The European Cities I Love to Wander

By Araz Shahbazian

My favorite way to travel through Europe is also the simplest: pick a direction and start walking. I'll happily skip half the "must-see" list if it means spending an afternoon wandering side streets, ducking into a café, and letting a city reveal itself at its own pace.

A lot of it is the architecture. I love how a single street can jump centuries — a Baroque façade next to something clean and modern, and neither one looks out of place. You notice the details when you're on foot: the doorways, the ironwork, the little courtyards you'd never see from a car window.

And honestly, half the fun is getting a little lost. Some of the best meals and best views I've stumbled into by accident, just following a street because it looked interesting. Trips like that don't need a tight itinerary. They just need good shoes and a bit of curiosity.