Portugal: Fuseta
Fuseta, an almost empty spit of white sand in a turquoise sea that may be the Indian Ocean, is a desert island (just a little more bracing). 12 miles east of Faro lies this unspoiled fishing community. It’s modest and features great outdoor fish grills by the harbor in summer. Casa Corvo is a local favorite for charcoal-grilled dourada (sea bream). Get to the municipal mercado early to witness fishermen unloading their boats.
Along the Ria Formosa islands and inlets, Fuseta boasts some of the best Algarve beaches. A water taxi to uninhabited beaches like Praia da Barra Velha or Praia do Homem Nu (“naked man beach”) costs a few euros more than a tiny ferry to Fuseta Island. Nearby Praia da Fuseta-Ria has warmer inlet waters and doughnut boats. Further, Vila Monte, a boutique farmhouse with a pool and a view of orange groves and the Moncarapacho hills, is 10 minutes away.
Liguria night trains
Europe’s night-train makeover is accelerating. Last month, Basel to Dresden and Stuttgart to Venice sleepers started. The new overnight train from Munich to Liguria is great for visiting Cinque Terre.
London to Munich to La Spezia Centrale by day. While you sleep, the train passes the Certosa di Pavia monastery, where you can have breakfast. After crossing the Po, you’ll climb hills and then drop precipitously into Genoa. The best is yet to come as the railway skirts the Ligurian coast with great views of Cinque Terre communities, including Riomaggiore, before arriving in La Spezia at 11.10. Further, a Munich two-person sleeper costs €199.80 on nightjet.com or raileurope.com.
Kranj, Slovenia
Slovenia’s third-largest city, Kranj, won 2023’s European Destination of Excellence award for sustainable tourism, boosting its green credentials. The 30-meter-deep Kokra River gorge runs through the city in the Slovenian Alps, midway between Ljubljana and Lake Bled. The Kokra runs south into the Sava, where shaded riverside walkways are calm.
Triglav, Grintovec, and Stol mountains tower over Kranj’s Renaissance townhouses’ church spires and terracotta roofs. Moreover, westward hikes to Marjetna Gora offer greater vistas. Further, cafe terraces along pedestrianized lanes of pastel-colored townhouses, including Actum Hotel, in the charming old town. A deluxe suite further with hot tub costs €143, although its opulent rooms start at €83 B&B.
Northern culture
New hotels, cultural events, and regeneration initiatives keep the north buzzing. After a £15m refurbishment, Manchester Museum reopens in February with a large extension, a new exhibition hall, and visitor amenities encased in green-glazed tiles to match the city’s Victorian and Edwardian architecture.
Further, Manchester’s Factory International, a flagship cultural center, opens in June with an immersive Yayoi Kusama exhibit, including enormous dolls and polka-dot spheres. The Treehouse Hotel in Deansgate’s decaying 15-story Renaissance hotel will open in spring with a rooftop bar and two superb restaurants.
Furthermore, Ukraine’s 2022 Eurovision winner, Liverpool, will host nine live events for Eurovision 2023. (From May 9) The UK’s largest contemporary art festival, the 12th Liverpool Biennial, runs from June 10 to September 17 in public places, galleries, and museums.
The new Tempus hotel in Charlton Hall, Northumberland, has 15 rooms inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to commemorate Lewis Carroll’s 125th anniversary. In September, the Faith Museum at Auckland Castle in County Durham will be England’s first religion museum.
Spetses, Greece
Spetses is understandably popular. Hollywood movies have featured Argo-Saronic for two years. The Lost Daughter, based on Elena Ferrante’s novella, was followed by Daniel Craig’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. The gorgeous island further, expects a larger boom in 2023.
“We’re all feeling privileged to live here,” says Spetses native Yannis Manitaras, 74. The Poseidonion Grand, an upscale seaside hotel, launches the Glass Onion trailer. Further, the luxury hotel, founded by Spetsios tobacco millionaire Sotirios Anargyros, brought Athenian high society and European aristocracy to the pine-clad island in the 1920s.
Furthermore, Athenians love the island’s old-world charm, neo-classical architecture, horse-drawn buggies, and lack of cars. The Oltremare Inn features doubles for £110 B&B. From Piraeus in Athens, the ferry takes two hours.
Imotski lakes, Croatia
One of Croatia’s most beautiful inland districts is a half-hour drive east of Baka Voda. Blue Lake, the largest of eleven lakes in the karst region of Imotski, borders the town. A large sinkhole with turquoise water has scrub-covered limestone walls. Follow a serpentine trail to the valley bottom to swim in this lake. Further, Imotski lakes and Biokovo natural park may be Unesco-listed in 2023.
Here, you may kayak the Vrljika River, hike the hills, visit vineyards, and see Imotski’s historic Topana Fortress. The elegant Boutique Room 76 has doubled from £56 room-only.
England, Margate
Empire of Light, directed by Sam Mendes, will premiere in Margate this month. From January, a new downloadable map on the Visit Thanet website will help visitors find film locations, starting with the free Dreamland. The theme park and its kitsch roller disco (seen in the film) will further reopen in April with a new roller coaster.
The film’s Olivia Colman praised Margate’s “three wonderful eateries”. Six deserve such praise, including the one in the box-fresh Fort Road Hotel, managed by River Café graduate Daisy Cecil; locals’ favorite Dive for tacos; and the newbie Staple Stores for “cruffins” (a cross between a croissant and a muffin).
Further, Sonia Boyce’s award-winning multimedia piece Feeling Her Way will premiere in the UK at Turner Contemporary in Margate (4 February–8 May). Further, visit some of the growing numbers of satellite galleries, like the strange new Crab Museum, over the course of a weekend.
England’s Ridgeway trail
This year, the Ridgeway Trail, which partly follows a prehistoric path, turns 50. It travels 87 miles from Avebury in Wiltshire to Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire across the North Wessex Downs and Chilterns. One of Britain’s oldest highways.
The Chilterns’ ancient beechwood holloways and the mysterious Uffington White Horse are connected by a route. Wayland’s Smithy, a 5,500-year-old stone age tomb, can be seen for free. Other stretches cross chalk downs to Avebury, home to Europe’s largest stone circle, following forebears who shaped this environment.
Rare moths, raptors, and skylarks live on the Ridgeway. Guided trail runs, family science days, artistic competitions, and historical discussions are unique events this year. Every Sunday night, a new #Ridgeway50 story will be posted online, revealing secrets, pointing out problems, and encouraging people to find out more. Further, Mary-Ann Ochota, archaeologist, broadcaster, walker, and Ridgeway Trail 50th anniversary patron.
Ancient cultures, Turkey
Turkey’s Kurdish and Arabic southeast, particularly Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa, has become famous due to its proximity to Syria (usually called Urfa).
Roman, Arab, Crusader, and Turkish culture abounds in the Upper Euphrates Basin, the Fertile Crescent. But its neolithic relics, especially at the Unesco site of Göbekli Tepe (Taş Tepeler) in Urfa, are its greatest asset.
Gaziantep and Urfa’s evocative bazaars are just the start. Both cities have excellent archaeological museums (Urfa has the world’s oldest statue, from 10,000BC). Urfa is a pilgrimage site and Turkey’s gourmet hotspot, with baklava stores and famous eateries. The visitor inflow has revived mothballed hotels like Gaziantep’s historic townhouse Anadolu Evleri.
Italy’s brilliance Donatello
The V&A’s upcoming exhibition Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance may encourage many to visit the “greatest sculptor of all time’s birthplace.”From the Uffizi Gallery to Brunelleschi’s cathedral, Florence has several Donatello attractions, but the artist worked all around Tuscany, and cheap public transport permits a sculpture tour of multiple Renaissance glories.
In Prato, 23 minutes by train, Donatello’s white marble exterior pulpit on the cathedral’s southeast corner is a wonder. The Guinigi Tower, with a clump of huge oak trees on top, is a major attraction in Lucca, about an hour west. The artist’s gentle terracotta madonna and child sculptures from his teens are on display at Villa Guinigi, the family’s vacation villa.
San Matteo museum, a 15-minute walk from Pisa’s church and leaning tower, has a Donatello bust of San Rossore, claimed to contain the saint’s skull.
Donatello spent three years in Siena in the mid-1400s, creating dramatic bronzes for the San Giovanni baptistry, solemn “virtue” sculptures Hope and Faith, and cheerful putti (cherubs). Last stop Arezzo is off the beaten path but features a beautiful medieval town and a cathedral with Piero della Francesca’s Mary Magdalene fresco and Donatello’s marble relief of Christ’s baptism.
Pensione Bencistà (doubles from £130 room only), a renovated medieval monastery in Fiesole, boasts EM Forster views. A winter renovation opens in April.
Hauts-de-France food fun
Hauts-de-France was selected European Region of Gastronomy 2023 for its delicious food. A craft beer route, cheese tastings, fairs, food festivals, tours, and workshops are among the various events.
Lille’s artisan beer and waffles and renowned chef Florent Ladeyn’s innovative, eco-friendly Flemish cuisine make it a terrific first visit. He finds all materials for canteen-style bistros Bloempot and Bierbuik-Bloemeke and the Michelin-starred Auberge du Vert Mont at Boeschepe within 50km.
Gourmets love Montreuil-sur-Mer. Alexandre Gauthier’s restaurants and the Saturday market sell cheese, wine, chocolate, and coffee. Sur Mer, his springtime Merlimont enterprise, will open. For a taste of the authentic, luscious whipped crème de Chantilly, visit Château de Chantilly and take a workshop at the Atelier de la Chantilly ice-cream parlor.
Scottish Highlands, Affric
Scotland leads “rewilding” attempts to repair ecosystems. Affric Highlands, a 30-year project on 500,000 acres between Loch Ness and Kintail, is the most ambitious. The UK’s largest nature recovery initiative, launched by charity Trees for Life, Rewilding Europe, and a partnership of communities and landowners, aims to restore forests and habitats and benefit species from golden eagles to mountain hares.
In April, Trees for Life’s 10,000-acre Dundreggan Rewilding Estate will establish the world’s first rewilding center. To encourage forest exploration and historical learning. Dundreggan will have new housing, training, and presentations for conservation volunteers.
Copenhagen 13
Copenhagen will be Unesco’s capital of architecture in 2023; therefore, sustainability, livability, and design fans should visit. The Danish Architecture Center opens a new Danish architecture exhibition on March 24 and conducts events, showcases, and talks all year. Public pavilions will feature sustainability-focused architecture on the harbor. Opera Park, a climate-resilient urban park, will sit along the water.
In March, Open House Copenhagen opens spectacular buildings to the public, while in February, July, and September, the Architecture Run takes runners through museums and architectural marvels for 5km.
Refik Anadol – Nature Dreams, a south-side digital art display, and a rising Asian cuisine scene are more reasons to visit. New Christianshavn apart-hotel Kanalhuset (doubles from £75 room-only) is affordable.
Germany, Leipzig
Leipzig may seem quiet compared to Dresden, but it has enough to offer the curious traveler, from the Monument to the Battle of the Nations to lively nightlife. Wagner, Bach, Mahler, two Schumanns, Goethe, and Schiller lived and worked in the city. Museums and festivals like Bachfest and the Mahler Festival (11-29 May) showcase these legacies (8-18 June). Leipzig’s “Whole City as a Stage” program to boost its culture in 2023.
The Spinnerei, a 19th-century cotton mill repurposed into 13 galleries and hundreds of artist studios, has made Leipzig a modern art hotspot. The complex contains a restaurant, beer garden, indie cinema, and tours. Palm Gardens, featuring 19th-century bridges, pavilions, and a fuel station theater, are worth seeing. Eisenbahnstrasse in Volkmarsdorf has international food, and Karl-Liebknecht-strasse (KarLi) has bar-hopping.
Málaga, Spain
On April 8, galleries in Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga, A Coruña, and Bilbao will host special exhibitions to commemorate Pablo Picasso’s 50th death anniversary. Málaga is proud of its famous son. The Picasso Museum Málaga, marking its 20th anniversary, offers Picasso: Matter and Body (8 Aug.–10 Sept.) and Echo of Picasso (2 Oct.–24 March 2024), while the Picasso Birthplace Museum displays The Ages of Pablo (June 21, 2019–Jan. 1, 2024). Fans can also visit his baptismal church, school, and Malagueta bullring, where he watched bullfights with his father.
Málaga has more than Picasso for art lovers. The 2015 Pompidou Centre of Málaga, a remarkable cube on the waterfront, the Carmen Thyssen Museum of 19th-century Spanish painting, and the free Contemporary Art Centre are among its 40 museums and galleries. Soho, the city’s bustling street-art quarter, contains independent restaurants, boutiques, and a monthly makers’ market.
Art aside, the Costa del Sol city includes 16 beaches, the “one-armed” cathedral, Gibralfaro castle, the 11th-century Alcazaba, and local favorites like espetos de sardinas (sardines on a skewer).
Huesca 16 Canfranc
On March 1, Europe’s second-largest railway station will become a 910-meter-high hotel in the Spanish Pyrenees. Canfranc Station The “Titanic of the Alps” pharaonic station now houses the Royal Hideaway hotel. Spain sought to show it could build a railway cathedral-like Europe’s in 1853, but by 1928 it was outdated.
It was a place where Jews who were leaving Vichy France could cross, and it was a quiet place for the Nazis to trade gold for tungsten from Spain, which they needed to make tanks. The 104-bedroom hotel (doubles from €230 room-only) with two restaurants, a spa, and snow-capped mountains has preserved much of the station’s 365 windows and 200-meter platform, which closed in 1970. The hamlet has multiple ski stations, rock climbing, and the Camino de Santiago. The 16-mile train ride to medieval Jaca is beautiful. Train from Zaragoza to Canfranc (twice daily).
Rugby World Cup, France
Lille, Nantes, Nice, and Lyon will host the Rugby World Cup. Marseille’s beaches and eclectic culture will welcome England and Scotland fans for their teams’ first matches on 9 and 10 September. Wales and Ireland fans in Bordeaux that weekend can enjoy the city’s wine bars, Chartrons quarter, Cité du Vin wine museum, and Bassin des Lumières art-based light show in a former German submarine base.
All stadiums will be lively, but Bordeaux and Toulouse will be especially so. Toulouse’s student population and pink brickwork make it the Ville Rose.
Chez Tonton in Place Saint-Pierre on the Garonne can host fans without Stade de Toulouse tickets. They can visit the Cité de l’espace, the Halles de la Machine, and Taste of Toulouse during the day. Nantes, which hosts a large robotic elephant and a three-story ocean-themed carousel, created the giant robots.
Stranraer-Eyemouth cycling route, Scotland
A new 250-mile coast-to-coast cycle path from Stranraer to Eyemouth will remind visitors of the beauty of the south of Scotland, where rolling hills and old abbeys are sometimes neglected on their way to the Highlands. Riders will travel from west to east on quiet roads to Newton Stewart and the UK’s first Dark Sky Park, Galloway Forest Park.
From there, a maze of leafy minor roads with views over the Southern Uplands leads to the 18th-century market town of Castle Douglas, Dumfries, where Robert Burns spent his final years, and the old mill towns and ruined abbeys of the Scottish Borders, following the River Tweed past Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford and a wealth of Mary Queen of Scots history. The UCI Cycling World Championships, held in Glasgow and surrounding Scotland in August, will open the path in Eyemouth.
“The south of Scotland has a lot to offer, from Abbotsford and the abbeys to cultural activities like book festivals,The locals’ excitement and kindness make it a wonderful region to explore.”
According to Markus Stitz of Bikepacking Scotland
Mountain bikers recognize the south for its 7stanes trail centers. The new route should demonstrate road cycling’s merits.
Austrian mountaineering
Mass tourism has always exploited the Alps’ beauty. Its unattractive effects include grand hotels, second residences, tacky ski resorts, and a congested lift network. Not everyone wants a sixth schnapps at a slope-side bar to the current après-ski hit. Mountaineering villages are great for peacefully enjoying nature away from materialism and concrete.
This Austrian Alpine Club-managed holiday destination association promises a “genuine” mountain experience. The 36 villages in Austria (and neighboring Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Slovenia) are so small and sparsely inhabited that even locals require a map to find them. However, the locals preserve their traditions. Instead of chalet villages, locals and businesses host visitors.
Cable cars are rare, so mountaineers must walk up. City people can relax here. I ask Vienna visitor Bernhard what to do in Krakau, Styria. “Hiking.” Rain? “Forest hiking.” The mountain huts are great, the environment is stunning, and the rooms are simple.
The association’s website details mountain trips, partner firms, and local history. Aline, a mid-30s Viennese lady, calls Krakau “wonderful: there is nothing going on.” She stopped in the highlands between Vienna and Italy. Only walking is planned. Rain? Book it.
Dún Laoghaire harbour baths, Dublin
A sea swim at the Forty Foot promontory in Dún Laoghaire inspires near-religious devotion in many adventurous Dubliners and visitors. The Dún Laoghaire Baths, rebuilt after 25 years, have attracted cold-water enthusiasts in the Irish capital since late last year. A new 35-meter jetty has a wonderfully placed bronze sculpture of 1916 revolutionary Roger Casement. He casts a wide glance over a new design for the area that comprises a gazebo, cafe, artists’ studios, changing space, and beach garden.
After a refreshing plunge, join Teddy’s 99 ice-cream cone line. New bike lanes go along Dublin’s coastal trail to the Martello Tower in Seapoint, another popular bathing area during high tide. Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney lived near Sandymount; that beach is the backdrop for his three-line poem The Strand. The seaside walk continues to Ringsend’s unofficial icon, the candy-striped Poolbeg Towers. In 1731, the Great South Wall was the world’s longest sea wall at three miles.
Over the Liffey, the trail continues north to windswept Dollymount Strand, where kite surfers perform aerial acrobatics, and on to the cliff walk at Howth Head, concluding at Howth village, for some of Dublin’s greatest fish and chips. The path ends in Skerries, where Stoop Your Head serves Dublin Bay prawns and great Guinness.
Versailles
With the BBC’s spectacular new drama about Marie Antoinette, starring Emilia Schüle as the 14-year-old future French monarch, showing on BBC Two on Thursday nights in January and February, the Sun King’s sparkling residence is the place to visit this year.
In 2023, Versailles will provide an exciting immersive experience that lets tourists play Marie-Antoinette for a day. At the new Le Grand Contrôle hotel, they can learn the queen’s beauty secrets at a fragrance workshop, then wander the Petit Trianon’s landscaped gardens, where she once sought refuge from courtly etiquette, before dressing up in one of the BBC series’ elaborate pannier gowns and towering flour-powdered wigs (which premiered on 29 December).
Appian Way, Italy
The queen of roads was regina vivarium. This year, Unesco will recognize the 350-mile Appian Way from Rome to Brindisi, completed in 190 BC. It was ancient Rome’s first roadway, named for magistrate Appius Claudius Caecus, and its flagstones made it all-weather. Most of this became farmland and communities, or the SS7 main route, throughout the decades.
Photographer Riccardo Carnovalini and writer Paolo Rumiz walked the Appian Way in 2015 using historical papers and satellite images (GPX of the route is available here). It is not an easy route to follow, though, which is why the Ministry of Culture has put aside €20m to develop the Appian Way into, it hopes, a pilgrimage route to equal the Camino de Santiago, with refreshment and accommodation stations.
An arrow-straight walking stretch can be reached by bus from its lost beginnings at Rome’s Forum (no. 118). The first flagstones with cartwheel grooves are near Cecilia Metella’s grave, three miles away.
Scotland’s Skye
The Bracken Hide, a cool wilderness hotel, opens in 2023 on the Isle of Skye, adding to its many attractions. The 52-acre facility has 45 en suite cabins and the Hub (home to Fraser’s restaurant, a whisky bar, a lounge, and screening and games rooms).
Hand-dived scallops and local venison are served in sustainable timber cabins. Nordic saunas, plunge pools, a wild swimming pond, and Loch Portree and Raasay vistas are available.
The Bracken Hide is run by Skye’s Cowshed Boutique Bunkhouse’s owners. Skye Adventure offers kayaking and climbing in Portree. Bookings start at £150 for two in March.