Cracow (Krakow) is the biggest drawing card in Poland. At the height of summer, the country’s third largest city throngs with tourists, and pavement cafes seem to occupy every cobble of the main square. Even out of season, the city pulsates with street performers, horse-drawn carriages and dance clubs heaving till dawn.

It is immediately clear why so many people flock to this magical city. Situated on the banks of the Wisla (Vistula) River and within easy reach of the Tatra Mountains, Cracow has one of the best preserved medieval city centres in Europe. Its scores of notable churches, monasteries and abbeys make it a jewellery box of gothic and Renaissance; a walk through the Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1978, is like a step back in time. And Cracow’s cultural heritage is mirrored in its intellectual achievements; Jagiellonian University is the second oldest in central Europe.

Away from high culture, Cracow offers a myriad of more modern diversions, including hundreds of restaurants, bars and music clubs tucked away in its narrow alleyways and cellars.

History
Cracow took a severe beating from the Tatars, who burned it to the ground in 1241. But within less than two decades, the new town’s centre had been set on a grid pattern, with the Rynek Glowny (Main Market Square) in the middle, and Cracow’s centrepiece, Wawel Castle, to the south. Economic prosperity and a cultural boom led to a golden age in the 15th and 16th centuries; when the Third Partition of 1795 effectively erased Poland from the map, the city became a major centre for Polish culture and the spiritual capital of a country that no longer existed. Cracow’s closest call came during World War II, when it was looted but didn’t experience major combat or bombings. As a result, Cracow is now the most intact, large city in Poland. 

When to go
Cracow is a year-round destination but if you want to beat the crowds (and still enjoy reasonably good weather), visit in late spring/early summer (mid-May to June), at the end of summer or start of autumn (late September to October).

Still riding on the back of the roaring success of the 'Celtic Tiger' economy, 21st-century Dublin is a city on the rise and rise. Business in many sectors continues to boom and the city overflows with tourists, who flock to the 'party capital of Europe' to sample the infamous Irish craic (fun).

This vibrant, fun-loving city on the River Liffey is full of atmospheric pubs where the craic is spun with a well-polished finish and the streets echo with the ghosts of artistic luminaries such as James Joyce and W B Yeats. Visit between April and October, when the weather is at its best, with July and August the busiest months, or throughout the year for the numerous festivals, cultural and religious events and sporting fixtures.

Sightseeing highlights include the early medieval Christchurch Cathedral (Dublin's oldest building), the cobbled streets of Temple Bar, Phoenix Park (Europe's largest urban park), the National Gallery of Ireland and the treasures of the National Museum of Ireland, containing Europe's finest collection of prehistoric gold artefacts. A plethora of buildings and museums (including Trinity College, Ireland's oldest university, and the Guinness Storehouse) convey a real sense of living history.

Indeed, it is this living history, present in the media of music and literature, which has brought Dublin such international acclaim. In the 20th century, a string of poets and writers immortalised the city, none more so than James Joyce whose seminal Ulysses (1922), which depicts one day in Dublin, is considered by many literary critics to be the greatest novel of that century.

But things have not always been so rosy for this thousand-year-old city on the east coast of Ireland. For much of the first half of the 20th century, strife and unrest tore Dublin apart as it was involved in a messy and violent divorce from Britain.

Today's new Dublin, the 'capital of Euro-cool', continues to boom, and boasts one of the youngest populations in Europe, who frequent its funky bars, sophisticated restaurants and rebuilt city streets.

However, despite the recent changes, the city and its people have remained the same. Alongside trend-setting bars, clubs and designer shops it is still possible to find quiet, traditional pubs, nostalgic museums and busking fiddlers in Temple Bar, even horse-drawn carts clip-clopping along cobbled streets. It is a fascinating blend of tradition and contemporary Irish life. No wonder, in Dublin today, Irish eyes are well and truly smiling.

So smitten was Lord Byron with Dubrovnik that he eulogised the one-time city-state as the ‘Pearl of the Adriatic’. George Bernard Shaw also lavished praise on the city, proclaiming: ‘those who seek paradise on earth should seek it in Dubrovnik.’ This UNESCO World Heritage listed gem sandwiched between sheer limestone crags and the azure waters more than deserves the superlatives heaped upon it. Within Dubrovnik’s medieval walls themselves a multitude of baroque churches and ornate palaces wait to be explored.

Dubrovnik (formerly the Republic of Ragusa) was a free city-state for centuries, staving off attack from both the Venetians and the Ottomans. Its sturdy city walls have never been breached, with their most recent test coming in 1991-1992 when Serb and Montenegrin paramilitaries, backed up by Yugoslav forces, laid siege to the city.

The only legacy of this brutal attack are a swathe of bright orange roof tiles (the lighter tiles come from the original quarry which closed before 1991), and the boards located at the gates to the old city, which show where the shells hit.

Dubrovnik was quick to reclaim its tourism crown and today the crowds are back. In high season, the city overflows with tourists and cruise ship passengers and citizens from around the globe are increasingly investing in property in this idyllic corner of Europe. The swell in visitors has been accompanied by welcome investment in the city’s hotels.

The origin of the name ‘Edinburgh' may be uncertain, but whether it is a corruption of Edwin's Burgh or from the Gaelic ‘din Eidyn' (meaning ‘Eidyn's Hill Fort'), what is clear is that these days the Scottish capital is a city on an inexorable rise.

The ‘Festival City' buzzes with life year round, be it the fireworks and concerts of the world famous New Year Hogmanay street party or the flurry of arts extravaganzas that burst through the cobbled streets of the old and new towns during the Edinburgh Festival in August.

Edinburgh is one of the longest continuously inhabited places in northern Europe, and its current renaissance can be traced back as recently as 1999, when the Scottish parliament convened for the first time in 300 years in the city. Throw in the worldwide exposure of the MTV Awards in 2003 and the recognition of UNESCO World Heritage listed Edinburgh as the first UNESCO World City Of Literature in 2005 and it is clear this is indeed a city on the move.

It is easy to see what attracts visitors to Edinburgh with one of Europe's most charming old cores complementing a ‘New Town', much of which itself dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries. To the south rise the Pentland Hills and in the north the city is flanked by the Firth of Forth and its sprinkling of uninhabited islands.

The city has over the last couple of decades really established itself as a leading international centre for business, finance and education. After London, it is the most important financial centre in Britain with the opening in 2005 of the impressive new Royal Bank of Scotland HQ in the west of city, a potent symbol of ‘New Edinburgh'.

The city also has four universities. The oldest, the University of Edinburgh, was established in 1583. Although it has traditionally had a more conservative image than other Scottish cities such as Glasgow, Edinburgh is still a wildly exciting, forward-looking capital, full of art, culture, history and beauty. It has manifold art galleries and museums, five major performing-arts theatres and a year-round calendar of international festivals.

The busiest season for tourists in Edinburgh is summer (between July and September) and particularly in August, for the world-famous Edinburgh International Festival, when the city is abuzz with cultural activity. There are also the lively Fringe Festival, Military Tattoo and the Book, Film and Jazz Festivals, which run concurrently with the main event.

No matter how busy Edinburgh gets, it is still a remarkably green oasis of parkland with its own botanical garden. Also within the City of Edinburgh's boundaries are the remarkable Forth rail and road bridges, which preside over South Queensferry, a small borough that offers a perfect escape from the increasing big city buzz of Scotland's go-ahead capital.

Most visitors are overwhelmed by the artistic opulence of Florence – they spend their visit dashing from one masterpiece to the next, dazzled by an excess of genius. It’s understandable: the cradle of the Renaissance and home of the Medici family (Italy’s most progressive art patrons) houses some of the world’s greatest treasures.

Above all, Florence is incredibly beautiful. A cluster of russet roofs and Renaissance splendours, the Tuscan city is set amongst the wine-growing hills of Chianti. Gawp at ancient palaces, curvaceous domes, beautiful basilicas stuffed with fine art and world-class art galleries like the Uffizi. With its historic centre classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site, there’s plenty to see.

The only flip side to this stupendous coin are hoards of tourists and attendant touts, buzzing like bees around the cultural honeypot, if you visit during the summer.

The fifth biggest city in Germany, Frankfurt on Main (Frankfurt am Main), has gained enormous economic power thanks to its position as a key transport hub and its status as a major venue for international trade fairs. Located in the middle of the highly productive Rhine-Main region, right at the centre of Europe, the city is the financial heart of Germany but also of the European Union.

History
A settlement since at least 3000BC, Frankfurt’s long history of commerce stems from its central geographical location on the Main River and the Frankfurt Messe (fair). The Messe has been going since the 12th century (it is mentioned in a Jewish manuscript dating from 1160) and the city received its official Imperial privilege to hold an annual trade fair in 1240.

Financial city
The Frankfurt Börse (Stock Exchange) began trading in 1585. If Frankfurt’s political aspirations were dashed by the choice of Bonn as capital of the Federal Republic in 1949, the city has directed its post-war energies all the more wholeheartedly into its uncontested financial role. The modern skyscrapers of banks and corporations in the central business district are potent symbols of Frankfurt’s economic strength and create a skyline that is more North American than European.

Culture
Most of Frankfurt’s visitors come for one of the numerous trade fairs, exhibitions and congresses. But Frankfurt has got another side. As the birthplace of Germany’s most revered writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), the city is at pains to impress with its cultural pedigree. Excellent museums, high-calibre performance groups and local festivals tempt too.

Weather
The city’s climate is generally mild and well balanced with warm, occasionally wet, days in summer, with temperatures sometimes reaching 30°C (90°F) and more, and chilly winter days, when temperatures range between -10°C (14°F) and 10°C (40°F).

Geneva has long been Switzerland’s most cosmopolitan city. It sits at the southwestern end of Lac Léman (the country’s largest lake), astride the River Rhône, with foreground hills rising against a magnificent backdrop of mountains.

The river bisects the city, with the north side as the right bank (Rive Droite) and the south as the left bank (Rive Gauche). The main railway station and the suburbs are to the north of the river and the Old Town to the south of the river.

Geneva was settled since Neolithic times and became an imperial city in 1032, before achieving independence in 1530 and joining the Swiss Confederation in 1814. Its reputation for religious tolerance during the Reformation proved to be a major influence on its subsequent development.

For centuries, exiles from religious or political persecution chose the city as their refuge, from 17th-century English regicides to Lenin in the early 20th century. John Calvin, the Protestant theologian, made his home here in the 1530s from where he led the Reformation in Switzerland.

Switzerland’s famed neutrality has long enticed international organisations to locate their headquarters in Geneva. There are currently around 200, raising the foreign community to 45% of the population. The League of Nations, predecessor of the United Nations, was established here in 1919. Although the UN moved to New York in 1945, Geneva has kept its European office here.

Other important organisations include the International Committee of the Red Cross (founded by the Swiss Henri Dunant in 1863) and the World Health Organisation.
 
The city is also a major banking centre (described by British actor Robert Morley as a ‘city of wealth by stealth’) and plays a significant role in the manufacture of watches, scientific instruments, jewellery and foodstuffs.

Geneva is an expensive city, but clean, efficient and a pleasure to visit with its beautiful Old Town, fine museums and an excellent public transport system. The city enjoys a mild climate with relatively low rainfall. The super-rich community of international civil servants and tax exiles demand good food, top hotels and entertainment and Geneva provides it all. Beneath the stereotypical veneer of diamonds and watches, however, one finds a tolerant and safe society with the Genevois strangely similar to the British – reserved but courteous.

Glasgow has seen more changes in the past two decades than almost any other British city. From a declining industrial centre with widespread pessimism about its future, Scotland’s biggest city has been transformed into a forward-looking city hailed as one of the hippest spots in Europe.

A large student population has given the city a youthful, progressive character and, with thumping nightlife, one of the strongest live music scenes in the UK, plus first-rate shopping. Glasgow continues to assert itself as one of Britain’s most appealing destinations.

City of Culture
With an outstanding art gallery and several excellent museums as a starting point, Glasgow was chosen as a European City of Culture in 1990. You can see Glasgow’s tradition of great design in the classical architecture of Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson and the organic, art nouveau style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Today, Glasgow’s School of Art continues to produce world-class talent.

History
Glasgow has a proud history – the long list of inventors, engineers, writers and architects of the 19th and 20th centuries were part of the driving force of industrialisation, tamed by socially progressive values in the ‘second city’ of the British Empire.

Glasgow was an important shipbuilding centre and well known for its Clydeside engineering works. Despite the decline of this industry and years of ensuing malaise, Glasgow has bounced back with a definite spring in its step. In 2014, the city will play host to the 20th Commonwealth Games.

The last redoubt of Moorish culture in Spain, Granada is fabled for its exquisite palace-fortress, the Alhambra, one of the earth's architectural wonders and the biggest surviving medieval Islamic palace in the world.

The Alhambra well symbolises Granada's story and significance, having been brought to its peak of elegance and splendour in the 14th and 15th centuries when Granada was the flourishing capital of the last Moorish kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula.

Finally, in 1492, the Christian Reconquest reached here too, led by Spain's ‘Catholic Monarchs', Isabel and Fernando, and bringing with it the churches, monasteries and other monuments that also contribute to the city's beauty and atmosphere today.

From their medieval heyday Granada and the Alhambra slipped into centuries of decline, which only started to be reversed by the interest taken in them by 19th-century Romantics such as American writer Washington Irving, author of the celebrated Tales of the Alhambra. The Romantics' interest sparked early tourism here.

Today tourism has grown to the extent that it is a major bulwark of Granada's economy. But the city is also very much a cultural capital in its own right, with a prestigious university, a large student population (including many foreign students studying Spanish) and a buzzing entertainment and nightlife scene.

This blending of contrasts (ancient with young, traditional with creative, Christian with Islamic, narrow, dark, secretive streets with expansive, open vistas) weaves a unique magic that makes Granada quite unlike any other city in Spain, or indeed on the planet.

The second biggest city in Germany (after Berlin), Hamburg has the cosmopolitan feel, the conspicuous consumption and most of the cultural accoutrements of a north European capital.

Culturally Hamburg is said to have more in common with its trading partners and neighbours in the Low Countries, Denmark and even England, than it does with southern Germany. Its people are famously modest, yet worldly and usually very helpful.

Visitors will find Hamburg easy to get around thanks to its compact centre and excellent transport system. There are relatively few major landmarks, and nothing of iconic status except perhaps the red-light district of St Pauli where Hamburg sailors traditionally took their R'n'R.

This is a double-edged sword for the city, yet one it has handled well in recent years, bringing in new and respectable nightlife while retaining the edgy atmosphere of the district's former existence. It is easy to forget that music (and not just sex) has always been a major part of the area (the Beatles among many other luminaries paid their musical dues in St Pauli) and on weekend nights the Reeperbahn and surrounding streets throb with activity.

By contrast to the seamy port area, the city's major open space, which begins right in the very centre of town, is the Alster Lake. On a warm summer's day do as the locals do and take a cruise from the Binnenalster (Inner Alster) to the Aussenalster and its parkland fringes. Within just a few minutes you will have swapped the steely grey metropolis for a balmy world of green and blue.