Vienna

Vienna spent centuries as the seat of the Habsburg Empire, and it still carries itself like one: horse-drawn carriages click past the Hofburg, the spire of St Stephen's Cathedral pierces the skyline, and the Ringstrasse loops the old town in a ring of opera houses, museums and parliament buildings built to impress. A free walking tour is the fastest way to make sense of it all — how a small Austrian duchy became the capital of an empire that once stretched from the Alps to Ukraine, and how that inheritance still shapes the city's music, coffee and architecture today.

Start in the compact historic center around Stephansplatz, where cobbled lanes like the Graben and Kohlmarkt connect imperial squares in a walk you can do in an afternoon. From there, branch out to the Naschmarkt for lunch among market stalls, or save an evening for a Viennese coffee house, where a single melange buys you a marble table and as many hours of people-watching as you like.