The Guardian

From the Renaissance splendour and symmetry of the Boboli gardens in Florence to the trickling fountains and rose gardens of the Alhambra in Spain, Europe has no shortage of “must see” gardens, but a tranquil escape from the tourist crowds they are not. Instead, we’d love to hear about your favourite “secret gardens” in continental Europe; oases of green that offer cool respite from a busy sightseeing itinerary and where you won’t be jostling for elbow room with coach parties of tourists. It could be a leafy public park, the grounds of a museum or gallery, or a botanical garden that turned into an unexpected highlight of your trip.

Of all the ways to explore southern Germany this summer, the most memorable is not by train, bus or hire car but by boat. Lake Constance, nearly 40 times bigger than Windermere and two hours south-west of Munich by public transport, is a wonderful water world ringed by harbour towns, and it makes an idyllic break from the Bavarian capital.

In 1961, future West German chancellor Willy Brandt declared: “The sky above the Ruhr must be blue once more.” His words were greeted with what sounded like applause but was actually his audience falling off their chairs. Because the Ruhrpott, or Ruhrgebiet, an agglomeration of industrial cities that includes Gelsenkirchen (where England will play their opening match of the European Championship this summer), Dortmund (which hosts group matches as well as a semi-final), Essen and Duisburg was a place where the chimneys of the coal, iron and steel industries poked up above the smog like candles on a giant grey birthday cake. You were more likely to slip in unicorn droppings than breathe clean air in the Ruhrpott.

Belfast did not have the best of starts to 2024. Never mind the mass public sector strikes, the not-unrelated fact of Northern Ireland being without a functioning government (the government returned, the strikes were settled, or suspended … for now), at the end of January, one of the city’s most respected – revered – publicans, Pedro Donald, who over the years had brought us the John Hewitt, La Boca, the Sunflower and the American Bar, announced that he was leaving for Amsterdam. There may not be bombs and bullets any more, he said, but Belfast was “a dump and derelict”. Indeed, apart from a few good years between the Good Friday agreement and the financial crash, the city was in many ways no further on than when he started in the trade in 1984.

You can’t beat an agriturismo. Rural locations, owners whose main job is farming, plus food and drink produced on site all add up to a charmingly informal stay. There is rarely a reception desk and there’ll be dogs and crowing roosters to contend with, but they offer brilliant food and a friendly welcome. And they are not all buried in the countryside; there are lots of agriturismos around Italy’s 5,000 miles of coast. Here are 10 within walking or cycling distance of the beach.

When I was planning a recent journey back to Riga, its food filled my thoughts more than anything else. I kept picturing the Latvian capital’s cafes, bistros and moody beer bars. Such longing was evidence, to me at least, that I was coming back to a city that knows how to feed people and with memorable flavours: smoked sprats, black pudding sausages, quince lemonade, cloudberry jam, pickled garlic, herby butters and bitter balsams tasting of liquorice.

It’s on about our fifth Kölsch that we begin to get the idea of Cologne’s constitution. We are sitting in Päffgen, one of the traditional brewhouses that produce the pale yellow beer unique to the German city. It comes in small straight glasses (it loses its fizz quickly apparently) and each time one is emptied, another one is delivered by a waiter swinging a kranz, or circular tray, which appears to defy gravity. The process of replacement goes on until you place a beer mat on top of your glass to signal that you’ve had enough.

Lübeck – Queen of the Hanseatic League – has a fading charm and vulnerability absent from the likes of Berlin, Munich and Hamburg … and most of Germany. I loved my trip there, wandering the cobbled streets, climbing every brick gothic church tower – generally alone! Thomas Mann wrote the unbearably sad novel Buddenbrooks there, then fled to the US from nazism in 1939. The Tin Drum author Günter Grass lived and worked in Lübeck in later life. Visit their former houses, now museums, the Grass-Haus and the Buddenbrook Haus. A singular German city, full of history and significance.Martin Charlesworth

For more than a century and a half, the Vulcan Hotel served dockers, railway workers, artists, sports stars, gamblers and dreamers and the demolition in 2012 of this beloved, spit-and-sawdust Cardiff pub felt like a bereavement.

It’s a noise the former railway tunnel probably hadn’t heard in a while. Somewhere in the dark is a hooting part-owl, part-forlorn steam train. My sister Ele has stopped on her bike to blow determinedly across her cupped hands like a flute. As she recreates this long-gone sound, I pedal on through the cool, damp air. Water drips steadily from the stalactite-coated brickwork as my front light illuminates pedestrians and their dogs looming from the echoing shadows.

Sunday day-trippers to Venice flashing their €5 entry ticket QR code to get through the turnstiles at the city’s main access points look bemused when football supporters simply show their match tickets instead. Attending a sporting event just happens to be one of the exemptions in the opaque regulations behind what locals see as an attempt to turn their town into a living museum.

In the last two decades many UK seaside towns have undergone a quiet transformation. Art galleries, boutique hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants are breathing new life into once down-at-heel resorts such as Blackpool and Margate, while coastal hotspots like Padstow, Southwold and Whitby continue to draw the crowds on sunny days. While these places are popular for good reason, we’d love to hear about your favourite “unsung” seaside towns – the places that don’t often grab the limelight or become unpleasantly overcrowded, but which have kept their charm intact. You could win a £200 holiday voucher (sorry if you were hoping for a cuddly toy or some candyfloss).

On the first Sunday of May every year, Chapel Street, where central Manchester and Salford meet, comes alive with DIY art, music and spectacle at the Sounds from the Other City festival. It is a vibrant public celebration of the “community spirit and collaborative working” which co-director Emma Thompson says sustains much alternative culture in the region.

Bordering the Consall Nature Park, a nature reserve featuring 740 acres of woodland, heath and moor, is The Tawny, a “deconstructed hotel”. This means that instead of a single house with rooms there are a collection of boathouses, huts and treehouses scattered around the woodlands and lakes. At the top of the hill is a modern glass building, the Plumicorn restaurant, and a heated outdoor pool looking out over the gardens. Stargazing sessions and night-time meditation are on offer, while spa treatments can be booked in the thatched cottage onsite. Huts from £240 B&B; thetawny.co.uk

Irrespective of rain or sunshine, the Danes are always ready to embrace hygge, a concept that involves enjoying the good things in life – and that definitely includes enjoying the excellent cuisine the country has on offer. Dive into Denmark’s gastronomy at these top-notch eateries which carefully source and celebrate every ingredient.

It was the small and enigmatic Berlengas archipelago that drew us to Peniche harbour. Peniche, 60 miles north of Lisbon, is famous for its surfing beaches, but the islands off its coast often get overlooked. Every morning a couple of hardy passenger boats bounce over eight miles of waves from the peninsula of Peniche to Berlenga Grande. We took our seats on deck between sacks of onions and oranges and, flecked with sea-spray and followed by flocks of screaming gulls, we watched green hills emerge from blue waves ahead. At the port, the goods are unloaded with gulls wheeling and cawing overhead.

‘Do you ever get seasick?” Timm Schirmer, a 27-year-old DJ with a fabulous blond moustache, asks me shortly before we board the Techno Train. “When you’re dancing on the train it can feel like you’re at sea, because you can’t always see that you’re moving.” Worryingly, I have indeed spent many a past holiday retching on boats. But Timm’s question comes after I’ve paid €100 for a non-refundable ticket for what social media suggests is the most intense train ride in Europe. I knew it wouldn’t be plain sailing.

Cala Galdana beach – and its neighbours – are spectacular. Turn off at Ferreries and take the attractive Me-22 road that brings you to a breathtaking horseshoe bay shrouded by pine trees. The golden sandy beach is peaceful, even on a busy day. There are beach toilets and a cafe. There are also water sports facilities if you want a bit more activity. Neighbouring Cala Mitjana, a beautiful beach a short walk to the east, is wilder, as is Cala Macarella, two miles by footpath to the west. If I could be teleported to any beach on my day off here’s where I’d go to.Bethan Patfield

OK, we’ll admit it. Danish isn’t the easiest language to learn – pronouncing certain words involves some invigorating tongue gymnastics and a talent for gulping down glottal stops. With just 6 million native speakers, Danish hardly matches widely spoken Mandarin (941 million speakers) or Spanish (486 million speakers) either.

There’s something quite particular about small but perfectly formed Assos – butterscotch and rose-pink houses line a horseshoe bay, with Venetian ruins scattered between the narrow alleys. There are two small beaches, but the real joy is to rent a motor boat and discover the small bays and coves that fringe this part of the Cephalonian coast. Walkers can follow the path out on to the headland to the ruins of Assos’s 16th-century castle; there’s not a huge amount to see, but the views make the walk worth it. Roi Suites is a bougainvillaea-clad cluster of well-equipped studio flats in a waterfront neoclassical building, with gorgeous sea views from the pool terrace. Doubles from £117 (minimum seven nights), roisuites.com

The Bay of Arcachon, on the south-west coast of France, is a happy place. It must be, because I’ve been visiting it with my family nearly every year for the past 15 years. We usually rent a small apartment in Arcachon town for four or five days, but such is the draw that we have been known to make a two-hour drive just to spend the day there when we’ve been in that part of the world. Everything about it speaks of summer joy: the promenade thrumming with cyclists and strollers; the parade of bistros serving moules, oysters and buckets of chilled rosé; families playing beach tennis on the sands; and a bay brimming with pleasure boats and ferries. It’s like a scene from a Raoul Dufy painting.