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When you arrive in Corfu, you may notice it doesn’t look a great deal like the other Greek islands—in fact, it has a distinctly Venetian feel. That’s because, unlike the rest of Greece, Corfu was never ruled by the Ottomans. The Old Town is a perfectly preserved Venetian town and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Renaissance, baroque, and classical touches can be found between every alleyway and square. Some points of interest: the Old Fortress, Spianada (the largest square in the Balkans), and the Liston (an arcaded promenade where wealthy aristocrats used to gather).

Hop on the commuter train at Lido Station (next to the Piramide Metro stop) and make the 25-minute trip to Ostia Antica, Rome’s ancient port town and administrative center. The teeming city of up to 100,000 residents is relatively well preserved and allows visitors a peek into the daily life of ancient Romans. Walk the basalt streets, visit the Forum, descend into Mithraic sanctuaries, and peruse the market stalls, which were in use until around the 5th century C.E.

This sleek, silver structure looks as if an alien spaceship had landed in the middle Seoul. It all makes sense, however, when you realize it’s the work of the late architect Zaha Hadid. Completed in 2014, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (known to locals as DDP) set several new design standards—there are no straight lines or angles to be found in the entire cultural complex. Today, the building and surrounding park provide a space for the exchange of ideas through exhibitions, conferences, and pop-up shops. It’s also the site of Seoul Fashion Week. For a magical experience, visit at night when the entire building is illuminated in a patchwork display and the field behind Exhibition Hall is aglow with more than 25,000 LED white roses.

Whether you choose the wine bar in the basement, the gourmet food hall on the ground floor (where you can also buy hot food to eat in the wine bar), or the fine dining restaurant in a big, bright open space on the first floor, you won’t be disappointed with the quality of food in this Exchequer Street emporium, much of which is organic. Main courses on the menu include dishes like grilled Irish lamb rump with broad bean succotash, black garlic and aubergine purée and smoked potato croquette, or aged Irish rib-eye steak with a choice of Béarnaise, brandy peppercorn or truffle butter sauce. There’s also an excellent lunch menu and the pre-theater dinner menu is good value and runs all night Sunday to Tuesday and from 5.30 to 7pm, Wednesday to Saturday.

Tucked in between Boathouse Row and the Fairmount Water Works, and just a short walk from the Art Museum, the Cosmic Cafe at Lloyd Hall is a great place to enjoy breakfast, which is served all day. The cafe also serves excellent coffee and baked goods, creative sandwiches and wraps, yogurt, smoothies, ice cream, and more. This is a wonderful spot to get an inexpensive meal and the cafe offers many options for vegetarians. The idyllic location on the river at Kelly Drive attracts bicyclists, joggers, rowers, and dog walkers. It’s open year-round, but the best time to visit is spring through fall, when the weather permits outdoor dining. This is one of my favorite spots for people watching. (Muscled men in spandex, oh my!)

The Belgian Royal Palace sits proudly in front of Parc Royal in Brussels. You can’t stop by for tea with the royals here unfortunately. They live at the Royal Residence in Laeken. However, you can have a look inside the Royal Palace during the summer months and wander through the rooms where official royal business is conducted. Throughout August, the palace is open to the public and can be visited free of charge. You can see the hall of mirrors (a downscaled version of Versailles) with a very quirky ceiling. The ceiling is actually an artwork, by Jan Fabre, called “Heaven of Delight” and is made up of the shiny wings of 1.4 million Thai jewel beetles and took three months to create.

Without a doubt Versailles is the most luxurious palace in Europe, built to astound visitors and impress the king’s subjects into awed submission with crystal chandeliers, gilt, and fine art. This opulent monument is also attractive to those with simpler tastes: Visitors with green thumbs will love the king’s kitchen gardens while others may want to rent bicycles to pedal the lavish grounds, and animal lovers will enjoy the sheep, goats, and chickens receiving the royal treatment at the queen’s quaint hamlet. La Petite Venise, an excellent restaurant on the grounds, offers garden seating on sunny days.

Covering nearly ten miles over the sandstone slickrock just outside of Moab, this 4x4 route is considered one of the best in the region, if not the country. The best part? A half-mile spur from the one-way loop brings visitors to a cliff-edge overlooking the Colorado River. Along the trail, check out Mickey’s Hot Tub, a deep depression in the sandstone where 4x4s drive through, and sometimes get stuck. If you get out of the Jeep, you may also see fossils preserved in the lower Jurassic Sandstone (about 190 million years ago). The route can be done on your own but requires a high-clearance 4x4 vehicle. A number of commercial guide outfits based in Moab provide tours with a driver or allow visitors to rent ATV’s and attempt the trip themselves.

The imposing, white-domed wedding cake now known as Palacio de Bellas Artes was originally planned as a national theater, and construction was begun in 1904. The Mexican Revolution, among other things, postponed its completion until 1934, which explains the stark contrast between its creamy art nouveau exterior (note amazing iron- and stonework with local motifs like serpents) and its art-deco-inspired interior, finished in black and red marbles, and with walls that feature dazzling murals by Rivera, Siqueiros, and other postrevolutionary masters. Today the beloved edifice is home to a concert hall, exhibition areas given over to blockbuster shows, and Mexico’s National Architecture Museum; take an auditorium tour—or better yet, see a performance—to lay eyes on the theater’s magnificent Tiffany glass “curtain,” a mosaic formed (they say) by more than 1 million separate glass components.

Why we love it: A conveniently located stay offering high design and low-key charm

The Highlights:
- Striking design with handcrafted furnishings
- Welcoming neighborhood vibe
- Great drinking and dining from an acclaimed F&B team

The Review:
You’d never guess that several hospitality heavy hitters were involved in this low-key, boutique spot—and that’s just the way they want it. Developed by former Ace Hotel group co-owner Jack Barron and architect Jen Turner—the husband-and-wife duo behind the Mighty Union hotel group—the hotel is set in the former Local 1266 Carpenters Union Hall, tucked among a grove of pecan trees just off South Lamar Boulevard. In a nod to those carpenters, a maker aesthetic runs strong throughout the property, from the warm woods and plush leathers to the handcrafted furnishings and woven textiles. Rooms are unfussy and sparsely furnished but comfortable, with a sort of friend’s guest room feel; they come in queen, double, and king options, all with blackout shades, low-slung seating, and terraces.

Down in the public areas, locals and guests meet for coffee in the lounges, grab kolaches or tacos in the Hot L Café, or head to the Carpenter Hall restaurant for elevated yet casual meals under the direction of chef Grae Nonas, co-founder of Austin’s much-lauded Olamaie. (More on the big-name front: Mighty Union’s F&B program is overseen by another husband-and-wife team, Christina Skogly Knowlton and Andrew Knowlton—the latter an editor-at-large for Bon Appetit and host of Netflix’s The Final Table.) A sparkling courtyard pool is also on-site for cooling off after an Austin scorcher.

This hotel is on our list of The 11 Best Hotels in Chicago.

Set directly across from the Art Institute of Chicago, this former members-only men’s gymnasium is now the Chicago Athletic Association, which is part of Hyatt’s Unbound Collection. Enter at street level off Michigan Avenue and walk toward the back to find a staircase that leads to the old swimming pool, now a venue for parties and pop-up concepts. Take the nearby elevator to the restaurant, Cindy’s, easily the best rooftop scene in the city, with highly Instagrammable terrace views overlooking Millennium Park, the swooping Frank Gehry–designed bandshell, and Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate (aka the Bean).

Park yourself in the second-floor lobby and hang with locals as they tap away on their laptops and sip lattes by the two oversize fireplaces. Walk through that expansive by Roman & Williams–designed room, where light beams in through ornate stained-glass windows, and you enter a warren of table games and darts, all festive and typically open to the public. There’s also the secret six-seat bar, the Milk Room, a relic of Prohibition, and the James Beard Award–winning Cherry Circle Room—a sexy, dark restaurant with a circulating martini cart and a meat-centric menu.

Upstairs in the 1893 landmark, 240 guest rooms reflect the building’s former life, with gym horses as foot beds, working fireplaces in some rooms, plasterwork ceilings, ornate carved wood wainscotting, and a clubby vibe. Some of the rooms are rather small, but the location is hard to beat, and the cozy, wintry ambiance makes it a popular (and fun) place to spend a weekend. And because the CAA keeps an eye on its water conservation, sources its food locally, and adheres to strict recycling standards, eco-conscious travelers can feel good sleeping here.

Lyons Cottage, built in 1925 on the corner of Knuckey Street and the Esplanade, is famous for being the first residence in Darwin built of stone. It originally housed executives from the British Australian Telegraph Company; today it’s a café and gallery run by Aboriginal Bush Traders, a nonprofit community initiative. Visitors can shop for artworks, jewelry, clothing and woven fabrics made by Aboriginal artists and artisans. The garden is a pleasant spot for coffee, tea or lunch under a frangipani tree. The café serves dishes made with indigenous produce, such as bush tomatoes and Kakadu plums. And the building’s history is preserved in a hologram exhibit that tells stories of the Overland Telegraph line, which first linked Australia to the rest of the world in 1872.

Quinta Nova Luxury House Winery, the first wine hotel in Portugal, was born from the reconstruction of the old 19th century manor house, in full harmony with nature inside this 120 hectares property. Quinta Nova N. S. do Carmo is a place of extreme beauty in the heart of the Douro and it’s owned by the Amorim family since 1999. But this property is prior to 1764 and a historical research confirms it as a great land belonging to the Portuguese Royal Family. The historic sites that are still preserved today and opened for visitors reveal all this: the creek, the gazebo, the stone mark of the Marquis of Pombal dated of 1758, the cellar’s crest, two chapels and three secular orchards.

Galeria Delbarrio is an extraordinary place to see Peruvian pop art. The gallery mixes the old and new, modern and traditional, in a very fun way. They have paintings, comics and an extensive collection of rustic-pop furniture spread throughout a 1840’s house. Just the house itself would be worth the visit. It has the traditional architecture from the time Chorillos was a beach resort town where the rich families from Lima spent their summers. The restoration preserved the domes, glasswork and original ceilings, adding a splash of color that brought the place to life. After the visit, take a walk around the neighborhood and enjoy its tranquil old town atmosphere. Make sure you finish by the boardwalk, where you’ll be wowed by one of the best views of Lima.

The former residence of Würzburg’s prince-bishops, this UNESCO World Heritage site is one of the most important Baroque palaces in Europe. It was—remarkably, given its scale and level of detail both inside and out—built almost entirely within a single generation. Court architect Balthasar Neumann oversaw the construction, while leading architects from Germany and France created the fabulous ornamentation. Woodcarvers, sculptors, and artists from Italy—including Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, regarded as one of the greatest fresco painters of the 18th century—also contributed to the design.

Rebuilt after World War II, the palace now features a bevy of architectural styles, from German and Viennese Baroque to French château. Inside, the White, Imperial, and Garden halls are can’t-miss attractions, as are the grand staircase and ceiling fresco by Tiepolo and the Mirror Cabinet. Before leaving, be sure to take a walk in the court gardens, which feature fountains, charming yew trees, and a group of cherub statues by Johann Peter Wagner.