England
St Ives
Light so luminous it lured a century of painters to this harbour of turquoise shallows.
The light arrives off the Atlantic and bounces between whitewashed cottages and turquoise water with an intensity that made St Ives a magnet for artists from the 1880s onwards. St Ives in Cornwall is a working fishing town that happens to contain one of the finest concentrations of art galleries in Britain.
The Tate St Ives, perched above Porthmeor Beach, houses rotating exhibitions that place modern art against the seascape that inspired it. Barbara Hepworth's sculpture garden, preserved as she left it at her death in 1975, sits a short walk through the narrow lanes. The town's harbour, still active with crabbers and mackerel boats, opens to four distinct beaches — Porthmeor for surfing, Porthminster for sheltered swimming, the Harbour Beach for families, and Bamaluz for those who prefer quiet. The St Ives branch railway, running along the coast from St Erth, is regularly voted the finest coastal train journey in England.
Couple
St Ives distils the Cornish coast into a single afternoon: gallery, beach, seafood, sunset. Walk the Island peninsula at dusk and the light does things to the sea that no painting quite captures.
Family
Four beaches within walking distance means there's always one sheltered from the wind. Combine the Tate's family workshops with crabbing on the harbour wall and ice cream from the parlour on Fore Street.
Solo
The artists came here alone to work. Follow their lead — a morning in the Hepworth garden, an afternoon on Porthmeor with a book, and the sound of the Atlantic as company.
- The light here drew Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, and a colony of artists whose studios still line the harbour streets.
- Porthmeor Beach breaks clean enough for surfing, with the Tate St Ives gallery watching from the headland above.
- Narrow lanes between whitewashed cottages open suddenly to turquoise water that looks Mediterranean but tastes Atlantic.
- Seafood restaurants and galleries share the same converted net lofts — culture and coast intertwined at every turn.
Crab sandwiches on Porthminster Beach with sand between your toes and gulls overhead.
Fresh-off-the-boat mackerel at the harbourside Seafood Cafe.
Dal Lake
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Intricately carved cedar houseboats floating on a mirror-still lake ringed by snow-dusted Kashmiri mountains.
Pamukkale
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Thermal water spills down white travertine terraces like a frozen waterfall you can wade through.
Lake Van
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A vast soda sea where you float without trying, ringed by snow-capped volcanoes.
Las Baulas Marine Park
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Leatherbacks — two metres long, ancient as dinosaurs — haul onto sand in total darkness.
Stratford-upon-Avon
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Half-timbered streets where Shakespeare was born and the swans own the river.
Windsor
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A working royal castle where guards still change and the Queen's swans patrol the Thames.
Ely
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A lantern tower floating above the fens like a ship's mast on flat farmland.
Lavenham
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Crooked medieval timber frames leaning at angles that defy both gravity and planning law.