
European cities are embracing adventure. Here's how you can get involved
Packing for a city break used to involve comfortable shoes, a smart casual outfit or two, a big appetite and a sturdy liver. Indulgence was the focus, with a little light sightseeing to ward off the gout.
The contents of today's carry-ons can look very different: swimsuits, trainers, hiking boots, waterproofs, sports kit and perhaps even a little Lycra. And that's because, in many of our favourite European cities, there's an awful lot more than tasting menus and artisanal wine to get stuck into.
Cycle paths and jogging trails are now standard — an integral part of all but the most overtly sedentary cities. However, in recent years, a whole host of outdoor urban adventures have been added, offering visitors a fresh perspective that's both exhilarating and endorphin-fuelled.
Paddleboard through the ancient heart of Ljubljana. Abseil off a bridge 230ft above the Douro in Porto. Swim in a converted barge in Berlin. Surf in a former canal in Rotterdam. Kayak past 13th-century palaces in Stockholm. Ski down, or clamber up, a power plant in Copenhagen. The options are as varied as they're innovative.
Elsewhere, travellers can blend their sightseeing with stadium climbs and rooftop hikes, freerunning adventures, canoe excursions, e-bike expeditions and — in certain coastal cities — an introduction to e-foiling (surfing without all the strenuous paddling).
So, what's driving this change? A post-pandemic focus on both physical and mental health, certainly. A recent report by Neilson Beach Clubs, who have resorts across Europe, including Greece, Croatia and Sardinia, found that more than three-quarters of those polled now embrace activity on holiday — a pattern which is mirrored in the city-break sector. 'With health and fitness now such an integral part of our culture, people are turning to holidays that have an emphasis on wellbeing over traditional sightseeing,' says the CEO of Neilson, David Taylor. In Slovenia, paddleboarders can often be seen making their way down the Ljubljanica River on a sunny day. Photograph by Getty Images, Robert Pavsic
Lena Andersson started Go! Running Tours in Copenhagen in 2013. A dozen years on, the sightjogging company, which combines running with sightseeing, operates in nearly 80 cities worldwide — more than half of them in Europe. The running boom only partly explains the proliferation, she thinks; for every habitual jogger she and her network of guides cater for, there are plenty of new runners looking to enliven their city break with something unusual and immersive.
'Visitors want to get beneath the surface of a city,' she says. 'They want to mix, interact and connect with a local, get tips and recommendations. By the end of a tour, someone will have seen the main sites, sure, but they'll also know all about the guide who accompanied them. They'll uncover their go-to coffee spots and favourite restaurants.'
While some city breakers are bringing their active lifestyles with them, others are being nudged this way by the destinations themselves. Facilitated by warmer climes, more hours of sunshine or 'human-centred' urban planning, many of Europe's city-break destinations have activity in their DNA. And it's something visitors increasingly want to experience.
'People don't come to Copenhagen for big tourist attractions, as we don't really have those,' says Giuseppe Liverino, of Wonderful Copenhagen, the Danish capital's tourism board. 'They come for the lifestyle. Cycling everywhere, renting a kayak, taking a sea swim or an ice dip followed by a sauna. These aren't contrived activities — this is what the locals do. These days, what visitors want is a blend of authentic and 'outside the box' experiences.' CopenHill is a unique waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen with a ski slope and climbing wall on its roof. Photograph by Amélie Louys Giving back
Lena believes environmental sensitivities feed into the trend. 'If you're coming to a city and you're using your own power to get around, that's reducing the impact on that place,' she says. Some visitors go further and seek to have a net positive effect. GreenKayak is a scheme that operates in around 20 European cities, allowing visitors to borrow a craft in exchange for collecting litter. To date, nearly 85,000 people have taken part.
'It's a triple win,' says founder Tobias Weber-Andersen. 'People get to be active, explore the city in a new way and give something back to the destination. You feel you're contributing.'
Outdoor adventures have another benefit, particularly in our financially straitened times: affordability. Plan a city-break itinerary around landmark attractions, stage shows and destination restaurants and costs can quickly spiral. Go for a swim, grab a rental bike, a paddleboard or go rollerblading and the costs will be comparatively modest. For those who are time poor, it also showcases more, in less time.
The subtle but inescapable twinning of sport and destination marketing also feeds into the interest in active urban adventures. From Barcelona welcoming the America's Cup to Paris hosting the Olympics last year, cities now woo big sporting events in the same way that brands have always courted big-name sports stars. Why? Because it puts them in the global spotlight, positions them as dynamic and active, and guarantees a generous flow of similarly minded visitors downstream.
Inevitably, social media plays its part. No one posts about a straightforward walking tour they went on; an eye-catching urban adventure is where the kudos lies (literally, in the case of the Strava app), and destinations are responding accordingly, dreaming up offerings that they know will generate traction on Instagram and other platforms.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, says Tobias. 'We encourage people to use social media,' he says. 'They can feel happy and proud about being active and doing something a little different. And we get the message across that our cities are something that need to be looked after.' With almost 340 miles of cycle paths — and more being added all the time — Copenhagen is often ranked as the world's most bicycle-friendly capital. Photograph by Getty Images, Alexander Spatari Three action-packed cities to visit
1. Rotterdam
While its northern neighbour, Amsterdam, wrestles with overtourism, the Netherlands' second-most visited city continues to refine what one might call 'optimised tourism'. Its obliteration by German bombing raids in the Second World War left post-war planners with what amounted to a blank canvas; the result is a city as open and efficient as it is young and dynamic, with lots of green spaces and waterways.
Hike through the half-mile-long urban oasis of Dakpark, or Roof Park, so called because it's elevated to optimise views of the port and surrounding city. Alternatively, back on the ground, join the rollerbladers, skaters and runners navigating the paths through the forested Kralingse Bos on the fringe of the city. There are jogging trails and an athletics track that's open to the public at Roel Langerakpark and smooth cycle paths stitching the green spaces together. Urban swimming has been embraced in a big way, too. One of the best spots is Zwembad Rijnhaven, in the middle of the city, with sunbathing platforms and ladders into the water.
Why go now? In keeping with the city's active and entrepreneurial spirit, the world's first outdoor urban surf pool opened last summer in a former canal overlooked by Rotterdam's neo-Renaissance city hall. A decade in the making, RIF0101 — named for the Dutch word for 'reef' and the postcode in which it's located — generates immaculate waves, provides lessons, board and wetsuit hire, and even has a bar with a sprawling terrace. Canoes and SUPs can also be hired to explore the waterways fanning out from the pool. Still got some energy left? The highest abseil in Europe is on offer at the towering Euromast, on the edge of tranquil Het Park, with a descent of almost 330ft.
2. Copenhagen
In 2022, the Tour de France began with an eight-mile time trial through the streets of Copenhagen. Rarely has the race's country-hopping prelude been staged in a more apt location. The Danish capital is the most bike-centric of all European cities, the consequence of smart, livability-focused municipal planning. As a visitor, you can't help but get swept along. Hiring a bike is a breeze (most hotels as well as cycle shops rent them, or use apps such as Donkey Republic). With cars marginalised, the myriad of green spaces around the city are less polluted and full of trails for walking and running. Copenhagen hosts the world road-running championships next autumn, while 'plogging' — combining jogging and rubbish collection — is one of the activities that feature in the city's CopenPay initiative. Set to be expanded this summer, it offers visitors perks and free experiences in exchange for 'green' activities.
Why go now? It's the reinvention of the former military and industrial harbour as a giant waterborne playground that really sets the tone. The water is clean enough to yield mussels and oysters for the city's restaurants and there are more than a dozen havnebadet (harbour baths). Outdoor pools such as Islands Brugge and Fisketorvet are popular year-round, despite the cold Scandic winters; and kayaking, waterskiing, canoeing, paddleboarding and other watersports are all on offer, too. CopenHill — a £500m world-first fusion of a green energy plant and an adventure centre — remains a huge draw. As well as a 1,640ft ski run and a climbing wall with dizzying views of the city, there's a landscaped hiking trail planted with 200 trees winding up to Copenhagen's highest viewing platform. As you burn off energy, the plant generates it.
3. Munich
Perhaps it's the proximity to the Alps; or maybe its legacy of hosting huge sporting events. One thing is certain: this is a city that has activity in its veins. There are 745 miles of cycle paths, with 80% of Münchners estimated to own a bike, and dense pockets of green line the banks of the Isar, tempting both locals and visitors outdoors. Best known, perhaps, is the Englischer Garten — one of the largest urban parks in the world, and year-round, it's a hive of activity. In summer, river surfers tackle the white water of the Eisbach, which flows off the Isar; wooden rafts are paddled downstream; and bathers and picnickers converge on the white-sand beaches. In the winter months, the 3.5-mile cross-country ski trail that weaves through the floodplains of the river is a big draw. Horse-riding excursions are available, and there are nearly 50 miles of trails through the park for joggers and cyclists.
Why go now? 'Two hours at high altitude' is how Munich's Olympic Stadium bills its roof-climb experience, high above the hallowed turf on which the 1972 Olympics, and the World Cup final two years later, were staged. The tour culminates — if you're daring enough — in a zip-line down to pitch level. For summer, the variety of pools and swimming spots within the city almost rivals Copenhagen. The Dantebad is heated to 30C throughout the year. Prinzregentenbad, across the Isar in the east of the city, has an outdoor pool and an adjacent river beach popular with volleyballers. And, for an alternative take on the palaces of Schloss Schleissheim and Schloss Nymphenburg, do as the Bavarian overlords once did and consider a ride in a Venetian gondola along the adjacent canals. After all that activity, a little sit down will be a welcome relief. Published in the European Cities Collection 2025 by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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National Geographic
3 hours ago
- National Geographic
How mournful fado music offers a window into Lisbon's soul
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). It's nearing midnight in Alfama, Lisbon's oldest neighbourhood, when a lady in black steps into a taverna. The bar staff scurry to turn off the lights, leaving only the flickering tapers of candles to illuminate her angular features and fringed shawl, which she's pulled tight around her shoulders. Elvira Giblott scans the room, as if reaching for a muse, then greets the two guitarists by the bar with the title of a song. In the restaurant, every fork is stilled, every wine glass untouched. She sings of Lisbon, of the beauty and struggle of life here, her voice filling the room before dropping to a velvety whisper. It's as if her heart is breaking before our eyes. When, several songs later, the seasoned singer sweeps out of Tasca do Chico into the lamplit lane, it feels as if a spell has been broken — and something profound has been shared. In Alfama, the spiritual home of Lisbon's folk fado music, such encounters can be sought out in tascas — unfussy taverns like the one I'm sat in, where rich stews and meat dishes are served — or more upmarket fado houses, where etiquette is more strictly upheld. 'You should understand the difference between the establishments,' another performer, Joana Carvalhas, tells me when we get chatting at the end of her set. 'There are places where you may be asked to leave for talking during a performance, where the music is just as serious as the food.' At the start of her career, but with the resonant vocals of someone twice her age, Joana represents the next generation of fadistas (fado singers). 'Of course, we now perform mainly for tourists, because we want to share fado and preserve it,' she explains, referring to the uptick in interest since UNESCO recognised the genre as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2011. 'But at the end of the working night, us musicians still gather, at traditional places like Tasca do Chico or Mesa de Frades to play simply for the love of it.' 'There are places where you may be asked to leave for talking during a [fado] performance, where the music is just as serious as the food,' says fado performer Joana Carvalhas. Photograph by Jenniffer Lima Pais If the nights in Alfama are for fado, the days are for sightseeing. This is the Lisbon of postcards and daydreams, where cobblestone lanes are strung with colourful washing lines, vintage trams rattle around tight corners, and terraced miradouro (viewpoints) gaze out over a jumble of terracotta roofs and church towers towards the River Tagus. 'It wasn't always this popular,' walking tour guide Claudia Flores explains the next day in the shadow of the cathedral. 'For centuries, before the gentrification of the last decade, Alfama was a working-class neighbourhood. It was here and in nearby Mouraria, the old Moorish Quarter, that fado — meaning fate — was born 200 years ago, although many trace its roots back much further.' Central to fado music, and to the Portuguese psyche, are the ideas of saudade (melancholic longing) and the humbling hand of destiny. It was in 1755, as Lisbon rode high on the colonial riches ushered in during the Age of Discovery, that disaster struck. The most destructive earthquake in European history hit the capital, compounded by fires and a tsunami, levelling all but hilly Alfama with its firm volcanic bedrock. Reconstruction of the city centre was elegant, as anyone who tours the Pombaline monuments of Baixa-Chiado can attest, but emptied the national coffers, paving the way for the repressive Estado Novo regime of the 20th century. ''Fado, football and Fatima' were dictator António de Oliveira Salazar's three Fs — a cynical credo designed to pacify and control the masses,' Claudia explains, as we arrive at an eye-catching mosaic, a portrait rising out of the calçada (patterned pavement), completed by artist Vhils in 2015. The figure is Amália Rodrigues, Portugal's greatest fadista, who died in 1999 at age 79. She was the first woman to be interred in the National Pantheon. 'I know her from the glamorous photos decorating the local tascas, framed large as if revering royalty or petitioning a saint,' she adds. 'Fado could be subversive, voicing the everyday complaints of ordinary people, so the state moved to regulate singers and their new lyrics,' she explains. 'Some bohemians took the genre underground.' But it was Amália Rodrigues who took it to stratospheric heights. The eight galleries of Ah, Amália flow through large-scale projections, a virtual reality experience and an eye-catching mirrored room. Photograph by the Ah, Amália: Living Experience The queen of fado To better understand the evolution of fado, I've come to the arty warehouse regeneration complex of 8 Marvila, three miles up the coast from the city centre. Amid the area's restaurants and pop-up boutiques, a state-of-the-art, permanent exhibition dedicated to Amália Rodrigues opened in 2024. 'From a humble start in life, she elevated fado to a new dimension — she released 170 records and performed in more than 70 countries,' Louis Brézet from the Ah, Amália: Living Experience show tells me by way of introduction. 'The 20th century was a time when the Portuguese had few freedoms, especially women; when the country was seen as a backwater. Her life, and what she achieved, deserves this level of recognition.' The eight galleries flow through large-scale projections, a virtual reality experience and an eye-catching mirrored room. Her poetry — which expanded fado's established themes and elevated its use of metaphor — pepper the biographical exhibits along with previously unreleased recordings, all weaving together a portrait of a woman, a city and a sound. Even the traditional look of fadistas — the costume jewellery, the fringed shawl, the black dress that's typically twisted and wrenched during emotional songs — is drawn from Amália's own style. But while so much of her legacy lives on in today's performers, it's still astonishing to reach Ah, Amália's theatrical finale: a full-size holographic performance by the singer at L'Olympia in Paris at the height of her vocal powers. No expense has been spared on the sound quality in the little theatre; my skin prickles with the raw ecstasy and palpable grief in her expression, as she soars through riffs and pulls phrases from her soul. 'People think of Amália as a sad woman, always in black — but she was a wit with a flamboyant fashion sense,' tour guide Mariana Gonçalves says across town at the House Museum Amália Rodrigues, in the chichi São Bento neighbourhood, where the singer lived for the last 44 years of her life. Behind us, wardrobes burst with colourful, diaphanous gowns; around her bedroom, costume jewellery and handbags jostle for prominence with Catholic tchotchkes. 'Faith, fate. Colour, darkness. The drama and contradictions of Amália's life are a mirror to her time.' In 2011, fado was recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Photograph by Mesa de Frades This museum, run by the Amália Rodrigues Foundation, is a cosy counterpoint to the modernity of Ah, Amália, taking visitors behind the public image, into the time-warp salons where she threw extravagant bohemian parties, or to the sun-dappled back garden where, under the watchful gaze of Chico, Amália's aged parrot, afternoon fado concerts are staged up to three times a week. My guide also is keen to stress that while Amália's work was supported by the regime, the feeling was not mutual; quietly, she helped the poor and those in political exile. Motioning to a grand piano and a bulbous, 12-string fado guitar on display, Mariana says: 'Amália never learned to play an instrument herself, but she had an incredible ear, singing in more than five languages. But it didn't matter if foreign audiences could understand her. She always said: 'Fado is meant to be felt, not explained.'' 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I tap my feet along to upbeat songs — in particular the barnstorming Maria Lisboa, Uma Casa Portuguesa and Canto o Fado — chiming in for the refrains where invited by the performers. At others, like heart-rending Fado Português and Estranha Forma de Vida, I feel a slight prickling in my eyes, despite the language barrier. 'It means a lot to me when I see someone feel the emotion of the song,' Flávia tells me at the end of the night. She's one of Portugal's newer artists, subtly adapting this musical genre to her own style. She says her influences are globally selling, modern fadistas such as Mariza, Carminho and Ana Moura — women marching in the footsteps of Amália Rodrigues. 'It doesn't matter where the audience is from,' she concludes. 'Fado is in all our souls.' During June, Alfama celebrates Santos Populares with a month of street parties, which make the neighbourhood lively but crowed. Visit in September for Caixa Alfama, an annual fado festival. Direct flights to Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport depart from a variety of UK airports, including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Bristol with airlines including British Airways, EasyJet and Ryanair. Accommodation options across the city are vast and varied: stay at the four-star AlmaLusa Alfama, a renovated 12th-century building with Roman foundations that opened in 2024. Prices start from €369 (£313), B&B. For more information, visit , and Published in the European Cities Collection 2025 by National Geographic Traveller (UK). To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).

Business Insider
4 hours ago
- Business Insider
Nigeria's air fare taxes more ridiculously expensive than most African countries
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Hamilton Spectator
12 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
England's Lionesses find a home from home at Zurich's fairy-tale ‘castle'
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