Everything worth going for

Steaming, aquamarine pools cascading over travertine terraces, the wild thermal springs of southern Tuscany. Free, open 24/7, heated to about 37°C by sulphurous water from an extinct volcano. Go at dawn or after dark. Bring reef shoes, the rocks are slick, and leave the silver at home, the sulphur tarnishes it.

The Antinori Chianti Classico estate is built into the hillside, invisible from above and entirely underground. The tour covers the cellar, the architecture, and ends with a tasting of estate wines. Book the 10 a.m. slot.

The Piazza del Campo is shell-shaped, paved in herringbone brick and divided into nine segments for the nine governors of medieval Siena. Walk the medieval center, climb the Torre del Mangia for the full panorama, drink coffee at Il Magnifico on Via dei Pellegrini, and be done by early afternoon.

The Catacombs of San Callisto: 20 km of tunnels, 500,000 burials, early Christian art on the walls. Tours run every 30 minutes with a guide; no self-guided access. The Catacombs of Priscilla, north of the centre, have stranger frescoes.

Italy's home ground for metodo classico, the local answer to Champagne, with three anchor producers all within fifteen minutes of each other. Bellavista (the Moretti family, structured and long-lived), Ca' del Bosco (the Annamaria Clementi cuvée), Berlucchi (the historic name). Pre-book all three; weekday visits are quieter.

The price is fixed by the city: €90 for thirty minutes, €110 after 7 p.m., for up to six people. Do it once, on the small inner canals where the boats barely pass, not the chaotic loop in front of San Marco. Find a stand in San Polo (San Tomà) or Cannaregio (Santa Sofia traghetto). Ask the gondolier to take you into the rii, the narrow back canals, and skip the singing add-on (€40 extra and aggressively cheesy).

The half- or full-day that gets the most out of Santorini: four wineries across Pyrgos, Megalochori, Episkopi and Exo Gonia, with lunch in a wine village between them. Cross-reference our Santorini wine guide for the full producer list, the one-day tasting route, and the three bottles worth shipping home. Hire a driver, and don't drive yourself after four tastings.

A 12th-century Romanesque abbey in a field of cypresses south of Montalcino: pale travertine walls, three apses, an interior of austere columns and capitals. Founded by Charlemagne, legend has it. The hours are limited, so arrive in the late afternoon. Free entry.

The David is over five metres tall, carved from a single block of Carrara marble. The four unfinished Prisoners in the gallery leading up to it are almost as interesting: Michelangelo left them half-emerged from the stone, and no one has fully explained why. Forty-five minutes inside is enough; book ahead or queue an hour.

Empress Sisi of Austria's 1890 cliff-top neoclassical pile, 10 km south of Corfu Town: gardens of marble statues (the dying Achilles takes the lead), and the long view down to Kanoni and the Pontikonisi islet. 90 minutes; pair it with a Benitses bourdetto lunch at Klimataria afterwards.

Bernard Tschumi's 2009 building at the foot of the south slope, and the one place to see the Parthenon frieze laid out at scale (the half Athens has; the British Museum is still arguing about the rest). The third-floor Parthenon Gallery is glass-walled and pointed straight at the Acropolis. Do it after the Acropolis itself, not before; the order matters.

The other side of the Odle peaks: the same jagged limestone group as Seceda, seen from the north under Santa Maddalena church. A ten-kilometre loop through pine forest and meadow, steady but never steep. Trailhead at Zanser Alm or Ranui parking; the latter includes the Santa Maddalena church viewpoint. Far quieter than Seceda. Rifugio delle Odle midway is a strong lunch stop; order the schlutzkrapfen.

The Aeolians make sense from the water. A private gozzo (traditional wooden boat) charter from Lipari, 6–8 hours, takes in Salina (lunch in Lingua), Panarea (a swim off the cliffs of Cala Junco), and Stromboli at sunset. Roughly €450–650 for the boat, split among the group; the skipper does lunch on board on request. Don't book through aggregator sites; ask your hotel for a local skipper. Public hydrofoils between the islands are fine too, €15 a leg if a charter's outside the budget.

The one that lands on Europe's best-beach lists. Sand, calm water, a shallow gradient, the hotel cluster behind it. The most family-friendly Naxos beach, and the busiest in August. Go before 11 or after 5.

The north-coast cove Mykonos has protected for years: Agios Sostis stays unorganised (no sunbeds, no club, no shade you didn't bring), with Kiki's Tavern on the cliff above it. Swim, climb up for the no-reservations lunch, then come back down for the second swim. About as un-Mykonos as a Mykonos half-day gets.

On Corfu's north-east coast: three tavernas around a pebble cove, easy water, and a boat-taxi from Kalami or Kassiopi if you'd rather arrive by sea. Swim, take a long lunch at Taverna Agni or Toula's, then walk the headland back to where you started. The best day on the Durrell coast.

The "Pompeii of Greece," a Minoan city buried under volcanic ash since 1600 BC: three-storey buildings, frescoed walls, a drainage system still sitting where the residents left it. It's under a vast bioclimatic shelter (the new one, opened 2012), and takes 90 minutes to walk. Go at the 9 a.m. opening, before the cruise crowds land at 11. Lunch afterwards at The Cave of Nikolas, down at the harbour.

Combine with a morning at Akrotiri (the archaeological site) and you have a better Santorini day-trip than the bus to Oia. The walk hugs the coast, the cliffs run through every shade of volcanic red and black, the swim at the end is the reward. There's currently a small landslide risk on the final descent, so check the local advisories the day of. Closed shoes, hat, two litres of water.

The trulli are the cone-roofed stone houses Puglia is sold on. Alberobello has 1,500 of them, packed into two districts, a UNESCO site that's now entirely a tourist economy: shops, queues, group photographs. Worth seeing once, but go before 9 a.m. or after 6 p.m. and stay 45 minutes. They also dot the surrounding countryside, where you can drive past dozens for free.

A volcanic basalt gorge cut into the Alcantara River, 25 metres deep, walls of hexagonal columns left by Etna's prehistoric lava flow. Walk down the staircase, wade into the river in summer (the water is icy year-round; thermal wetsuits available for rent). The Botanical Park entrance, a kilometre south, is quieter and prettier than the main one. Bring a swimsuit and water shoes.

An hour and a half on foot does the whole old town: the Bastioni Marco Polo at sunset, the cathedral, the narrow centro storico still speaking the 14th-century Catalan that gives Alghero its name. End at Cala Bona for a swim in the cove below the walls, then dinner at The Kings on the bastions. Walkable end to end, and best done without an itinerary.

A high alpine pasture ringed by the Sassolungo, Sciliar, and Catinaccio peaks. The plateau is car-free 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in summer; you arrive by the Mont Sëuc cable car from Ortisei (€39 round trip) or by car if you're staying up top overnight. Walks are gentle to moderate, often flat, and beautiful in every direction. Sunrise at the Bullaccia viewpoint is the one to set an alarm for. Hire e-bikes at Compatsch to cover more ground.

The wild south-west: a juniper-cedar forest growing straight out of the dunes (the only one of its kind in the Cyclades), turquoise water below it, an abandoned, street-art-covered 70s hotel above. Lunch at Axiotissa or Apolafsi.

The Cycladic pocket on the north slope of the Acropolis: narrow stepped lanes, whitewashed houses with painted shutters, built by stonemasons from Anafi (a Cycladic island) brought to Athens in the 1840s to work on King Otto’s palace. Twenty minutes of village quiet a hundred metres from the Plaka cliché. Go at sunrise, because by 10 a.m. it’s a tour-group photo line.

The civic centre of classical Athens, where Socrates wandered, Aristotle taught, and the assembly met. The Stoa of Attalos (a 1950s reconstruction by the American School) holds the site museum; the Temple of Hephaestus, the small one up on the hill, is about as intact as ancient Greek temples get, roof and all. Quieter than the Acropolis above it, and 90 minutes covers it.

The second-most-important archaeological site on Santorini. A 9th-century-BC Dorian settlement on the limestone ridge of Mesa Vouno on the south-east coast, with views across to Kamari and Perissa. Drive to the parking lot, then walk 20 minutes up the ridge to the site. It sits on the Mesa Vouno ridge, reached by a switchback road or a steep footpath.

The only inland village on Mykonos: 8 km east of Chora, residential, where everyday Mykonian life carries on once the tourists leave. Panagia Tourliani Monastery

The mountain village in the Psiloritis foothills above Rethymno, known for thyme honey, the Cretan lyra (the bowed-string instrument used in feast music), and the antikristo lamb (vertical-spit roast). Lunch at Aristotelis or Skalomata, and pair it with the Idaean Cave higher up if you’re hiking.

Beach-resort wear, made on the coast for half a century. Cotton, linen, embroidered kaftans, pieces that read as costume in New York and exactly right on a Praiano terrace. Open daily; get there before lunch or you'll wait.

The 15-minute ferry from Pounta (itself 15 minutes south of Parikia by car) across to Antiparos's Chora, €8 each way, every 30 minutes year-round. Walk the one main pedestrian street, lunch at Captain Pipinos

35 minutes from Naxos Town by car, up the mountain through Filoti. Marble alleys, a 19th-century Frangopoulos tower, the Archaeology Museum (small, sharp), the Folk Art Museum (better than it sounds). Lunch at Lefteris on the square: local lamb, kefalotyri, raki. Pair with a hike up Mount Zas in the morning.

A mountain village that makes the case for prettiest on Naxos: marble-paved throughout, stone houses, five small museums (geology, archaeology, folk art). Lunch at Lefteris, walk it for an hour, drive on.

Two hours west from Folegandros Chora along the island's spine to a working lighthouse and one of the quietest views in the Aegean. Pick the path up west of Chora, past the Panagia church; it follows the ridge through low scrub with no shade. Go at 5 p.m. in summer, for the light and the drop in heat, and bring water (no tap) and a long sleeve for the walk down. The lighthouse is locked, but the cliff in front of it is the view: sit, eat the orange you brought, walk back in time for dinner.

Walk through the tunnel from Amalfi at 6 p.m., have a glass of wine in the piazza, watch the light turn the cliffs orange. The pebble beach is mostly empty by then. Twenty minutes here is worth two hours in Positano.

Every weekend from September to early December, a different Barbagia village opens its courtyards, cellars, and kitchens: porceddu cooked underground, Cannonau by the carafe, weaving and mask-making demos, the works. Mamoiada (the carnival-mask town) and Oliena (down the road from Su Gologone) are the two to aim for. Village courtyards, cellars and kitchens open to visitors, and the off-season window when prices crash.

Reached by a 15-minute walk through pine forest from the parking, which does the filtering: it weeds out the impatient. The cove is small, the sand fine, the water steeply deep within metres of the shore. Named for the Ottoman landing here in 1480. Bring a towel; there's no lido, no kiosk, nothing to rent. Go before 10 a.m. in July or August.

Ballarò is the busiest of Palermo's three open-air markets: Albergheria district, daily except Sunday, running from a fish-and-produce show in the morning to a street-food alley in the afternoon. Walk it from the Chiesa del Carmine end, past the cluster of stigghiole grills, the panelle stalls, the fishmongers calling prices in Sicilian. End at Casa Stagnitta for an espresso. Cash only, small notes only. Vucciria, ten minutes north, is smaller, grittier, more nocturnal.

The other famous lagoon, out at the tip of the Gramvousa peninsula. Two ways in: the boat from Kissamos (easy) or a steep 20-minute scramble down from Kalyviani (which buys you the beach mostly to yourself). The boat unloads 500 people at noon, so arrive before it or walk.

Bari is not what Puglia is sold on, and that's the appeal. The old town is dense, working-class, openly Italian, full of basilicas, fishermen, and pensioners playing cards on the corner. Walk Strada delle Orecchiette (the pasta street) in the morning, the seawall at sunset, and have dinner in any unmarked door past Piazza Mercantile. One day, no museums. Just the place.

The Giotto frescoes are what you come to Assisi for. Two churches stacked on top of each other; the upper one has the St Francis cycle. Go first thing in the morning before the tour groups arrive. Free; modest dress required (cover shoulders and knees).

The Lecce Baroque masterpiece: 150 years of carved stone, gargoyles, griffins, and a rose window to match. The interior comes as a calm after the façade, which is rather the idea. Combined ticket with three other Lecce churches and the underground Roman foundations beneath the cathedral. Skip the guided tour; the building does the talking.

Italian beach clubs are an institution: a rented umbrella, two loungers, a waiter with cold drinks and panini, sometimes a small restaurant for lunch. La Gavitella is one of the few west-facing clubs on this coast, though sunbed service wraps at 7 p.m. (often before the sun sets in peak summer). Book the restaurant terrace for the final sunset from a table.

Bellagio, Varenna and Menaggio connect by car ferry, joined by Cadenabbia on the summer timetable. The core crossings take 15 minutes and run every 30 to 60 minutes. Fares are point to point; check the operator's site. Bellagio is busiest in the morning, Varenna quieter at lunch, Menaggio has the beach.

A collection tens of thousands of objects deep, from ancient Cycladic figurines to Byzantine icons, Ottoman-period textiles, and 19th-century War of Independence ephemera, in the Benaki family townhouse on the Kolonaki edge. The walk through post-classical Greek visual culture nobody else in the city does. The rooftop café has a small Acropolis view. Two hours is enough.

Rolling hills, cypress alleys, ancient hill towns: the classic Tuscan landscape on an e-bike, with the gradient handled for you. Several operators run half- and full-day routes taking in wine tastings, picnic lunches, and stops at off-the-grid agriturismi. Beginner-friendly with the electric assist, and the routes mostly bend to what you want. Late spring and September are the windows.

A surreal sea cave where the water glows electric blue from sunlight filtering through an underwater cavity. Tiny rowboats, boatmen who often sing while you float inside, the whole thing over in about five minutes. Touristy, no argument, but the colour is real and there's nothing else like it. Go early or late to skip the queues.

The Medici's private garden: eleven hectares of formal Italian design with grottos, fountains, a 17th-century horseshoe amphitheatre, and clear views across the city from the upper terraces. The Grotta di Buontalenti (1583), near the entrance, has sculptures emerging from artificial stalactites.

Bernini's Apollo and Daphne, Caravaggio in several rooms. Entry is a two-hour timed slot, 360 visitors at a time. Book weeks ahead, not days.

Lecce has a centuries-old papier-mâché (cartapesta) tradition little known outside Salento: saints, angels, and theatrical figures hand-shaped from paper pulp and painted in detail that rewards standing close. Claudio Riso works cartapesta in a small studio in the centro; his small studio is open to visitors, you watch him work, and you can take home a piece signed and dated like fine art. Small ones start at €50, the big ones run into the low thousands. About as specific as a souvenir gets.

A full-day boat down the Brenta canal, the 18th-century waterway Venetian nobility used to reach their summer estates inland. Nine swing bridges, five locks (true 'water lifts' that raise the boat ten metres between Venice and Padua), and three guided villa stops: Villa Foscari 'La Malcontenta,' Villa Widmann, and the vast Villa Pisani at Stra. The pace is slow on purpose; the views are weeping willows, Palladian facades, and a slow-Veneto silence you won't find in the city. Nine and a half hours, lunch optional and not included. Occasionally cancelled when the Brenta runs shallow, so check the forecast.

A fishing village where every house is painted a different brilliant colour, supposedly so fishermen could find them through the lagoon fog. Each colour needs a permit from the local government, which keeps the palette in order. The Museo del Merletto explains what you're looking at. Lunch at Trattoria al Gatto Nero (book ahead) for the risotto di gò. Half a day, easy.

Cagliari's big covered food market, two levels of about 4,000 m² each. The city's answer to Palermo's Capo: shouting, ice, bottarga in eight forms, sea urchins by the half-kilo (€10), and the pace of a real working market nobody has tidied up for tourists. The historic building has been closed for renovation since March 2025 and the traders have moved to a temporary market in Piazza Nazzari; go there, not to the old hall. Open until 2 p.m., Monday to Saturday. Don't eat breakfast first.

Reachable only on foot: roughly 3.5 km and about 500 m of descent from the Golgo plateau down to a white-pebble cove with a 143 m limestone pinnacle and a natural arch. There's a 250-people-at-a-time cap and the permit books out, so reserve via the official Heart of Sardinia app days ahead. Arrive before 10 to make the day work. Closed shoes with grip, not sandals, and 2L of water minimum.

A modern glass-and-granite tasting room cut into a hillside between Porto Cervo and San Pantaleo, ringed by its own Vermentino vines. Nine tasting experiences run €45–90 per person, and the kitchen does a proper Sardinian lunch if you book it. Five of the twelve labels are Vermentino di Gallura, two of them DOCG Superiore; the two Cannonau reds are the sleepers.

The southernmost point of mainland Greece: a Mani cape with a 19th-century lighthouse, the mythological "Gates of Hades," and a sunrise that sets the Aegean on one horizon and the Ionian on the other. Drive in via Vathia and walk the last 30 minutes from the parking. Bring water; there's no shade.

Why you come to Spello. Pinturicchio's 1501 fresco cycle in a side chapel of the parish church: saturated colour, Renaissance landscapes behind the biblical scenes, detail you stand in front of for thirty minutes. Drop a euro in the light box. Drive from anywhere in Umbria.

The Norman royal chapel inside the Palazzo dei Normanni, built between 1132 and 1140, with floor-to-ceiling Byzantine gold mosaics and a wood-carved muqarnas ceiling done by Arab craftsmen for the Norman king. The room in Sicily, and one of the few places you see the Norman, Arab, and Byzantine fusion working in one space. Go right at opening (8:30 a.m.) before the tour buses. Closed Sunday afternoons.

A 4×4 drive into the active marble quarries where Michelangelo sourced the stone for the David: chalk-white cliffs cut into geometric terraces, still being worked. The terrain is stark. Most tours include the quarry visit and a stop at the small mining museum; closed-toe shoes required. Pair it with lunch in Carrara town or seafood at Marina di Carrara on the way back.

A Capri perfumery that still bottles by hand: local lemon, wild fig, mint, rosemary. The flagship on Via Camerelle is small, atmospheric, and run by staff who know fragrance. Mediterraneo and Numero Uno are the signatures, both unmistakably island.

A 1905 hilltop villa built by the English painter Robert Kitson, later inherited by his niece Daphne Phelps, who ran it as a salon for much of the 20th century: Tennessee Williams, Picasso, Bertrand Russell, D.H. Lawrence all passed through. It holds what the museum says is the only surviving Frank Brangwyn-designed interior in the world, made in 1910. Visit by guided tour only; book by email a day or two ahead. Daphne's memoir A House in Sicily is the thing to read first.

Frederick II's octagonal hunting castle, built in the 1240s in the middle of nowhere on a hilltop in the Murgia. Eight sides, eight towers, eight rooms per floor: the geometry is mathematical and faintly unsettling, and nobody fully knows what it was for. Forty minutes inside is enough. The drive across the Murgia, all stone walls and trulli and almond trees, is the better half.

First-century Christian catacombs cut into the volcanic rock above Tripiti. 20 minutes from Adamas by car, then a ten-minute walk from the parking lot. Three chambers, 184 metres of corridor, once holding the remains of some 8,000 early Christians. A small museum sits at the entrance; bring a light layer, the rock keeps its cool. Combine it with the nearby Roman amphitheatre and the marker where the Venus de Milo turned up in 1820.

Hand-painted Mediterranean ceramics in whimsical patterns, espresso cups from €20 to hand-decorated platters north of €300. The Ravello workshop has been in the same family for three generations. They ship internationally, so don't stress about luggage weight.

Capri's jewellery house, family-owned since 1947. The signature Campanella charm, a tiny coral or gold bell, dates to the house's early years. Each piece is handcrafted in Naples, and vintage capsule collections sometimes surface if you ask the archivist.

In Cisternino, several butchers (macellerie) double as evening grills. You walk in, pick from the meat counter (bombette, pork roulades filled with caciocavallo; salsiccia; lamb skewers), and they grill it on the spot. You eat at plastic tables on the street with house wine in plastic cups. €15 a head. Zio Pietro and Ai Tre Punti both do it.

Hands-on Campanian cooking in a working family kitchen above Ravello. Lemon cake, pasta from scratch, eggplant parmigiana, end the morning eating what you made on a terrace with the gulf below. Mamma Agata started cooking professionally as a teenager; her daughter Chiara runs the classes now.

Armando and Rosalba's eight-course lunch is the draw; the cooking class that precedes it is the more useful purchase. Three or four hours in the masseria kitchen learning orecchiette, taralli, and one slow-cooked secondo, ending at the long table with the wine they make on the property. Reserve weeks ahead. Vegetarians and chefs both come back.

Three hours from 9 a.m.: you meet the chef at Ortigia's daily market, shop for fish, vegetables, and bread together, walk back to a private kitchen on the island, and cook three Sicilian classics (a pasta, a fish, a contorno) to eat for lunch with wine pairings. The Sicilian Slow Food chapter runs a good version. €110–140 per person.

The UNESCO Old Town in one slow morning: the Liston

Cortina hosted the women's alpine events of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and Olympia delle Tofane, the women's downhill course, is one you can ski. The Tofana, Faloria, and Cinque Torri areas connect by shuttle. 120 km of slopes, mostly intermediate, plus the Hidden Valley / Armentarola run off Lagazuoi: a 7.5-km off-piste descent with a horse-drawn tow at the end to get you back to Alta Badia. Famously surreal.

Villa d'Este's terraced Renaissance gardens: hundreds of fountains, cypress alleys, the Oval Fountain, the Avenue of a Hundred Fountains. An hour by regional train from Termini. Go on a weekday, and pair it with the Roman ruins at Villa Adriana for a full day.

The UNESCO archaeological islet half an hour off Mykonos by ferry, ranked behind only the Acropolis among Greek antiquities sites, and the mythological birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. Catch the 9 a.m. boat from Mykonos Old Port; the whole uninhabited island is the site (terraced houses, mosaic floors, the marble lions, an amphitheatre). Two and a half hours before the last boat back at 2 p.m. Closed Mondays.

The UNESCO ancient city on the sacred islet half an hour off Mykonos, ranked just behind the Acropolis among Greece's archaeological sites. Catch the 9 a.m. boat from Mykonos Old Port; the whole island is the site, uninhabited now, with terraced houses, mosaic floors, the row of marble lions, an amphitheatre. Bring water, a hat, good shoes. You get two and a half hours before the last boat back at 2 p.m., and it's closed Mondays. The people who write it off as ruins are the ones who didn't go.

The uninhabited islet off Antiparos's southwest coast: a 7th-century-BC sanctuary of Apollo, still being excavated, and one of the most significant in the Cyclades. Boats run from Agios Georgios

A 1,200-metre underground river cave on the Mani’s west coast: you boat in on the punted skiffs, which follow the underwater Vlychada river, then walk the dry chambers. 40 minutes from Areopoli. The Mani half-day that isn’t another stone-tower village.

The seat of the Venetian Republic for 700 years. Tintoretto's Paradise covers an entire wall of the Great Council Chamber. The Bridge of Sighs connects the palace to the old prison; Casanova was held in the cells beneath.

Nero's buried pleasure palace, directly beneath the Colosseum crowds. VR headsets rebuild the frescoed rooms as they looked at completion: gold leaf, painted ceilings, a rotating dining room. Book the slot with the VR rather than the standard entry.

The classic Umbria drive. Two hours each way, climbing from Spoleto into the Apennines. Stop in Norcia (the truffle and salumi town, rebuilt after the 2016 earthquake), then up to Castelluccio for the views. Eat lentils. Buy salami. Don't rush.

A food speciality store open since 1948, on a calle that has housed Venetian spice merchants for six hundred years. The Mascari family still trades it: 50 kinds of honey, sun-dried tomatoes, truffles, candied fruits, balsamic vinegars aged twenty years, and a separate wine room with 600+ Italian labels. Closed Sundays.

The façade is a landmark of Italian Gothic: striped marble, mosaics, sculpted bronze doors. Inside, Luca Signorelli's Last Judgement frescoes in the San Brizio chapel (1499–1504) pre-date the Sistine ceiling. Vasari wrote that Michelangelo borrowed from Signorelli for his own Last Judgement. Pay the small chapel ticket; the rest of the cathedral is free.

The original Roman road, largely car-free on Sundays, lined with pine trees and ancient tombs for miles. An e-bike covers a lot of ground without the suffering: the catacombs, the Circus of Maxentius, the tomb of Cecilia Metella. EcoBike Roma, the official park-services operator inside the Appia Antica gate, runs guided rides and rents by the hour; self-guided works too if you've mapped it.

The far-west lagoon: pale-pink crushed-shell sand, turquoise shallows running 50 metres out, a protected Natura 2000 islet you wade across to reach. 90 minutes from Chania. Go before 11 a.m.; by lunch the day-buses land and the picture changes. Lunch at the small taverna on the headland.

Le Sirenuse's in-house boutique on Via Cristoforo Colombo: embroidered shirts, tailored linens, hand-blocked kaftans from the line Carla Sersale founded, now designed by her niece Viola Parrocchetti. Resort wear you keep wearing ten years after the trip.

The 4th-century-BC theatre with the acoustics everyone tests: drop a coin in the centre of the orchestra and it carries to the top row. 14,000 seats, still in use for the summer Athens-Epidaurus Festival (June to August). Pair it with Mycenae as one morning loop out of Nafplio.

The oldest continuously-operating family producer on Santorini: Yiorgos Argyros's great-grandfather Matthaios planted the first vines in Episkopi Gonias in 1903. Four generations later, Matthew Argyros runs the estate, and the cellar holds Vinsanto stocks going back to the 1960s. The library tasting (€60, by appointment) walks through the oldest bottles; the standard tasting (€30) covers the current vintages. The Cuvée Monsignori Vinsanto is the bottle Santorini sommeliers point to.

The newest producer worth visiting: opened 2017 in Vourvoulos by the Valambous family, with a tasting room designed as an architectural statement on its own (white concrete, indoor-outdoor, a sunset view across the vines). Younger estate, modern winemaking, accessible price points (€25 for the flight). The Plethora old-vine Assyrtiko is the bottle to buy; the Nassitis cuvée and the Aidani are the other tastes worth doing.

The way to do Etna if you've only got one afternoon. A half-day 4x4 up to 1,900 m (the Silvestri craters, the 2002 lava flow, the old quarries on the north side), then back down to one of the volcano's natural-wine producers, Pietradolce, Passopisciaro, or Tenuta di Fessina, for a sunset tasting. Looser, slower, and less of a slog than the summit hike, and you can drink at the end of it.

The Etna DOC works old-vine Nerello Mascalese on volcanic soil at 800 m, making reds that taste like nothing else. Three to book a tasting with: Passopisciaro (the Andrea Franchetti pioneer), Pietradolce (the Faraone family's estate, top-rated reds), and Tenuta delle Terre Nere (Marc de Grazia's flagship). Each €25–40, two hours including a barrel tasting. A half-day with a driver is how to do it.

Cable car from Rifugio Sapienza to 2,500 m, then a 4x4 bus higher, then a guided walk. Access above the cable car is zone-based, not altitude-based. The standing rules: the summit-crater zone may only be crossed with an authorised alpine or volcanological guide, in transit without stopping, and a 500-metre exclusion applies around the Sud-Est crater at all times (Ordinanza Sindacale n. 17 of 10 September 2025; checked July 2026). Separately, the civil-protection alert phase can change the same day: at PREALLARME the summit-crater zone closes, and at ALLARME the whole summit zone closes. Check the live status before you travel: the national alert level is published at rischi.protezionecivile.gov.it, and the mayors' ordinances at parcoetna.it. Your guide may shorten or cancel the walk on the day. The zone closes when civil protection raises the alert permitted). Half-day from Catania. Bring layers; even in July the summit drops below 10°C and the wind cuts.

Two seasonal anchors. EuroChocolate runs the second half of October in Perugia, when the centro storico is given over to chocolate makers from Italy and beyond. The Acqualagna National Truffle Fair runs three straight weekends from late October into early November, over in the Marche. If you're here in autumn, build the trip around one or the other.

Fabriano has made fine paper since the 13th century; a 1514 letter by Michelangelo and a Raphael drawing have both been matched to Fabriano paper by watermark. The Museo della Carta runs working presses and a small atelier where you can try the cotton-rag technique yourself. Email ahead to reserve the workshop; standard entry is walk-in.

A long sandy crescent on the south coast: no road access to the beach itself (a short walk down from the parking), turquoise water, dramatic cliffs to the south. The Faragas Beach Club at the south end has paid sunbeds; the north end is free and quieter, which is not a difficult decision. Pair with lunch at Aliki Restaurant on the way back.

A micro-jungle of mossy rock, cascading streams, and freshwater pools under ancient chestnut trees, under thirty minutes inland from the coast. The counterpoint to the cliffside glamour: cool, green, slow, almost nobody. Bring a swimsuit and reef shoes; the lower pools are worth a swim.

Running every summer since 1958. Opera in the Roman amphitheatre, theatre in cloistered courtyards, dance, contemporary music, visual arts. Tickets €25–€60 for most events; book by April when the programme drops.

The 10-kilometre cliff-edge path from Fira to Oia, through Firostefani and Imerovigli, past Skaros Rock, along the ridge into Oia. Three to four hours depending on stops. Almost all paved, with some climb in the Imerovigli section. Walk early

The photogenic fishing village plus a sheltered swimming bay. Quieter than Klima, easier than Tsigrado, with one decent taverna for after-swim lunch. Our pick when Sarakiniko is at capacity.

A narrow inlet between two cliffs spanned by a single road bridge, with a pebble beach below reachable by stairs. Less crowded than its reputation suggests. Go before 11 a.m.

No road, no power line, no phone signal: drive the dirt track north of Ano Mera until the bay opens, then swim. The taverna sits right on the sand, lunch runs three hours, and everyone there made the same deliberate drive to get to it. The Mykonos afternoon that ignores Mykonos.

Not a sunset so much as the whole evening rhythm of the Chora, walked slowly through the three connected squares as the houses light up. No cars; one pedestrian street snaking from Plateia Piatsa to Plateia Maraki to Plateia Kontarini. Do it between 7 and 9 p.m.: the bougainvillea supplies the colour, the cats supply the company, dinner is booked for 9 or 9:30. It beats any view-bar sundown the island sells you a cocktail for.

Rem Koolhaas designed the campus; Miuccia Prada commissioned the foundation. Contemporary art in a converted distillery, including the gold-leafed Haunted House. Bar Luce (Wes Anderson) is downstairs. Allow three hours minimum. The Osservatorio outpost at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele runs separate exhibitions.

The Franciscan basilica holding two of the great altarpieces in Western art: Titian's Assumption of the Virgin (1518) above the main altar, and his Pesaro Madonna in the left nave. Titian himself is buried inside. So is Canova, in his own pyramid tomb. Cold stone, brown brick, candle-smoke smell, and a Donatello wooden John the Baptist that almost no one looks at. Entry is €5.

A modern Santorinian winery in a former tomato-canning factory on the black sand of Exo Gonia: founded 1994 by Yiannis Paraskevopoulos and Leon Karatsalos (who also run a separate Nemea producer on the mainland). The Thalassitis Submerged Assyrtiko is the conversation piece: bottles aged for five years in cages on the sea floor at 25 m depth, then surfaced. The standard tasting (€20) is excellent; the submerged-wine experience runs around €100 and is worth doing once.

The main Umbria art museum, inside the 13th-century Palazzo dei Priori on Perugia's main pedestrian street. Pinturicchio, Perugino, Gentile da Fabriano, Piero della Francesca's Polittico di Sant'Antonio. Allow two hours. Closed Mondays.

The collection of Venetian painting: Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Tiepolo, in the deconsecrated complex of Santa Maria della Carità. Veronese's vast Feast in the House of Levi was painted as a Last Supper until the Inquisition objected to the dwarfs and dogs. Two hours is enough. Free the first Sunday of the month.

East of the Arsenale, Castello is residential: laundry strung between windows, kids in the campi, residents stopping to talk in the middle of the calle. Walk from San Zaccaria east toward Via Garibaldi and the Giardini. There's nothing to 'see,' which is exactly why you go. Eat at El Refolo or Local. End at the Sant'Elena park, which is mostly trees and benches and residents.

An orange grove on a hilltop above Trastevere: St. Peter's, the Trastevere rooftops and the Palatine all in view. Go at 6:30 p.m.

The porcelain house founded by Marquis Carlo Ginori in 1735 outside Florence (part of the Kering group since 2013). The Rondinelli flagship is more cabinet of curiosities than store: rooms arranged like museum installations, plate patterns layered against painted ceilings. Even if a €600 espresso set isn't in the plan, walk in and look.

The long, low island across the Giudecca canal, historically the working-class side of Venice: shipyards, factories, the original Stucky flour mill (now a Hilton). Walk the fondamenta west to east and Dorsoduro and San Marco sit across the water the whole way. Palladio's Il Redentore anchors the middle.

A hat shop a minute from the Rialto bridge, run by the Longo family. Giuliana is usually behind the counter, and travels to Ecuador every year to buy the Cuenca and Montecristi Panamas by hand. The shop is closet-sized, walls floor-to-ceiling with hand-blocked felts, woven straws, gondolier caps, fascinators, theatrical Carnival pieces. Go in for the gondolier hat (the traditional bareteri, woven straw with a double satin band) or a foldable Panama you can pack. Closed Sundays.

A limestone gorge 500 metres deep, walls of sheer rock the height of skyscrapers on both sides, often called Europe's Grand Canyon and not entirely wrongly. The Genna Silana trailhead is the standard way in: a 2–3 hour scramble down, then back up, the canyon floor opening into pools clear enough to swim in. Bring a packed lunch and sturdy shoes. A full day's hike, and the antidote to a week on the beach.

A natural limestone sinkhole full of seawater, ringed by archaeological ruins and Messapian inscriptions. You climb down the rocks and jump in. The water is clear, deep, cold, and connected to the sea through underwater channels. Skip the paid pool next door; the free natural one is the whole reason you came. Go early; after 11 a.m. it gets dangerously crowded.

A sea cave where sunlight passing through underwater openings makes the water glow green. Quieter than Capri's Blue Grotto, and less of a circus. Boat access from Conca dei Marini, or descend the elevator from the SS163. Twenty minutes inside.

Three kilometres of karst caves under the Murgia, including the Grotta Bianca, pure white alabaster stalactites lit from below. The 70-minute full tour goes deep; the shorter 50-minute version skips the Grotta Bianca, the best part. It's a steady 15°C year-round, so bring a layer. Booked online same-day is usually fine outside August.

A vast cave system in central Le Marche, a vast karst system. The standard tour is 75 minutes through the Grotta Grande del Vento; the 'Avventura' tours go further, with helmets and ropes, and need booking weeks out. Cold inside, a steady 14°C, so bring a jacket.

The other way to see the Baunei coast: 8 hours, three coves, snorkelling stops, and a boat-only view of Cala Goloritzè you can't get otherwise (boats can't dock, but you can swim from 200 m out). Stops take in Cala Mariolu, Piscine di Venere, Grotta del Fico. Skippered boats start at €60; rent your own Zodiac (no licence needed under 40 hp) from around €200 a day.

The 19th-century-elegant village at the centre of the island. Vallindras Distillery

The Pirelli Foundation's contemporary art space, in a former locomotive factory in northeast Milan. Anselm Kiefer's seven monumental towers (The Seven Heavenly Palaces) are installed permanently and justify the trip on their own. The rotating exhibitions are consistently good. Free entry. Twenty minutes by tram from Garibaldi.

An underground cave cellar in Pyrgos Kallistis: founded by Haridimos Hatzidakis in 1996, certified biodynamic, now run by his widow Konstantina and son Nikos after Haridimos's passing in 2017. The flagship Skytali single-vineyard Assyrtiko is the most-mineral expression on the island. Smaller production than Sigalas or Argyros (around 60,000 bottles annually); the tasting (€20–30) is in the cave itself. Book a week ahead in season; the room only holds 12.

The Minoan museum on Xanthoudidou St, home to the bull-leaping fresco, the Prince of the Lilies, the Phaistos Disc, every Minoan original (Knossos itself keeps the replicas). Do it after Knossos in the same morning, when the museum is what makes the site land. Allow two hours.

Small-group horseback rides through Chianti vineyards and wildflower meadows; most stables run one- to two-hour beginner-friendly trips, some longer with wine tastings or lunch. The slower pace gives you the cypress alleys and stone farmhouses at a different scale than the drive. Spring and autumn are the seasons; summer afternoons get too hot.

A sunrise float across vineyards, olive groves, and the cypress-lined hills of the Val d'Orcia: about an hour airborne depending on wind, capped with a prosecco-and-pastry breakfast in a field on landing. Weather-dependent and not cheap. Book directly with a regional operator (Firenze Mongolfiere is the established name) rather than through a hotel concierge; same price, more give on rescheduling.

The shorter, easier, less-trafficked Samaria alternative: 8 km, 3 hours, also ending on the Libyan Sea (at Komitades, near Chora Sfakion). The pick if Samaria’s commitment is too much, or you want the gorge without the crowd.

A tiny rocky island joined to the mainland by a sandbar that appears and disappears with the tide, owned by the Englishwoman Florence Trevelyan in the late 19th century, later a small private nature reserve. The pebble beach on either side of the sandbar is Taormina's swim spot. Get there before 10 a.m. (busy by noon) and book a sunbed at Lido Mendolia or Lido la Caravella for €25–40. The cable car from Taormina town runs every 15 minutes, €3 each way.

The Odyssey half-day on Ithaca: walk the horseshoe Vathy harbour, visit the small Archaeological Museum, then drive 30 minutes north to the so-called School of Homer

A sleek white-on-white wellness space inside a small Capri hotel. Bespoke treatments, a private hammam, lymphatic drainage, aroma facials, island-sourced scrubs. The volcanic-stone detox ritual is the local specialty. Open to non-guests on availability; book a few days ahead in summer.

Olympos perches on a cliff at the north tip of Karpathos; the easier access is by morning caïque from Pigadia or Diafani up the east coast, returning by 1990s-jeep over the mountain. The cliff-top village still observes its own dialect, and the women wear traditional dress for festivals. Half-day on a boat; pair with a Pigadia waterfront lunch.

If you've made it up by boat-and-jeep, give Olympos two hours on foot: the windmill stub on the ridge, the church of Panagia, the women's bakery and the lace-and-textile shops. The local festival days (mostly Easter, mid-August) are when the dress comes out; the village has kept its pre-1950s dress and crafts.

A 90-minute boat run from Kastellorizo harbour to the Parastas Blue Cave

The Venetian-era walled quarter on the hill behind the harbour: narrow lanes, coats-of-arms over doors that haven't moved since 1207, the small Archaeological Museum (Cycladic figurines), and the Bazeos Tower out near Sangri if you've got time. 90 minutes, end of the afternoon.

The six 16th-century thatch-topped windmills on the ridge above Little Venice, the Mykonos sundown the postcards actually undersell. Get to the row by 7 p.m. in summer; the sun drops behind Delos around 8.30, and the windmills are at their best in the orange minutes just before. Line up a Caprice Bar table straight after, for the wave-on-the-floor hour.

A wholly different Venice: paddling a sea kayak through the rio behind San Marco at 6:30 a.m., when the city is empty and the only sound is your own paddle. Laguna Kayak runs small-group tours through hidden canals, salt marshes, and lagoon islands most visitors never see, including a loop around the back of Murano and the abandoned plague island of Poveglia. Take the sunrise slot: the light is unreal and the canals are yours. Tide-dependent, so they'll move your booking if the water's wrong.

The next-door island, a 30-minute ferry from Pollonia. Take the morning boat and head to Bonatsa (golden sand, calm shallow water, the Bonatsa taverna right behind it for a long lunch), then the late-afternoon ferry back. The whole day is the antidote to a hotel day.

Book a small gozzo (10–12 passengers, half-day) out of Adamas rather than a 50-passenger catamaran. The skipper will take you into the caves; the swim through the rock arches is the reason to take the smaller boat. €70–100 per person depending on the operator and the season; book a week ahead in August.

The reason you came. A full-day catamaran or wooden-caïque run along the south coast to the sea-caves at Kleftiko. Book a small boat (under 12 people) rather than a big-boat tour; the caves are tight, and the day is either intimate or it's a queue. Polco, Excellent Yachting and Thalassitra all run good ones.

The candy-coloured syrmata

The Minoan palace 5 km south of Heraklion: 4,000 years old, and the place Arthur Evans reconstructed in concrete in the 1920s (a call archaeologists still argue about). Open 08:00, last entry 16:30. Go at 8; by 10 the cruise tours fill the throne room.

The famous rock-formation cove on Naoussa Bay: granite boulders that the meltemi has smoothed into wave shapes over millennia, with shallow pockets and small coves between them. The most photogenic beach on Paros, and maybe the central Cyclades. Get there by 10 a.m. or after 5 p.m.; the boat shuttle from Naoussa harbour runs every 20 minutes in season.

The 4th-century-BC Asclepieion

The three Small Cyclades a fast ferry south of Naxos: pale-sand beaches, one taverna village, no roads to speak of. Naxos has Blue Star and Express Skopelitis connections, so go out on the morning boat, eat in the Koufonisia chora, and take the late ferry back.

More than 60 islands and islets in all, seven of them main (La Maddalena, Caprera, Budelli, Santo Stefano, Santa Maria, Spargi, Razzoli), protected as a national park. Water that looks unreal in photos and unreal in person. The ferry from Palau to La Maddalena takes 20 minutes; from there, charter a small boat for the inner-archipelago route (Spargi, Budelli, Razzoli) or join a full-day cruise from Cervo or Santa Teresa. Budelli's pink beach is fully off-limits: walking on the sand and swimming inside the marked buoys are both banned, and the fine is €900. View it from the boat, outside the line. The water between Spargi and Razzoli is the stretch to see.

Beneath Catania's Piazza del Duomo, a daily fish market centuries old: swordfish split open on marble counters, tuna heads on ice, octopus still moving, fishmongers shouting in dialect. Go at 7:30 a.m. when the boats have just unloaded, walk the perimeter, watch them work, take coffee at Caffè del Duomo on the corner. Then lunch at Antica Marina, which sources from this market an hour earlier.

If Barumini is too far south, La Prisgiona is a well-excavated Nuragic complex, a 20-minute drive from the Costa Smeralda. Excavated village, central tower, and the giants' tomb at Coddu Vecchju nearby, a megalithic burial site for the same people who built the towers. The Arzachena Archeological Park combo ticket covers both. Worth a morning on a beach week.

Lago di Braies is the emerald lake with wooden rowboats below Croda del Becco. The easy 3.5-kilometre loop takes about 90 minutes. Go early or late for fewer people. From 1 July to 15 September 2026, driving in between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. requires a parking reservation. Check prags.bz before you go.

A turquoise glacial lake at 1,926 metres at the foot of the Sorapis massif, Gatorade-Glacier-Freeze blue, the colour everyone Photoshops except here it really looks like that. Trail 215 from Passo Tre Croci (a 15-minute drive from Cortina): 13 km round trip, 380 m of gain, four hours total, with a couple of exposed sections protected by cables. Not for vertigo. Worth every step. Pack lunch; Rifugio Vandelli at the lake is small and busy.

The cove at the foot of Polignano's old town, framed by the Roman bridge above and the white cliff houses on either side. The water is cold and the pebbles hurt your feet. You will understand the queue within thirty seconds. Arrive before 9 a.m. or after 6 p.m. Mid-day is unbearable.

A high plateau at 850 m in eastern Crete: windmills (mostly idle now), small mountain villages, and the Dikteon Cave

Lecce is the Florence of the south, except the stone is honey-yellow Lecce limestone and the style is full-blown Baroque rather than Renaissance. Start at Piazza Sant'Oronzo with the Roman amphitheatre, walk to the Basilica di Santa Croce (the façade that gives everyone a neck ache), then loop through Piazza del Duomo at dusk when the stone glows orange. Two hours, no entrance fees, all the joy.

The medieval marble village in the centre of the island: three connected squares, whitewashed houses on terraced slopes, and the Byzantine Church of the Holy Trinity (Agia Triada) with a marble bell-tower carved from local stone. The highest village on Paros. A 30-minute drive from Naoussa or Parikia; eat lunch at Lefkiana on the main square.

A 1,000-year-old marble-paved path that drops 3.5 km through olive groves and an old aqueduct from Lefkes village down to Prodromos. Built by Byzantine masons; the paving stones are local Parian marble (the same quarry as the Venus de Milo). One hour each way; walk early (8–10 a.m.) before the heat. Cab back from Prodromos, or have a driver meet you at the bottom.

Limoncello on the coast is made from sfusato amalfitano lemons. Done well it's a digestif; done badly it's syrup. Skip the gift shops and book a producer tour instead: Villa Massa in Sorrento walks you through the lemon groves and the production, then a tasting on a terrace over the Gulf of Naples.

The 4th-century-BC acropolis on the white cliff above Lindos: the Temple of Athena Lindia, and the long view down to St Paul's Bay. €12, and you climb up on foot. Note: donkey rides are regulated as of 2024

The three white towns of the Itria Valley, none more than 25 minutes apart. Locorotondo is the one with the circular streets and geranium balconies, and the one the coaches stop at. Cisternino is the easygoing one, with the butcher-shop street food. Martina Franca has the Baroque palazzi and the best aperitivo scene of the three. Do them as a half-day, in that order, by car.

Hand-embroidered linens, monogrammed tablecloths and nightwear, since 1967. The boutique on Via delle Belle Donne is small and quiet; the linens are monogrammed to order, and purchases are wrapped in tissue with wax-sealed ribbon. The hand-stitched monogrammed tablecloths ship internationally.

The Renaissance city walls run 4.2 kilometres of intact rampart with trees planted on top; you rent a bike at the gate and cycle the full circuit in forty minutes. Below sit medieval towers, the outline of a Roman amphitheatre, churches with Romanesque facades. Lunch at Buca di Sant'Antonio, back by 5.

Next door to MMM Corones, the sixth and last of Reinhold Messner's mountain museums: 1,800 square metres of mountain-photography history inside the old cable-car station on top of Plan de Corones. Built for non-mountain people too. AlpiNN restaurant (the casual Niederkofler project, see Where We Eat) shares the building, so combine them. Cable car from Bruneck, Riscone, or San Vigilio; last car down at 5 p.m.

The highest point in central Athens (277 m), a pine-covered limestone hill that rises straight out of Kolonaki. Take the funicular from Aristippou Street (€13 return, €10 one-way), or walk the hairpin path from the base in 25 minutes. The summit holds a small whitewashed chapel (Agios Georgios), the open-air theatre (summer concerts), and a 360° view of the Acropolis below you and the Saronic Gulf beyond. Time it for sunset, and stay for the city lights.

The Heraklion-area winery to know: a fourth-generation family, the ones who saved the rare native Plyto and Dafni grapes (both nearly extinct twenty years ago). Cellar-door tastings by appointment. Pair it with lunch in Archanes village.

The smaller fishing-village twin to Klima. Eat at Medusa on the rocks, watch the boats come in. Nearby on the same north coast is Papafragas, a cliff-walled cove and sea caves that read like a natural swimming pool from above; the path down is steep and sometimes closed, so check before you commit, or just take it in from the top.

An organic winery up in the Chania hills, worth the drive for a tasting of the native Vidiano and the Syrah-Roussanne blends. 45 minutes from Chania; book ahead, and pair it with lunch in nearby Vamos.

The ancient quarries that cut the white Parian marble for the Venus de Milo, the Hermes of Praxiteles and the Nike of Samothrace, the stone ancient sculptors prized above almost any other. The site sits 7 km east of Parikia, and you can walk into the abandoned tunnels (bring a torch; they're unlit and unsupervised). Free, atmospheric, almost nobody else there.

A small fishing beach tucked between two cliffs. Wooden boats pulled up on the pebbles, two trattorias above, and a clear swim spot on this stretch. Easier to reach than Furore's beach and almost as photogenic.

A 165-metre man-made waterfall, Roman in origin, which Regione Umbria calls one of the highest in Europe; channelled by the consul Manius Curius Dentatus in 271 BC. The water is released on a published schedule (mornings and afternoons in season), so check the website. Walking trails run from short to multi-hour.

A traditional inland village in the east of the island: restored stone windmills, a small museum, 17th- and 18th-century mansions, and almost no tourists. Pair with lunch at Ouzeri Halaris in Piso Livadi (10 minutes east) on the way back to Naoussa.

A working tuna-fishing village on the southeast tip of the island, its 17th-century tonnara (tuna factory) turned into a small piazza of seafood restaurants. The Tonnara di Marzamemi is the working-museum bit; lunch is at Taverna La Cialoma on the main piazza (book ahead in season). After, drive the back roads through the Pachino tomato fields. Half-day from Noto.

Technically not Puglia (it's Basilicata), but an hour from the Itria Valley, and it is unlike the rest of the region. The Sassi, cave dwellings cut into a limestone canyon and lived in until the 1950s and reoccupied from the 1980s, are now a UNESCO site and, in part, luxury hotels. Walk both Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano, lunch at L'Abbondanza Lucana. Full day.

Cross the wooden footbridge from Burano and you're on Mazzorbo. The Bisol family rescued the Dorona grape here in 2002 (the native Venetian variety, nearly gone after the 1966 flood) and now make a few thousand bottles a year in this walled vineyard. The Michelin-starred restaurant takes the lunch trade, the casual osteria takes the rest. The vineyard tour is the alternative to a tasting menu.

The two Kefalonia caves in one easy morning. Melissani

Perugia's daily covered market: small, central, walkable in half an hour. Cheese, salumi, fresh pasta, pecorino aged in walnut leaves you don't get at home. Mornings only, closed Sundays. Buy a picnic and eat it on the steps of the Duomo.

Bari's fishermen sell raw seafood straight off the boats at the molo, eaten standing with lemon and Coca-Cola: red prawns, sea urchins, octopus, allievi (baby cuttlefish), and the local specialty, raw mussels. It's about as Pugliese as food gets. It's also raw shellfish from a port, so know what you're doing or don't. Cash only. Done by 11 a.m.

Two kilometres of stalls in the riverside park, everything from Tuscan cheese and salumi to leather goods, clothes, and plants. Take the T1 tram to Cascine and arrive by 9, before the produce runs low. The cheese counter at the far end is where you buy for the afternoon.

A food market on the east side of the center, near Piazza Ghiberti. Inside: cheese, salumi, butchers, fresh pasta vendors, the trattoria stalls. Outside: produce stalls and a small clothes market. Get a porchetta panino and eat it on a bench in the piazza. Go before 10 a.m.

The covered food market in Testaccio: cheese vendors, supplì stalls, fresh pasta, produce. Go between 8 and 11 a.m. on a weekday, before the stalls start packing up. Walk to Flavio al Velavevodetto afterwards.

The PDO Messinian olive-oil hills around Kalamata

The two Venetian sea-castles on Messinia’s south coast: Methoni’s Bourtzi

200+ windy days a year on this headland. Flisvos Kite Centre and Naxos Kitelife are the two schools; beginner lessons run €80–120, and the wind builds from 11 a.m. to a 2–6 p.m. peak. It's the reason a certain crowd flies to Naxos instead of Mykonos.

Smaller than it sounds and better than you'd expect. Milos has been a mining island since the Neolithic, around 7,000 BC (obsidian first, then sulphur, bentonite, perlite, still shipped today), and the geology of the whole island lands once you've spent 40 minutes here. Pair with a wet day.

Sundays only, from sunrise to early afternoon: the streets around Avissinias Square fill with stalls of vintage Greek ceramics, 19th-century photographs, old icons, lithographs, military pins, vinyl. Part tourist stall, part clear-out of family estates. Bargain, and pay cash. Skip the antique stalls on Pandrossou Street (a clear-out only of Hadrian’s Arch keychains); Avissinias is the one worth walking.

A small protected cove north of Naoussa with an old monastery on the cliff above: clear water, quieter than Kolymbithres, and the better swim for it. Hourly water taxi from Naoussa in summer, or a 10-minute drive with free parking. Pair with the Naoussa harbour walk back for sundown.

The Byzantine-Venetian cliff-fortress on its own tied islet: the Lower Town holds the 13th-century churches and one taverna (Matoula), the Upper Town a 20-minute climb up to the ruined acropolis. No cars; you park at the causeway and walk in. Sleep inside the walls a night, because the daytrippers clear out at 6 p.m. and the place turns into somewhere else entirely.

Twelve minutes in an open single-seater chairlift gliding silently above lemon trees, vineyards, and villa rooftops. The 360-degree view from the top runs from Vesuvius to the Faraglioni to the open Tyrrhenian. Late afternoon for the softest light. The hike up is also possible if you've earned the calves.

A real walk, not a stroll: steep, exposed, often windy. The trailhead is at the chapel of Agia Marina above Filoti. The summit is rocks and a small white cross; the view extends to almost every other Cycladic island on a clear day. Best in May/June or September; don't attempt it at July or August midday. Stout shoes, two litres of water per person.

The highest peak in the Cyclades (1,004 m). 4–5 hours round trip from the Aria Spring trailhead near Filoti, past the Zas Cave (where Zeus was supposedly raised), with summit views to Santorini, Ios and Paros. Start at 5:30 a.m.; by 10 there's no shade left.

Glass has been made on Murano since 1291, when the Republic moved the furnaces off the main islands to cut fire risk. The good furnaces are still here. Skip the 'free demonstrations' that hard-sell you afterward; the legitimate showrooms (Venini, Seguso, Berengo) charge nothing and aren't pushy. Walk the Fondamenta dei Vetrai, lunch at Trattoria Busa alla Torre, and look for the Vetro Artistico Murano trademark on anything you buy.

The museum that holds the original sculptures from the Duomo complex: Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise panels, Donatello's Mary Magdalene, the Pietà Michelangelo began at 70 and couldn't finish. Gothic and early-Renaissance sculpture, and rarely busy.

In 2001 the Faggiano family started a plumbing repair in their townhouse and turned up 2,000 years of Lecce underneath it: Roman cisterns, medieval frescoes, a Knights Templar passageway, Messapian tombs. They made the whole building a privately run museum you walk self-guided in forty minutes. The owners are usually around and will fill in the details if you ask. Five euros, and one of the odder small museums you will walk into.

The leading collection of Cycladic-era figurines, the marble white-on-white sculptures from the 3rd millennium BC that fed Brâncuși, Modigliani, and Henry Moore. Founded by Nicholas and Dolly Goulandris in 1986, with the 1895 Ernst Ziller mansion next door (annexed by the museum in 1991) holding the temporary shows. Smaller than the Benaki, and easier to absorb. 90 minutes.

In Fira on Mitropoleos Street, the museum holding the actual frescoes lifted from Akrotiri (the site itself shows only reproductions). The headline is the Spring Fresco, swallows and lilies painted on the eve of the eruption. Two hours. Do it the same day as Akrotiri: the site shows you the building, the museum shows you what was inside it.

The Bronze Age citadel: the Lion Gate, the cyclopean walls, the Treasury of Atreus tholos tomb, and an on-site museum with the (replica) golden mask of Agamemnon, the original being in Athens. 30 minutes from Nafplio. Go at 8; by 10 the coaches arrive and the photographs become impossible.

Two hours of aimless walking through the deliberately confusing whitewashed alleys of Chora, a 17th-century pirate defence (disorient the raider) that grew into one of the most photographed small towns in the Cyclades. Take in the Kato Mili windmill row, Little Venice, the Panagia Paraportiani (the sculptural white church in every Mykonos photograph), the harbour. Walk it in the morning or after sundown, never at noon.

Walk up from the harbour at 6:45 p.m. in summer (the light starts going by 7:45, and the wind by 7:30). Find a wall to lean on. The angle of the windmills against the lowering sun is the photograph; you've seen this exact view a thousand times before you get there. Free, crowded but not unreasonably so, gone in 30 minutes.

The white-pebble crescent in every Greek-islands brochure: the long view down from the Assos road is the photograph, and the swim itself involves a steep downhill drive and a sharp-pebble entry. Go for the photograph and a 30-minute swim, then lunch up at Assos

The ruined Byzantine city above Sparta: 14th-century churches with intact frescoes, the despot’s palace, a whole abandoned hill-city. Walk it top-down (the gate is at the top of the road) over 2–3 hours. Pair it with a night at Euphoria Retreat just down the hill.

The 90-minute slow walk around Naoussa harbour and back through the whitewashed lane maze: fishing boats landing the day's last catch, the ruined Venetian fortress on the headland, the old Church of Agios Nikolaos on the quay. As small-town sundowns go, the Cyclades offers nothing more honest. Pair it with a glass at Vavayia's before dinner.

Spaccanapoli is the dead-straight line that bisects the old city: markets, shrines, palaces, churches stacked on older churches. End in the Sanità.

The great collection of Greek antiquities, in a neoclassical building from 1889 on the north edge of Exarchia. The Mask of Agamemnon, the Antikythera Mechanism, the bronze Zeus of Artemision, the Mycenae gold. It sits outside the centre, which is the only reason anyone skips it, and skipping it is the mistake. Give it half a day.

The half-day boat trip out of Fira's old port: first to Nea Kameni

The Nemea appellation, 90 minutes north of Nafplio and the heartland of Agiorgitiko

Norcia is the town that gave Italy its word for a butcher (norcino). Several salumerie run guided tastings (Norcineria Ansuini and Brancaleone da Norcia are the names) through prosciutto di Norcia IGP, capocollo, ciauscolo, and the local pecorino. Combine with a truffle stop next door. Norcia was hit hard by the 2016 earthquake and is still rebuilding, so supporting local producers matters.

Noto's main street is really two, running parallel along the Baroque axis, with the cathedral, half a dozen palazzi, and three churches lined up like a stage set. The honey-coloured limestone the whole town is built from glows orange at sunset, the right hour for a passeggiata and a granita. The cathedral collapsed in 1996 and reopened in 2007; the interior is sparser than the exterior promises, but the climb up the bell tower is the photograph.

On the site since 1221, when the Dominican friars began cultivating medicinal herbs here. Walk in for the frescoed sales room. The ones to buy are the Acqua di Santa Maria Novella, the Pot Pourri and the Acqua di Rose. Entry is free; you don't have to buy anything.

The abandoned Venetian-era mountain village on Pantokrator's flank in north Corfu, slowly being restored, with two small tavernas ( Foros

A working masseria in the Parco Agricolo degli Ulivi Secolari outside Ostuni, in the Rodio family for over 200 years. The tour crosses their olive grove (including 'il grande vecchio,' a 3,000-year-old tree still fruiting), drops into an underground Roman-era oil mill cut into the bedrock, and ends with a blind tasting of three of their extra virgins. About an hour, €10–12 per person. Corrado Rodio, the owner, often runs it himself in good English.

Cross the Ponte Vecchio first thing, before the jewellers open and the tour groups arrive, and walk south into the Oltrarno. Piazza Santo Spirito has a market most mornings. Via Maggio is Florence's antique-dealer street. The leather workshops between Pitti and the Ponte Vecchio open to visitors who ask.

The site of the original Olympic Games (776 BC to AD 393): the running stadium, the Temple of Zeus, and the workshop where Phidias carved the lost gold-and-ivory Zeus. The museum across the road holds the Hermes of Praxiteles. 3h30 from Athens; on the way back from Costa Navarino, take the inland route.

A mountain village an hour into the interior, with 150-plus political murals painted onto the houses since the 1960s: anti-fascist, anti-NATO, pro-shepherd, pro-resistance. A slow afternoon's worth of them. Walk the streets on your own or book a local guide to translate the dialect graffiti underneath. Lunch at a village trattoria after; Ai Monti del Gennargentu is the call.

A 75-minute guided tour through a fraction of the 1,200 Etruscan caves and wells that honeycomb the tuff beneath Orvieto. Wine cellars, olive presses, columbaria for pigeons (a Renaissance protein source). The English-language tours run twice a day in season; book online to skip the queue.

The white city on the hill above the olive groves: every building washed in lime, every alley a switchback, the cathedral at the top with a 24-spoke rose window. The walk from Piazza della Libertà to the cathedral takes 20 minutes if you don't stop, two hours if you do. Avoid Saturday nights in July and August unless you came for the nightlife. Wednesday is market day in the lower town.

A 17th-century princely palazzo on Palermo's seafront, restored by the Valsecchi family (collectors and dealers from Milan) and reopened as a private foundation in 2021. Three floors of contemporary art against original Baroque ceilings, a library of rare books, and a sunlit rooftop looking across the Foro Italico to the sea. The cultural stop in Palermo, and one plenty of Palermitani haven't got to yet.

Federico da Montefeltro's 1460s ducal palace, the Renaissance ideal turned into architecture. The gallery inside holds Piero della Francesca's Flagellation and Raphael's portrait of a young woman. Allow two hours minimum. The studiolo, the duke's tiny study inlaid with trompe-l'œil intarsia, is the room you can't miss.

Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, the Spanish-born painter, photographer, set designer, and fashion innovator who realised the pleated silk Delphos gown in 1909–10 from an idea by his wife Henriette Nigrin, lived and worked in this Gothic palazzo from 1898 until his death in 1949. His widow Henriette gave the house to Venice in 1956, and it reopened as a permanent museum in March 2022 after restoration from the 2019 acqua alta floods. The interior hangs exactly as Fortuny left it: his paintings, his lamps, his theatrical sets, the workshop where the Delphos was dyed, the photographic archive. Painterly, dim, deliberately moody; bring a phone with a good low-light camera. Closed Tuesdays. The piano nobile holds the main rooms.

A 15th-century Renaissance palazzo that hosts contemporary art and historical exhibitions. Past shows: Marina Abramović, Olafur Eliasson, Donatello, Anselm Kiefer. The courtyard is open and free; the exhibitions are ticketed and worth checking before the trip. The stop for anything from the last 600 years that isn't strictly Renaissance.

The big south-coast beach: geothermally heated sand, three tavernas (go to Sirocco), and gigantes baked in the ground. Half-day plan: morning swim, long lunch, drive home for the nap.

The building covers 7,730 square metres, which made it Europe's third-largest opera house by floor area when it opened in 1897. It seats 1,300 today. Even if you're not an opera person: the architecture tour (45 minutes, daily 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., €12) is the visit on its own. If your trip overlaps with a performance, the cheap seats are €30 and the building does most of the work.

The "Church of the Hundred Doors" in Parikia, a 4th-century-AD Byzantine basilica and one of the oldest churches still standing in Greece. Three connected churches under one roof, with an Early Christian baptistery in the courtyard. An easy ferry-day visit, five minutes on foot from the port. 45 minutes; free; modest dress.

A two-hour residential-Athens walk: start at the Panathenaic Stadium (the marble one rebuilt for the first modern Olympics in 1896), wind through Pangrati’s leafy streets, and end at the First Cemetery of Athens, a 19th-century neoclassical necropolis with marble sculptures by the best Greek sculptors of the period. Most travellers never think to come, and the people who live here treat it as a normal Sunday. Lunch at Karamanlidika tou Fani

The north-coast alternative to the south-coast beach-club circuit: Panormos is a long sand crescent with Principote on it (a pavilion-style beach club, less velvet-rope than Nammos). Quieter, and more luxurious for the price; the one to take on the days the south coast is a queue. Book the sunbeds a week ahead.

The two beaches that defined Mykonian club culture for decades: Paradise

There's something surreal about soaring over the Alpe di Siusi, especially in the golden hour when the Sassolungo turns pink and you're 800 metres above it. Tandem flights from Tandemfly with certified pilots: 15–20 minutes airborne, 90 minutes door to door. Best in summer, when the thermals are clean. Book ahead; places are limited and sell out. Not for the wind-shy.

A purpose-built cooking school in the Oltrarno running small-group classes in fresh pasta, sauce, and tiramisu. Modern kitchen studio, professional Italian chefs, wine pairing throughout. Private classes available; book a couple of weeks ahead. The technique translates back to your own kitchen.

The fortified monastery from 1088 crowning Patmos's Chora, UNESCO-listed since 1999 and one of the Orthodox world's great pilgrimage sites outside Mount Athos. Halfway down the hill sits the Cave of the Apocalypse

From Gaios harbour on Paxos: a small-boat day around the blue caves

Peggy Guggenheim lived in this unfinished one-storey palazzo on the Grand Canal from 1949 until her death in 1979. Her collection (Pollock, Picasso, Magritte, Ernst, who was her husband, Brancusi, Calder) hangs in her actual rooms, with the terrace onto the canal and Marini's bronze horseman pointing across the water. A museum that is still recognisably someone's house. Open Wednesday to Monday, closed Tuesdays. In the back garden, Peggy and her fourteen dogs are buried.

The long black-sand beach on the south-east coast, split into Perissa (the quieter northern end), Perivolos (the developed beach-club middle), and Vlychada (the wild south end). Sunbeds at the clubs run €25–60 per pair; the public stretches swim for free. It works as a half-day of swim and lunch when the inland half of the island is too hot. Drive over rather than take the bus.

Two kilometers of white sand and shallow turquoise water on the Ionian side, near Italy's heel. The nickname is overused but the water does look Caribbean. Pay €15–25 for a lido (sunbeds, umbrellas, bar) or walk further down to the free public stretch. Bring nothing you can't carry back. The drive from Lecce takes an hour; do it once.

The pine-covered hill straight south of the Acropolis: paved paths through cypress and olive, a morning jogging route for the people who live here, and the best free view of the Parthenon there is, eye-level, with the Saronic Gulf behind it. The marble monument at the summit is a 2nd-century-AD Roman tomb. Come at sundown, bring water, budget 45 minutes round-trip.

A high plateau at 1,300 m in the Monti Sibillini national park. From late May into early July the wildflower bloom, the fioritura, turns the plain into stripes of poppy red, cornflower blue, mustard yellow, and lentil green. The Umbrian landscape photograph. Drive up from Norcia.

The Oltrarno's neighbourhood square market: produce, local vendors, a few street-food stalls, the basilica facade as backdrop. Have a coffee at the corner bar and go before 10 a.m.

The view takes in Florence below, the Duomo, the Arno and the hills. Walk up from San Niccolò about 30 minutes before sunset; the kiosk sells a serviceable Aperol Spritz. Pair it with San Miniato vespers above for a full hour and a half.

Milan's great public collection: Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus, Mantegna's Dead Christ, Raphael's Marriage of the Virgin, all in one wing. Less queue-heavy than the Vatican or the Uffizi for a set of paintings just as good. Pair a morning here with a long lunch at Ratanà or Silvano.

Four kilometres of fine pale sand on the west coast: wide, flat, mostly empty if you walk five minutes from the road. Picasso for lunch, Banana for an afternoon cocktail. The Naxos beach to give a full day to.

Walk past the beach bars to the southern end; the crowd thins by half every five minutes of walking. Bring an umbrella, water, food, since the back end has no taverna. The wind picks up after 2 p.m. (kitesurfers love it, swimmers do not). Sunset from the rocks at the south end is the quiet one on Naxos.

The hilltop capital. Park outside the village (cars are punished inside), walk the white-laned spine to the Kastro, drink at Utopia as the sun goes down, walk back to the car. 90 minutes, end to end.

From the Platis Gialos dock the water taxi runs through the day to every other south-coast beach: Paradise, Super Paradise, Paraga, Agrari, Elia. This is how you beach-hop here, cheaper and faster and more atmospheric than cabbing between them. Drop your bag at Branco or Avli tou Thodori for lunch between rounds.

A two-hour skiff or gozzo out of Cala Porto, threading the limestone grottoes north and south of town: Grotta Palazzese, Grotta delle Monache, Grotta Azzurra. The water turns electric blue when the sun is over the boat. The captain stops to swim. Book a small-group operator, not the megaboat, and go in the morning before the wind picks up.

Pompeii is the one everybody names, and the heat, crowds, and sheer scale make it a slog without a guide. Herculaneum is smaller, better preserved, and a fraction of the visitors. Pair either with a half-day on Vesuvius and a stop in Naples for pizza.

A 14th-century aqueduct-bridge across a wooded gorge, 230 metres long and 80 metres high. The view from the Rocca above is the one to get. Walking across it closes periodically for restoration, so check before you go. The forest walk along the gorge is open year-round and takes about an hour.

Rome's great Sunday flea market: vintage clothing, ceramics, old prints, furniture, real finds mixed with outright junk. Come before 9 a.m., bring cash, and hold no particular agenda about leaving with something.

The lone freestanding marble doorway of the never-finished Temple of Apollo, on the islet off the end of Naxos Town harbour, standing since 530 BC. Walk the causeway out around 7 p.m. in summer, find a flat rock, and watch the sun drop through the frame, which is the exact angle the thing was built to catch twenty-five centuries ago. Don't book dinner before 9 on a Portara evening. Free, busy in season, still worth it.

The 2,500-year-old marble doorway on a tied islet off the Chora harbour, all that was ever finished of a Temple of Apollo. Walk out 30 minutes before sunset, sit on the marble, and watch the sun set through the frame. If Naxos has one photograph, it's this one.

Lefkada's most photographed beach: pale-cliff backdrop, turquoise water, a 100-step staircase down. Open and accessible; arrive before 11 a.m. or after 5 p.m., or you'll join the day-bus crowd. Egremni

The sand spit at Rhodes's far southern tip where the Aegean meets the Mediterranean: when the wind is up, the two seas run different colours, with waves on either side of the same beach. One of Europe's top kitesurfing beaches; lessons run from the Atrium Prestige side. Drive an hour and a half from Rhodes Town; pair with an Atrium Prestige lunch.

The south coast: a wild river estuary that runs through a palm grove down to a beach on the Libyan Sea. Hike down 15 minutes from the parking, and swim where the freshwater meets the salt. The south-coast day trip from Rethymno.

Primitivo di Manduria is the same grape as California Zinfandel, grown here in red iron-rich soil and aged differently: denser, riper, more brooding. Negroamaro is the other Salento grape, leaner and more savoury. Visit one estate per region. Felline (Manduria) and Conti Zecca (Leverano) both do excellent guided tastings of three or four wines with a charcuterie board.

Eight hours, your own captain, the route shaped around what you want: Capri grottos, quiet coves, lunch at Da Adolfo or Lo Scoglio. Lucibello has been the established operator on the coast for almost eighty years. If you do one thing on this coast, do this.

If you're staying on Capri or in for the day, hire a small boat at Marina Piccola for two hours (about €200) and circuit the island: the Faraglioni rocks, Grotta Bianca, swim stops in coves the ferries don't enter. The Blue Grotto queue is brutal in summer, and the other grottos are nearly as good and almost empty.

The dressed-up south-coast pocket: Psarou

François Pinault's contemporary collection inside the triangular 17th-century customs house at the very tip of Dorsoduro, where the Grand Canal meets the Giudecca canal. Tadao Ando renovated the interior in 2009: pristine concrete, original brick, almost no signage. The shows rotate; the building is the constant. From the steps at the tip: San Marco to the left, the Salute behind you, Giudecca opposite. Combined ticket with Palazzo Grassi.

If Pescoluse is the Maldive comparison, this is the case for it. White sand dunes, no buildings, shallow water that turns from clear to turquoise to navy within fifty meters. The protected coastal park keeps it relatively undeveloped. Pack a beach umbrella, water, and a sandwich; the lidos here are sparse and the parking is informal. About 40 minutes from Lecce.

The medieval inland village at the highest point on Santorini: climb up through the labyrinth to the Venetian castle at the top, with a 360° view across the whole caldera, Akrotiri, Perissa, the open Aegean. Less photographed and less crowded than the Oia sunset, with better light on the white houses. Pair it with dinner at Botargo (the 18th-century mansion in the Kasteli), or Selene if it's back in Pyrgos by the time you go.

A near-perfect Baroque hill town: Ibla is the lower, older half of Ragusa, rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake and clinging to a sandstone ridge above a gorge. Walk down from Ragusa Superiore via the 242 steps of Santa Maria delle Scale at sunset. You'll know it from every Inspector Montalbano episode. Book Ristorante Duomo (2 Michelin stars, Ciccio Sultano) if you can, one of the restaurants of southern Italy.

Red volcanic sand against red cliffs at the southern tip of the island, a 5-minute coastal walk from the Akrotiri site parking lot. Note: do not swim under the cliffs.

Housed in the 15th-century Knights' Hospital infirmary in the Old Town: Mycenaean gold, the famous Aphrodite of Rhodes

Europe's largest still-inhabited medieval walled city, UNESCO-listed since 1988. Start at the Palace of the Grand Masters

The Rialto pescheria has stood on this spot since the Republic; the fishmongers' guild is documented from 1227. The fishmongers shout in Venetian and break apart at 1 p.m. sharp. Closed Sundays and Mondays. The Erberia produce market alongside sells the lagoon vegetables you won't see elsewhere: castraure (baby artichokes from Sant'Erasmo), bruscandoli (wild hop shoots), radicchio di Treviso. Go at 7 a.m. for the spectacle.

A 7-km coastal walk through a protected reserve between Scopello and San Vito Lo Capo, the stretch of Sicilian coast saved from a planned 1980s highway by protest. Limestone cliffs, seven small coves with turquoise water, no cars, no concessions. Park at the southern (Scopello) gate, walk in to the first three coves, swim, walk back. €5 entry. Bring water, there's nothing inside. April through October.

Kefalonia's PDO white grape, grown on the limestone slopes around Omala

Combined ticket with the Colosseum. Go at 5 p.m. for the light; the Palatine Hill above has unobstructed views over the whole complex. Buy the ticket online and skip the walk-up line.

Roscioli Cooking Classes runs its sessions at Rimessa Lab on Via delle Zoccolette 28, not the main Rimessa Roscioli. About three hours: a burrata starter, carbonara, fresh handmade pasta (cacio e pepe or amatriciana) and tiramisù, with four paired wines. €125 per person, daily at 12 p.m., minimum two guests.

The cantina that put Sagrantino on the international map. Marco Caprai's 25-Anni cuvée is the one to taste. Tours and tastings need booking ahead; the standard one runs 90 minutes through five wines, including the structured Sagrantinos. Pair the tasting with lunch on the terrace if it's offered.

The half-day-into-evening catamaran trip out of Naoussa or Parikia: around Antiparos's south coast (unreachable from land), swim stops at the Blue Lagoon and the rocks below Despotiko, lunch on board, and most operators time the return into Naoussa for sunset. Go with a small-group boat, often around a dozen passengers, and leave the 30-to-40-person party catamarans to each other.

The half-day sail that pairs the UNESCO Delos site with a swim off uninhabited Rhenia, one of the calmest, emptiest swim coves in the Cyclades. Small-boat operators leave from Mykonos Old Port and Tourlos; six-passenger gozzo trips run around €250 a person, group catamarans €120. Skip the 50-passenger party boats.

Half-day or full-day on a small catamaran from Chora: sail along the west coast, swim at Rina Cave (only reachable by boat), lunch on board. A few good operators run from the marina; book direct rather than through a hotel concierge.

Salina and Pantelleria can argue about the capers. Salina also produces Malvasia delle Lipari, a honey-coloured dessert wine made from sun-dried grapes. Visit Hauner (the producer credited with reviving Malvasia delle Lipari, above Lingua) or Caravaglio (younger, organic, in Malfa) for a 90-minute tasting with bread, capers, and three or four Malvasias. €35–50. Book by email a week ahead; not a walk-in.

A 30-minute drive across the green Aeolian island, from the granita-and-lighthouse village of Lingua at one end to Pollara (the cove where Il Postino was filmed) at the other. Stop at Lingua for granita at Da Alfredo, the lighthouse, the salt lake at the village edge. End at Pollara for sunset, with a swim if you're up for the steep walk down. Rent a Vespa in Santa Marina Salina, €30–45 a day; the road is what you came for.

The 16-km descent through the White Mountains to the Libyan Sea at Agia Roumeli. Open May 1 to October 31, 07:00–16:00 (last full-traverse entry 13:00). 5–7 hours one way, with no path back; you catch the 17:30 ferry from Agia Roumeli to Chora Sfakion or Sougia. If you do one hard thing on Crete, this is it.

Two sites, fifteen minutes apart. The Gothic abbey of San Galgano is roofless, its walls and arches open to the sky, grass where the floor used to be. The Eremo di Montesiepi above it houses a sword embedded in stone, the actual Arthurian-legend version (more or less), left there by the 12th-century knight-turned-hermit Galgano Guidotti. Detour country between Florence and the coast.

The island-monastery directly opposite San Marco, designed by Palladio in 1566. Climb the bell tower (lift, €8) for the one view of Venice with San Marco itself in the frame. The Tintoretto Last Supper inside the basilica is free. The Fondazione Cini takes the rest of the island and rotates contemporary shows, usually free and consistently good. Five minutes on the #2 from Piazza San Marco, and almost nobody comes.

A Romanesque basilica on the hill above Piazzale Michelangelo, free to enter. The monks sing Gregorian vespers at 5:30 p.m. on weekdays; arrive at 5:15. The marble facade catches the light in late afternoon.

The granite village above the Costa Smeralda, gathered around its little stone church. The Thursday open-air market is the local event: Sardinian linens, ceramics, baskets, vintage everything, and a crowd that runs from shepherds in for the day to people who keep boats in Porto Cervo. Lunch at L'Assaggio in the square after. Come at 9 a.m. to beat the heat; by noon it's a scrum.

Twenty minutes by vaporetto from Fondamente Nove lands you on a long, flat island where Venice grows its vegetables: castraure (the prized baby artichokes), the local Sant'Erasmo wine, herbs, garlic, asparagus, salad. The whole island is about ten kilometres around, flat, nearly carless, mostly farms with stone wells and abandoned watchtowers. Rent a bike at Lato Azzurro (the inn near the vaporetto stop), pack a picnic from Rialto market the day before, and ride the perimeter in a slow loop. There's a small sandy beach at Punta della Vela on the lagoon side, so bring a towel. Few services on the island. Best April through October.

The Union of Santorini Cooperatives, the largest producer on the island, drawing fruit from over 1,200 grower-members. The cliff-side tasting terrace on the road from Fira to Pyrgos has the most-photographed caldera view on Santorini outside the Oia sunset rocks. The standard flights (€15–25) are honest; the Grande Reserve Assyrtiko and the Vinsanto are the bottles worth focusing on. Walk-in friendly. Touristy, and doesn't pretend not to be. Book a late-afternoon table to catch the sunset.

Set an alarm. Drive over before the tour buses and you'll have the lunar landscape to yourself for forty-five minutes. Bring water, walking shoes (the rock is sharper than it looks), and your camera. The swim coves at the base are reachable down the cracks, the water twelve metres of clear blue. Avoid noon, when it's an oven and a queue.

The white volcanic moonscape. Go at 6 a.m. or 7 p.m.; the rock throws back every bit of sun, there's no shade at all, and midday in August is both punishing and crowded. Bring water shoes, the rock is sharp.

A leather school inside the Basilica di Santa Croce, founded in 1950 by Franciscan friars and the Gori and Casini families to teach the trade to WWII orphans. Today it runs as a workshop, retail space, and informal school: visitors walk the working area, watch artisans tool leather by hand, and buy bags, belts, and stamped notebooks made on-site. Monogramming on the spot.

The saw-toothed ridgeline that's the trip's photograph. Take the Ortisei–Furnes–Seceda cableway up (two cars, transfer at Furnes), walk ten minutes to the viewpoint, then carry on along the ridge as far as you like. From summer 2026 tickets are sold online in timed slots; check the current terms when you book. Book ahead. Afternoon light is better for the photo, morning better for the hike (cooler, emptier).

The coast's signature hike. Seven kilometers of clifftop trail, mostly downhill if you start in Bomerano, with views across the entire coast that no road can match. Three to four hours at a slow pace. End in Nocelle, take the bus down, swim. Best mid-morning, after the first wave of group hikers and before the heat.

The trail that connects Maiori and Minori through working lemon groves. Quieter than the Path of the Gods, and the more direct route into how the region grows its food. Stone-walled terraces, some 800 years old.

The stretch of Via del Governo Vecchio between Campo de' Fiori and Piazza Navona rewards an unhurried hour: vintage shops, independent bookstores, a few good ceramics dealers. Walk the side streets too.

Sirmione sits on a peninsula in southern Lake Garda over a natural sulphur hot spring, Roman-era thermal water bubbling up at 69°C. The Aquaria spa spreads it across pools at several temperatures, with lake views. Open year-round; the evening sessions are the ones to book (lake under stars, fewer people, romantic). Combine with the Roman ruins at Grotte di Catullo at the tip of the peninsula.

A 20-minute downhill walk from the Imerovigli main square to the abandoned medieval Venetian fortress on the Skaros sea-stack: the path drops down the cliff face, hugs the rock, and ends at the tiny whitewashed chapel of Theoskepasti out on the point. The climb back up is the only argument against it. Best at golden hour, 5 to 6 p.m., when the low light on the sea-stack outdoes the caldera sunset everyone else is shooting.

A two-hour guided snowshoe trek through powder-deep larch forest and silent meadows from Pederü, ending at Rifugio Fanes (same valley network as Lavarella, a slightly different hut). Strudel, schnapps, sometimes a full Ladin lunch. Equipment rental from €15, guided tours from €60. Book the lunch and the hut ahead (the rifugio takes overnight stays too). The winter outing to do here if you don't ski.

A 14th-century village Cucinelli has spent 40 years restoring as a working 'humanistic capitalism' project: a Renaissance theatre, the Forum of the Arts, a philosophers' garden, and the flagship boutique inside a restored palazzo. Walkable in an hour. Free to visit; ask at the boutique about a tour of the theatre and library.

A pebbled cove under the Monte Conero cliff, 20 minutes south of Ancona. The water is the clearest on the Adriatic: chalk-cliff turquoise, almost Mediterranean blue. Park up top, walk down. Bring water. Lunch at one of the beach trattorias. Closed in winter, perfect in June and September.

The Venetian island-fortress off Plaka in the east, a leper colony from 1903 to 1957 (the Victoria Hislop novel is set here). A 20-minute boat from the Plaka jetty or the Elounda waterfront, and 90 minutes on the island. A surprisingly moving half-day.

One of the few working squeri left in the city, where they still build and repair gondolas by hand using techniques unchanged since the 16th century. You can't go inside, it's a working workshop, but you can stand on the opposite bank of the Rio di San Trovaso and watch the masters at it. Each gondola takes about 500 hours to build, weighs 700 kg, and uses eight different woods. Best in the morning, on a weekday.

Gold-ground mosaics inside a Byzantine Greek-cross plan. The bronze horses in the upper loggia were looted from Constantinople in 1204; the originals are inside, the outdoor ones copies. The Pala d'Oro, a gold-and-enamel altarpiece, gemstones, costs €5 extra. Pay it. Pre-book the €6 priority entry online or you'll queue an hour. No bags, no shoulders, no shorts.

There is a lift. There is always a queue. The view at the top is exactly the one you've seen a thousand times, and it's still one to see once: the terracotta roofs and the lagoon. The bells still ring, so wear earplugs if you go on the hour. Book the first slot at 9:30 a.m. and skip the worst of the line.

Renzo Piano's 2016 complex on the south edge of Athens: the National Library, the Greek National Opera, and a 170,000 m² park that climbs to a green-roofed lookout over the Saronic Gulf. The grounds are free; the opera and library need event tickets. Time it for a summer-Thursday outdoor film, a Sunday-morning yoga session on the lawn, or dinner at Delta on the roof.

Two narrow streets in Bari Vecchia where local women, most over 60, sit at folding tables outside their doors shaping orecchiette and cavatelli by hand with a knife. They've done it for decades. Watch from a polite distance, buy a bag (€5–8 of fresh pasta), don't photograph without asking, and don't film TikToks. These are people's homes. Mornings, before noon.

A volcano in near-continuous activity, in persistent strombolian activity. The hike up to 400 m (the Sciara del Fuoco viewpoint, where the lava streams visibly down the north slope into the sea) is the standard climb: leave around 4 p.m., reach it at sunset, watch the eruptions in the dark, headlamps for the descent. The summit is off-limits: free ascent stops at 290 m, and 400 m with an authorised guide. The Sentiero Natura is closed. Confirm with a Stromboli-based guide on arrival.

The finest and most complete example of this form of prehistoric architecture, per UNESCO: a Bronze-Age stone fortress of the late 2nd millennium BC, its central tower originally about 19 m, four subsidiary towers, and a village of circular dwellings outside the walls. Sardinia's defining cultural site, and the one to see if you see only one. Guided tours only; book ahead in summer.

The half-day-into-evening catamaran trip, out of Vlychada port (cheaper, quieter) or Ammoudi at the base of Oia (dearer, more scenic). A five-hour loop around the caldera, swim stops at the Red Beach cove and White Beach (both unreachable from land), and sunset under the Oia cliffs from the water. Most boats feed you dinner on board. Book the small-group operators (max 16 passengers) and skip the 50-person megaboats.

Combined on most Kleftiko routes: a half-collapsed sea-cave you swim into, daylight pouring through the open roof, and the bright-yellow sulphur cliffs above it. Both are why you take the small boat, not the big one.

The 50–90-min ferry from Rhodes harbour to Symi Yialos, the defining Dodecanese boat. Take an early ferry (~9 a.m.), stay the night, ferry back the next afternoon. The harbour at dusk, after the day-trippers have left, is the unsold experience the page is built around.