Penang's UNESCO capital: clan jetties, street art and the best hawker food in Malaysia.
The Kul Sharif mosque inside a Kremlin, the capital of Tatarstan where minarets and domes share a skyline.
The car-free island of Gulangyu with its colonial villas and pianos, and the Fujian tea houses.
The eight-kilometre underground river through a cave and the capital of Palawan.
Lalitpur, the city of fine arts: a Durbar square of bronze casters and the Golden Temple.
The first Thai kingdomโs capital: lotus ponds and walking Buddhas in a historical park best seen by bicycle.
Onion domes over meadows: five monasteries and thirty churches in a town with no buildings taller than two storeys.
Russia's oldest city, the 11th-century St Sophia and the birch-bark letters of a medieval republic.
India's first UNESCO city: Gandhi's Sabarmati ashram, stepwells, pols and the textile museum.
The Potala Palace at 3,650 metres, pilgrims prostrating around the Jokhang and the Barkhor market.
A complete Ming-dynasty walled city where China's first banks were founded.
The Hwaseong fortress walls to walk in a loop, and the fried chicken street below them.
A Naxi old town of canals and stone bridges under the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
The Khan's Palace of stained glass without a single nail, a Silk Road caravanserai and halva.
The base for the Bolaven Plateau coffee farms, Wat Phou Khmer temple and the 4,000 Islands of the Mekong.
The 2,000-year-old sacred city: giant brick stupas and the oldest planted tree with a known date.
Cobbled Calle Crisologo and Spanish colonial houses, the best-preserved colonial town in Asia.
The Longmen Grottoes with 100,000 carved Buddhas, the first Buddhist temple in China and the April peony festival.
The port for Ha Long Bay: 1,600 limestone islands and an overnight on a junk boat.
Roman mosaics, the Tombs of the Kings and the rock where Aphrodite came ashore.
The Cathedral of St James built entirely of stone, four fortresses and the boat to Krka waterfalls.
Early Christian tombs, a mosque turned church on the main square and Zsolnay ceramics.
The Holy Trinity Column, six baroque fountains and an astronomical clock rebuilt in socialist realism.
Portugal's oldest city and its religious heart, with the baroque stairway of Bom Jesus do Monte.
A Roman aqueduct of 167 arches without mortar and the fairy-tale Alcazar that inspired Disney.
The town of a thousand windows: Ottoman houses stacked up a hillside below a still-inhabited castle.
Medieval defence towers in the high Svaneti valleys, the base for treks to Ushguli and glaciers.
A complete medieval square with a Gothic town hall, spa villas and wooden churches nearby.
The birthplace of Vlad the Impaler inside the best-preserved inhabited medieval citadel in Europe.
A baroque city built of black lava at the foot of Etna, with the loudest fish market in Sicily.
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