Perhaps it is the pleasing sensation of sunlight on bare skin, but we are effectively programmed to think of summer as the best time for travel. It is not just that the hottest months coincide with the crucial window of the main school holidays, so we learn the habit from a young age. It is that bright evenings and technicolour sunsets are hard-wired into our psyche. There is a reason why so many big-hit songs in the popular music canon – Summer Nights, In The Summertime, Summer Of 69, Boys Of Summer, Summer In The City – have the S-word in their titles, and don’t concern themselves with the winter.
And yet. And yet… there is a school of thought which says that the much-loved period between June and September is not automatically the ideal moment for a break. And not just because our most recent summer was so hot that wildfires strafed Greek hillsides, and evacuations were needed on Rhodes. Some destinations simply look and feel more glorious, not in the dazzle of an August midday, but when the mercury slips downwards.
Cities especially. A busy metropolis can be a sort of hell in July; train carriages turned to sweat-boxes, tarmac sticky under foot. By contrast, winter can make some of our key capitals much more intriguing, beckoning visitors into museums, galleries and churches.
And some cities, quite specifically, work better in winter. The selection below, perhaps.
