrification, before its humble seafood restaurants become overpriced and its beautifully curated museums and galleries overrun.

Butcher’s shops and dive bars sit side by side in a district where you can swap the touristy beer halls of the city centre for raw creative energy

In the south-west of Munich, Schlachthofviertel is an area in flux; a jarring district that is home to a theatre, a techno club and a controversial active slaughterhouse.

This traditional neighbourhood ‘across the river’ is where the city’s creatives are heading as the centre heats up

Madrid’s current boomtown dynamics are driving the city centre way upmarket, pushing the average punter to outer barrios in search of cheaper rent. As seen in New York and elsewhere, the creative class is moving too – crossing the River Manzanares to open studios in the former factories and metalworks of Carabanchel. Now the city’s most populous district, this used to be a separate municipality, which was annexed to the capital in 1948 and built up into canyons of high-rise flats to house the postwar influx from the provinces, and later from Latin America.

After decades in the shadows, the residents of this historic quarter came together to launch local businesses and make the area an attractive proposition once more

My favourite way to enter Rione Sanità is by elevator: descending from a bridge into cobblestoned streets buzzing with mopeds and flanked by opulent but decaying 18th-century palazzi. Through the grand doorways of these once noble palaces are courtyards where bakers, butchers, cobblers and the odd contraband cigarette vendor do business.

It once housed the fanciest shops and restaurants in Greece’s capital city – then it crashed. Now the area is reborn as a vibrant, multicultural neighbourhood

After my father’s will banned me and my siblings from his funeral, I wrote a novel about some brothers and sisters stealing their dad in his coffin. The emotions were drawn from my painful experiences, but I invented the characters and the tragi-comic narrative in Stealing Dad. Despite growing up in England, I’ve lived in and written about Athens for 25 years, and it came naturally to create several Greek characters. Alekos is a wild sculptor who dies in London, and his daughter Iris (one of seven dispersed half-siblings) lives off Victoria Square – one of Athens’ most fascinating corners.

In the 1960s, Plateia Viktorias was a fashionable neighbourhood with the fanciest restaurants, shops and theatres. Townhouses from the interwar period were being demolished and Athenians were occupying the new six-storey apartment blocks so fast that construction dust and the constant drilling were the main problem. Today, through wrought-iron and glass doors, elegant, marble-lined halls reveal concierges’ desks and traces of a vanished bourgeois life.

These are the less explored corners of Stockholm, Amsterdam, Berlin and Porto that you’ve ‘stumbled into and ended up staying’

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When friends came to visit while I was studying in Berlin or I wanted to flaneur through the city, I would go to Maybachufer, a neighbourhood in the Neukölln district. Wander from U-Bahn station Kottbusser Tor in the direction of the Landwehrkanal and peruse the multicultural market taking place Tuesdays and Fridays. You can also attempt to haggle in your best German at the fortnightly Sunday flea market. Useful phrase: das ist zu teuer für mich (that’s too expensive for me). Stop for a bite to eat (or an Aperol spritz) alfresco at buzzing La Maison and spend the afternoon sat by the canal next to the Admiralbrücke historic wrought iron bridge, or at the nearby independent cinema Moviemento, which shows a wide variety of English-subtitled films. End the day with a döner kebap from one of the many takeaways or restaurants nearby and a trip to one (or more) of the local bars: Multilayerladen for its laid-back, homely aesthetic or Soulcat Music Bar for 50s and 60s music on vinyl.
Kitty

Good wine, cheap tapas, ramshackle decor and a sense of history are the key ingredients of these Madrileño institutions. I went on a bar crawl to find my favourite

The first hurdle to overcome when searching for the Spanish capital’s top bodegas is the correct interpretation of the word “bodega”. It is defined as a warehouse, winery, wine cellar and wine shop or bar specialising in wine. In Spanish slang it can also mean a convenience store.

I asked several people working in the Madrid wine trade, and they all struggled to define exactly what a bodega is – and sometimes disagreed with each other. For example, while La Bodega de los Reyes fits the description because it has a wine cellar, a nearby bar owner said it couldn’t be classed as a bodega as it was just a wine shop.

While Málaga battles overtourism down the coast, this ‘forgotten’ working port city revels in its outsider status

Perched high on the battlements of Almería’s 10th-century Alcazaba, looking over the mosaic of flat roofs tumbling down to the sea, I’m reminded of author Gerald Brenan’s travel classic South from Granada, and his impression upon arriving in Almería in 1920: “Certainly, it seemed that the sea was doubly Mediterranean here, and the city … contained within it echoes of distant civilisations.”

A British adventurer, Hispanist and fringe member of the Bloomsbury group, Brenan had walked to Almería from where he was living near Granada, apparently to buy extra furniture in preparation for a visit from Virginia Woolf and friends. A century later, my journey here in a 30-year-old van from London is somewhat less notable, but as I marvel at the almost surreal incandescence of the Med, and the maze of ancient streets below me, I too am aware of a sensation of time travel.

The luscious chocolate and apricot torte is the stuff of legend in the grand, old world of Viennese coffeehouses. But which makes the tastiest?

I’m on a tram on Vienna’s Ringstrasse as towering facades, columns, statues and domes drift past, each more ornate than the last. Here, the State Opera; there, the Austrian parliament, built in the Greek neoclassical style.

As I gawp, I shove cake in my mouth. After all, Vienna isn’t just the city of music, or lavish architecture. Thanks, in part, to its centuries-old coffeehouse culture, it’s also one of Europe’s finest pastry destinations. Cake (or more precisely, torte, kuchen or Mehlspeisen) has its own day here – “Sweet Friday”, the most delicious of Catholic customs, when meat dishes are replaced with sweets. I have been introduced to it via the medium of Marillenknödel – apricot dumplings.

The ancient city – with its gardens, hammams and Moorish architecture – comes alive in spring and its Holy Week processions are among the most authentic in Andalucía

As I turned the corner on a narrow, cobbled street in Granada, I felt as if I had stumbled upon a slightly sinister re-enactment society. Mysterious men dressed in white robes and tall, conical, face-covering hats with slits for their eyes were followed by women in black dresses and mantillas, holding pillar candles and crosses, then children wearing caped cloaks, carrying baskets of prayer cards.

It was indeed a re-enactment of sorts, but deeply rooted in Catholicism, representing the Passion of Christ, staged during Holy Week (Semana Santa), which runs from 29 March to 5 April this year. Easter processions are held across the country, but this Andalucían city hosts one of the most authentic in Spain.

As the Peaky Blinders film is released this week, we follow in the footsteps of the Shelbys, make a heavy metal pilgrimage and find the city’s best places to eat, drink and dance

The runaway success of the TV crime drama Peaky Blinders has been credited with boosting tourism to Birmingham and the West Midlands since it first aired in 2013, even though much of the series was actually shot farther north, in Merseyside, Yorkshire and Manchester. The release this week of the Peaky Blinders movie The Immortal Man (much of which was filmed in and around Birmingham this time) will undoubtedly generate a new wave of interest, particularly in the Black Country Living Museum in nearby Dudley, whose authentic recreations of streets, houses and industrial workshops appear in key scenes in the TV show and the film – most notably as the location for Charlie Strong’s yard (pictured below).

I swerved the tourist traps and went on a bar crawl of the city’s bruine kroegen, the cosy, dimly lit pubs that are the Netherlands’ ‘surrogate living rooms’

Is there anything better than a good old British pub? Well, a Dutch person may prefer a bruine kroeg (brown bar). Often nondescript from the outside and thus easy to miss, these cosy, homely, rustic cafe-style bars typically have plain dark-wood furniture, candles on the tables, aged knick-knacks and faded pictures. There will be dim lighting, usually from antique-style lamps, and they make ideal hubs – they are often referred to as a “surrogate living room”.

The name comes from the venues’ tobacco-stained walls and ceilings, which since the smoking ban started in 2008 have been topped up by dark brown paint. Beers and jenevers (Dutch gins) are the most popular drinks, and snacks such as bitterballen (meat ragout croquettes), boiled eggs and borrelnootjes (nuts with a crispy coating) are often available too. The choice of background music is a vital component; soft vintage jazz is ideal, so when I visited Cafe ’t Hooischip the Michael Jackson and Culture Club soundtrack jarred somewhat with the cosy, historic setting.

This former industrial quartier is now getting noticed for its community-focused art spaces, lively local bars and inexpensive north African food

On a hill that rises up between Belleville’s Chinatown and Père-Lachaise cemetery, Ménilmontant was once a rural hamlet with vines and farms, before becoming more industrial in the 19th century. The quartier boasts a united, colourful community whose working-class Parisian roots have long been integrated with a strong north African diaspora. Bohemian, arty and socially committed, it remains off the tourist trail with no notable museums or monuments; it’s just a genuinely Parisian neighbourhood. The locals were bemused to learn that Time Out made Ménilmontant one of its World’s Coolest Neighbourhoods for 2025, though tourists who do venture here to discover a glimpse of a fast-disappearing Paris are sure of a warm welcome.

The small city in the Lorraine region has been put on the map with the aid of two Parisian heavyweights – a loan from the Pompidou Centre and designer Philippe Starck’s quirky new hotel

As I stand and look at a six-metre skeleton of a domestic cat named Felix, the words of Alice in Wonderland spring to mind: “Curiouser and curiouser.” The sculpture is part of a thought-provoking and enchanting exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, and this isn’t the first time I’ve felt a sense of wonder during my weekend in this lesser-known city in north-eastern France. While most of us know what to expect from a city break in, say, Paris, Lyon or Bordeaux, Metz throws up surprises at every turn.

The giant feline sculpture is the work of Italian visual artist Maurizio Cattelan (of banana-duct-taped-to-a-wall fame), whose works form part of Dimanche Sans Fin (Endless Sunday), an exhibition he has curated that brings together more than 400 works from Paris’s Centre Pompidou, which closed for a five-year renovation last October. Each piece depicts a different way the “day of rest” could be interpreted, whether it’s the innocent play of Picasso’s sculpture Little Girl Jumping Rope (1950-1954) or Max Ernst’s figure playing chess in the King Playing with the Queen (1944).