The world's smallest state holds its biggest art: St Peter's, the Vatican Museums and the Sistine ceiling
Eat your way through Lima, South America's food capital, between colonial plazas and Pacific clifftops
Brussels' ornate guildhall square, UNESCO-listed.
The largest ancient castle complex in the world, with St Vitus Cathedral, the Golden Lane cottages and the hourly guard change.
Cliff-carved tunnel fortifications.
Riverside old town below the cliffs.
Pastel Dutch waterfront, UNESCO-listed.
Futurist petrol station shaped like an aeroplane — icon of Asmara’s modernism.
Baroque old town, UNESCO-listed.
Hanseatic gables, the House of the Blackheads and St Peter’s spire, ringed by Europe’s finest Art Nouveau streets.
Seven hundred monuments in a maze of covered souks around the Zitouna mosque, largely unchanged since the Middle Ages.
Restored colonial old town, UNESCO-listed.
A skyline of 2,500-year-old gingerbread tower houses with white gypsum trim, one of the oldest cities in the world.
One of Islam’s oldest and grandest mosques, glittering with gold mosaics.
Fairytale medieval walled city, UNESCO-listed.
Mud-brick birthplace of the Saudi state.
One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities: the Umayyad Mosque, Straight Street and the Souq al-Hamidiyah.
Fifteenth-century royal complex at the heart of Baku’s walled old city.
One of the world’s largest stupas, ringed by prayer wheels and monasteries.
Neo-Gothic riverfront parliament, Budapest’s defining silhouette.
Ottoman-era citadel quarter stacked above the bay of Algiers.
Sea fortress islands off Helsinki, UNESCO-listed.
Glide the 17th-century canal ring past gabled merchant houses, houseboats and 1,500 bridges — the city as it was meant to be seen.
Fortress on Castle Rock holding the Scottish crown jewels and the one o’clock gun.
Vienna's imperial Habsburg palace and gardens.
Eleventh-century cathedral with original mosaics, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Golden-domed monastery complex above catacombs of mummified monks.
Medieval quarter of a thousand minarets: the Khan el-Khalili bazaar, Al-Azhar mosque and the Sultan Hassan madrasa.
The Parthenon and its temples on the rock above Athens — the birthplace of democracy, best climbed at opening time.
Moscow’s historic heart: St Basil’s domes, the Kremlin walls and GUM.
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