Get your fill of history and culture in the North before filling up on the food and fun of the South.
Start your trip by heading from the bright lights of Paris to the red lights of Amsterdam. Travel to Berlin to see how it’s gone from being one of Europe’s most repressed cities to one of its most vibrant and innovative. Make quick stops in Dresden and Terezin, then embark on a medieval castle-crawl through Prague and Cesky Krumlov. See an opera in Vienna, an ice cave in Salzburg, and a Disney Castle in Munich.
From there, begin your outdoor education in the Austrian Tyrol before cruising the canals of Venice, or getting lost in the ancient ruins of Rome. Soak up the Renaissance and some sun in Siena and Florence, and have your camera ready for a quick stop in Pisa and the stunning towns of the Cinque Terre. Work on your tan in Nice and the French Riviera before meeting the elite in Milan. The Alps, chocolate and cheese await you in Switzerland, where you can stock up on all things gigantic before Munich’s beerhalls, where you can digest all that you’ve seen with a bratwurst and a beer.
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What can be said about the sexy, sophisticated City of Lights that hasn’t been said before? Quite simply, this is one of the world’s
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Touristy, overcrowded and a tad fake: preface any other city and it would be left for dead. Not Bruges (Brugge). This medieval town is Belgium’s most
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Amsterdam’s always been a liberal place, ever since the Golden Age, when it led European art and trade. Centuries later, in the 1960s
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Apologies to Samuel Johnson, who first coined the compliment for London, but in the 21st century anyone who is tired of Berlin is tired
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Germany’s eastern heartland is for many people (Germans included) the most historically German. Together with Brandenburg, East Berlin a
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It’s the perfect irony of Prague. You’re lured there by the past, but compelled to linger by the present and the future. Fill your days
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Crowned by an audacious castle and centred on an elegant old town square, Český Krumlov is a pocket-sized Prague. Renaissance and bar
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The Ottomans referred to Vienna (Wien) as the city of the ‘golden apple’, but this crossroads of Eastern and Western Europe is more akin
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The joke ‘if it’s baroque, don’t fix it’ would make a perfect maxim for Salzburg; the tranquil old town burrowed in below steep hills
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Munich (München) is truly the capital of all things Bavarian. It’s a heady mix of world-class museums, historic sites, cosmopolitan shop
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Venice is a hauntingly beautiful place: a strange, surreal city in which everyday life seems somehow more dramatic than elsewhere. Even
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Unless you’re taking a ferry to Greece, Croatia or Turkey, you won’t want to hang around in Ancona, Le Marche’s regional capital and
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Rome: just the name conjures 2700 years of Western civilisation. Possibly the most influential city the world has ever seen, Rome might
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A Gothic gem, Siena is one of Italy’s most enchanting towns. Its walled centre – a beautifully preserved warren of dark lanes punctuated
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Florence has a strange effect on visitors. Travellers who normally loathe art galleries queue for hours to get into them, and people with
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For the Italian coast’s best scenery strike south to the Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre. Named after its five tiny
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Naughty Nice is one of the highlights of the French Riviera. Sun seekers sip cocktails on parasoled lounges lining its pebbled shores,
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Widely renowned as the most fashionable city in Italy, Milan is always at the cutting edge of innovation be it in terms of clothes, design or even
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Tiny Lauterbrunnen, with its attractive main street cluttered with Swiss chalet architecture, is friendly and down-to-earth. It’s known
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Lapped by a scenic lake and surrounded by mountains of myth, Lucerne is one of the most beautiful cities
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Hemmed in by grape-covered hills, residents of prosperous Stuttgart enjoy a high quality of life. Just watch them zip about in their Mer
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