Zagreb

Zagreb lives outdoors: Tkalčićeva Street is one long run of terraces, and the city spends its evenings there until late. Every morning Dolac Market opens its red parasols over the fruit stalls, a minute from the cathedral. The upper town, just above, stays cobbled and quiet: the roof of St. Mark’s Church is laid out as two coats of arms in glazed tile, and a lamplighter still comes round at dusk to light the gas lamps by hand. The city has a taste for unlikely museums, none more so than the Museum of Broken Relationships, built entirely from objects strangers sent in after a break-up. Its Advent market, voted the best in Europe three years running, fills the centre with lights, choirs and mulled wine. And two hours away by road, Plitvice Lakes National Park spills sixteen turquoise lakes into one another down a chain of waterfalls.