Mexico
Colonial light turns pink at dusk, every doorway hiding an artist's courtyard.
At golden hour the whole town agrees on a colour. The pink sandstone of the Parroquia catches first, then the facades, then the streets full of gallery-goers walking slowly home.
San Miguel de Allende's neo-Gothic Parroquia spires were raised by a self-taught mason working from images of European cathedrals, and they crown a walkable colonial grid of galleries, courtyards, cooking schools and nearby hot springs. The town's arts community has been drawing residents and visitors for generations. Its sweet tradition is its own, down to a friar-era rolled pastry.
Couple
Take the rooftops as golden hour sets the pink stone alight.
Solo
Fill mornings with galleries and courtyards, evenings with the plaza's slow theatre.
Friends
Share a cooking class and the town's gallery-and-bar circuit.
The tumbagón, a crisp anise-and-orange pastry ring dusted with sugar, is told to date from the founding friars.
Residents lunch at the municipal market, where a morning tamalera sells tamales of mole, rajas and chicken.

Aix-en-Provence
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Plane-tree canopies dappling fountain-cooled boulevards where Cézanne saw geometry in everything.

Amarante
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A stone bridge, Baroque domes, and a town that trades fertility cakes in sincere tradition.

St Andrews
Scotland
Salt-blasted cathedral ruins stand sentinel where golf was born on windswept links.

Reims
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A cathedral where the kings of France were crowned, above kilometres of champagne cellars in chalk.

Tulum
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Grey Maya stone holds a cliff edge above white sand and turquoise surf.

Tepoztlán
Mexico
Volcanic walls cradle a market town of chapels, food and mountain weather.

Parras de la Fuente
Mexico
Desert vineyards around a spring-fed oasis have produced wine since 1597.

Valle de Guadalupe
Mexico
Dusty vineyard roads link cellar doors and open-fire kitchens across northern Baja.