This article is adapted from National Geographic Traveler (UK).
Hopping in a cab or hopping on a train is like speed-reading a novel: you’ll get the gist but miss all the little details that you’ll really love. Going on foot allows you to do as the locals do, stumble upon cozy tapas bars and charming riverside cafes, admire vibrant street art and seek out the nooks that inspired artists.
Recommended for food lovers: Tapas and Wine Walk, Seville
With its sweet Mudejar palaces, magnificent Gothic cathedrals and flamenco dancing under the warm Andalusian sun, Seville is a fascinating city in many ways. But the city’s greatest draw is undoubtedly its food – the chance to savor delicious cuisine whilst rubbing shoulders with locals in warm, moody lit bars. And the best way to discover the best food is to eat with local Sevillians.
On this 3.5-hour guided tour with a Spain Food Sherpa, you’ll discover everything from bountiful produce markets and secret tapas spots to laid-back taverns and gourmet shops, plus a little history. Wander the brightly colored streets and tangled Moorish alleys of the old town, sip Manzanilla sherry, taste olive oil, and sample specialities such as calillada ibérica (braised pork cheek) and montadito de pringa (toasted bread stuffed with roast pork). Meet at Las Setas, a mushroom-shaped parasol sculpture. Prices start from £60.
Left: Spinach with chickpeas, Iberico ham, olives, bread and a glass of wine at a tapas bar in Seville, Spain.
Photo credit: Getty Images
Right: Walking through the arches of Plaza de España in Seville, Spain.
Photo credit: Getty Images
Hardly a hill by Swiss standards, the 2,854-foot-tall forested peak that towers just outside Zurich is the envy of any European city. A 20-minute tram ride from the city center, the top of the Uetliberg offers breathtaking views over the rooftops of the Old Town, the sparkling Limmat River, the sharp blue glow of Lake Zurich, and the beautiful snow-capped peaks of the Alps.
To get there, try the solar-system-themed Planetenweg (Planet Trail), a four-mile, two-hour route from Felsenegg. This family-friendly walk takes you past models of planets and through spruce forests, making you feel like you’re in the mountains without actually leaving the city. It’s just as beautiful when the autumn mist descends or when snow falls, when the trail becomes an impromptu sledding track for excited kids and the hiking paths wind dramatically into a perfect winter wonderland.
It’s hard to imagine anything more unique than the hiking trails in the 953-acre Tempelhofer Feld (now one of the largest urban parks in the world), which runs alongside the runways of Berlin’s abandoned Tempelhof Airport, attracting people from all walks of life, from in-line skating teenagers to kite-flying families.
But it wasn’t always this way. The history of Tempelhof Airport is a tale of tears and triumph. Rebuilt by the Nazis in the late 1930s and the largest airport in Europe at the time, Tempelhof’s history can still be seen in its abandoned terminals and Cold War-era planes. In 1948, the airport became the hub of the Berlin Airlift, dropping supplies over West Berlin. When the airport closed in 2008, Berliners refused to hand it over to developers.
The hiking trail starts at the Paradiesstraße entrance near the U-Bahn and loops around an old airfield that has been reclaimed for nature, sharing the path with cyclists, skaters and, if the wind is right, thrill-seekers, kiteboarders – quintessential Berlin.
Tempelhofer Feld, home to the disused Tempelhof Airport in Berlin.
Photo credit: Alamy
Visit at sunrise or sunset, when the sky sparkles over the sparkling fjord and casts shadow over the dark, rocky islands, and you’ll see why Oslo’s Ekeberg Park inspired Munch to paint “The Scream.” With incredible views of the city surrounded by the harbor, this huge hilltop park has attracted artists ever since.
The two-mile Sculpture Trail winds through forests of pine, fir and ash trees, revealing 45 jaw-dropping artworks, including nudes by Rodin and Renoir, Dali’s surrealist “Venus de Milo with Drawers” and Damien Hirst’s eerie “Anatomy of an Angel.” If you want to scream at the top of your lungs, seek out “Munch Spot,” a giant picture frame created by Serbian conceptual artist Marina Abramović, which marks the spot where the Expressionist felt “the endless scream that runs through nature.” The Sculpture Trail begins at Ekeberg Park Art Museum, and you can also join a guided walking tour.
Great for something off the beaten path: Vienna Ugly, Vienna
With its Klimt-filled galleries and palaces, it’s hard to call Vienna ugly, but one original tour does just that. London-born, Vienna-based urban activist and storyteller Eugene Quinn leads several miles of guided walks around Vienna each day, taking in neighborhoods off the normal tourist route. One such tour is “Vienna Ugly,” a two-and-a-half-hour stroll through Leopoldstadt and Innere Stadt.
The architecture is filled with clashing eyesores and monuments that recall dark periods in Vienna’s history. Your first stop is Augarten Park, where most itineraries include a baroque palace, but Eugene asks you to ignore it all and focus on the flak tower, a hulking concrete monstrosity that was once a Nazi artillery battery.
There are discordant roof extensions and clashing buildings, such as Leopoldgasse 39, with its garish purplish-pink façade adorned with murals of weeping women, and the asymmetrical Collegium Hungaricum, designed by postmodern architect László Reik, whose facade is slightly curved, as if it had been crushed.
At the end of the tour, you can vote for which building in the city is the ugliest. Or join Eugene on his ‘Smells like the Spirit of Vienna’ tour and explore the scents that let you know you’ve arrived in Vienna, from sausage stalls to horse manure. This is the city beyond Sissi and schnitzel. Tour prices start from £9.
Left: Frogner Park, Oslo, Norway.
Photo credit: Getty Images
Right: Vienna, the capital of Austria.
Photo credit: Getty Images
At 823ft above sea level, it may be small compared to some of Scotland’s other mountains, but don’t be fooled: Arthur’s Seat’s enormous, long-extinct volcanic cone is a truly wild mountain walking adventure, right in the pulsating heart of the capital city.
The 2.5-mile circular walk from Holyroodhouse Park (the former home of Scotland’s monarchs) to the summit and back takes around 90 minutes, but it’s worth taking your time to take in the stunning 360-degree views, from Edinburgh and its brooding rock star castle to the Forth Bridge, the conical hills of North Berwick Row and the beautifully frosted Highlands in the distance.
The green route is the easiest and perfect for families, while the steeper and more dramatic red route, which climbs over Salisbury Crags and along the remains of lava flows, will require a bit more breathing space. It can be windy at the top so dress warmly.
A great place for riverside strolls: Budapest’s Danube Promenade
Few places in Europe have a skyline as bold and grandiose as Budapest, built by Hungarian kings and Habsburg emperors on a bend in the Danube. You can walk or jog along the mile-long promenade from Pest to Buda on the other side of the river. The route starts at Kossuth Lajos Square, framed by the Parliament Building, and continues to Elisabeth Bridge (Elisabeth’s Bridge).
The Royal Palace, perched on a limestone plateau, and the colonnaded St. Gellert Memorial, perched atop a rocky peak, top most travellers’ wish lists. But you’ll also be enchanted by the bronze statue of a bowing Shakespeare on Pest’s promenade. But the most moving is sculptor Gyula Pauer and film director Can Togay’s “Shoes on the Danube,” a set of 60 pairs of cast-iron shoes that pay tribute to the Hungarian Jews who were murdered here in 1944 and left without their footwear. Download the app for route details and maps.
View of the skyline of Budapest, Hungary.
Photo: Dorothea Bartha
Surrounded by seven hills, cobbled alleyways and towering Moorish castles, Lisbon is a truly magical city. But in addition to its cinematic beauty, the Portuguese capital has developed a creative and rebellious spirit that has established it as one of Europe’s street art hotspots. The Lisbon Street Art Tour sees the city through a new lens, taking you on a 3-hour guided walk through alleyways and squares, along calçadas (staircases) to miradouros (lookout points) overlooking red roofs, and into the city’s secret graffiti-adorned nooks and crannies.
Most walks start from Mouraria’s Martim Moniz square, then continue through Lisbon’s skyscraper-filled Graça district, particularly Calle Natalia Correia, which is a festival of giant murals, including an eye-catching anti-war peace guard painting by American artist Shepard Fairey (best known for creating Barack Obama’s “Hope” posters), depicting a woman holding a gun with a flower in it, symbolising Portugal’s 1974 Carnation Revolution.
Also keep an eye out for Violant’s surrealist tree designs and the vibrant jewel-toned birds in OzeArv’s colourful Tropical Fado in RGB Tones From here, the walk heads towards Alfama, where you’ll discover treasures such as Bordalo II’s neon wonder Half Young Panda and British photographer Camilla Watson’s Alma de Alfama, a permanent exhibition of black-and-white portraits of long-time residents mounted on limestone.
Or pop into Santa Apolonia station, where Spanish duo Picciavo have created a giant, multi-storey statue of Poseidon that gazes wistfully into the Tagus River from the side of an apartment building. If you’re inspired, try one of the longer tours, which end with a spraying workshop where you’ll learn stencilling techniques and take home a graffiti tote bag. Prices start from £13.
View of the old town at sunset in Lisbon, Portugal.
Photo credit: Getty Images
Best for Architecture: Austad, Copenhagen
Copenhagen is on track to be the World Architecture Capital for 2023. Denmark’s trademark modernist style is easily visible on every street corner, but you can get a deeper insight with a dedicated guided tour of the Danish Architecture Centre, based in Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas’s cubist, green-glass stacked BLOX building on the harbour.
Every Saturday afternoon, a two-and-a-half-hour walk throws me deep into the architecture, followed by a short subway ride, and I’m in the Årestad district on Copenhagen’s Amager island, where the city meets the nature reserve. Here, architects are going off the beaten path and tearing up the rulebook with the golden waves of the Royal Arena, an upcycled studio built from waste bound for landfill, and the figure-of-eight 8 House with its sloping living roof.
More walks are in the works: the Danish Architecture Centre is planning an upcoming two-hour “Copenhagen: World Capital of Architecture” walk and a four-mile architecture run through the city’s most eye-catching buildings, with prices starting from £18.
The geometric AB apartments in Orestad, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Photo credit: Alamy
“Nice” is a bland adjective to describe this sultry French city on the Mediterranean coast. The beauty of the Côte d’Azur, with its year-round sunshine, cinematic charm, sea views and pretty pastel-coloured houses, is an easy sell: Matisse called it home, and it was a favourite destination for Picasso and Renoir.
The city’s lifeblood is the four-mile Promenade des Anglais, a vast stretch of palm-fringed shoreline of the Baie des Anges (Bay of Angels), named for the British aristocrats who flocked here in the 19th century. Enjoy strolling, jogging, swimming and tasting seafood fresh off the boat. The rhythmic sounds of the waves, the opulent architecture (check out the pink-domed Hotel Negresco) and the rows of blue-and-white deckchairs overlooking the turquoise waters make for an unforgettable experience.
If you prefer something quieter, continue along the cove-dotted coastal path for another four miles to the arguably even more beautiful Villefranche-sur-Mer.
