Beauty is subjective, and in the eyes of the beholder. But even the most hard-nosed tourists will struggle not to be moved by the aesthetic delights of these cities, from the jewels of the Silk Road to modern architecture in Sydney.
Isfahan, Iran
Robert Byron, in his 1930s travelogue, The Road to Oxiana, wrote of this Iranian city: "Isfahan has become indelible, has insinuated its image into that gallery of places that everybody privately treasures. I gave it no help in doing so. The monuments have kept me too busy.One could explore for months without coming to the end of them. From the 11th century, architects and craftsmen have recorded the fortunes of the town, its changes of taste, government and belief. The buildings reflect these local circumstances; it is their charm, like the charm of most old towns. But a few illustrate the heights of art independently, and rank Isfahan among those rarer places, like Athens or Rome, which are the common refreshment of humanity."
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By Lizzie Porter
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Florence, Italy
More than one member of the Telegraph Travel desk has been moved to tears by the beauty of this Tuscan city, bespeckled with art galleries and museums (the Uffizi, the Bargello, the Accademia Gallery), churches (Santa Maria Novella, Santa Croce) and the Arno traversed by the Ponte Vecchio. But as with most of the best cities, its beauty lies not in the institutions. You could perhaps not even enter any of its exhibitions or grand buildings, and instead admire the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance from its cobbled streets, where swish young Italians mingle with wizened old folk who have aged unsurprisingly well in such civilised surroundings. Go, and don't be surprised if you shed a tear.
• The best hotels in Florence
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Luang Prabang, Laos
Featuring more highly on tour routes since it was awarded Unesco World Heritage status some 20 years ago, Luang Prabang has managed to retain a great deal of its beauty, using the revenue provided by extra visitors to renovate old buildings and temples. Its beauty also comes in its extraordinary setting, in a valley at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers among lush jungle. John Graham-Hart, visiting last year, wrote: "Luang Prabang was a magical place a decade ago and is still very much a magical place today…The city is just gently joining the 21st century and, after weathering so many centuries, what, after all, is just one more?"
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Paris, France
The love locks ruined the bridges, the tourist tat and queues spoiled the areas around the Eiffel Tower and on Ile de la Cite. But as the leaves curl from green to gold, the twirl of benches and Metro stations and Haussmann's sweeping boulevards still make Paris one of the most attractive cities on Earth. Loll on the grass of the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, complete with its lake and folly, admire Parisians' haughty attitude towards the quality of produce on the food markets that spill into the streets every week (your white asparagus? Not tender enough! Your truffles? Not French!) and allow the collections of the Musee d'Orsay to bring a tear to your eye.
• The best hotels in Paris
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Istanbul, Turkey
The capital of the Ottoman Empire is incomparable. The masterpieces of former powerful (and despotic) rulers include the Topkapi Palace, which housed sultans, their eunuchs and slaves, and the Suleimaniye and Sultanahmet Mosques. The blush-pink Aya Sofya - first church, then mosque, now museum - is truly beautiful, too: Nick Trend, deputy head of Telegraph Travel, describes a visit there as "profoundly moving". But what keeps Istanbul from turning into a tourist time warp is the regeneration of once seedy neighbourhoods and thriving young communities: Karaköy, a former run-down fringe of the city's port, has been regenerated and is now home to boutique hotels, artists' galleries and Ottoman houses that over the centuries have housed European communities, leading to an amalgamation of synagogues, mosques and leaning, elegant houses.
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Siena, Italy
If there is one fellow tourist too many in Florence, think to head south to Siena. Tim Jepson, Telegraph Travel's Tuscany expert, describes the city's Campo - its central piazza - "Europe's finest medieval square" and praises its scale and intimacy: it is a "place alla misura dell'uomo, or 'made to the measure of man'… its sleepy, honey-stoned streets are in marked medieval contrast to the more gaunt and impersonal grandeur of Florence's Renaissance heart."
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Jerusalem
A holy site for the world's three main monotheistic faiths, Jerusalem has been inhabited since 4,000 BC. It political woes are well known, but tourists should not be put off visiting. Unmissable sights include the Haram as-Sharif (Temple Mount), including the shimmering gold Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Via Dolorosa. Expect not to fit in everything in one visit, and to want to return to an ancient, conflicted, but mesmerising city.
• 36 hours in Jerusalem
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Oxford, UK
Oxford and Cambridge vie for premier position in many ways: rowing, academic excellence, notoriety of drinking clubs and debating societies…there are also two schools of thought over which is more picturesque. Oxford advocates will point to the Radcliffe Camera - more commonly referred to as the Rad Cam by students, many of whom will be avoiding actually reading any of the books it contains - the main Bodleian Library building, and the quite spectacular precincts of All Souls' College, founded by Henry VI in 1438. It will probably make you feel slightly more intelligent just by looking at it. Magdalen College, on the other hand, has gardens so beautiful you may feel moved to bursting into song. Just maybe.
• The best hotels in Oxford
Cambridge, UK
Proponents of Cambridge's superiority, however, will point to its intimacy, lack of poncy Cotswold stone buildings, and the simply superb architecture of King's College. There is also a relative lack of ugly modern shopping precincts that blight the Oxfordshire contender's centre.
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New York, USA
From red-brick apartment blocks that have featured in many a New York-based television series (hello Friends) to the soaring peaks of the Empire State Building and the newly-opened One World Observatory, New York is a city to be reckoned with. The Met Museum has collections that remind one of the wealth of early 20th century businessmen and investors, who bought up the works of French Impressionists by the lorry load. Forget not the beauty to be found in its everyday streets and interactions, too: the Humans of New York photo series is a reminder that you needn't head to the Rockefeller ice rink to find freeze frames that stick in the mind.
• The best hotels in New York
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Rome, Italy
There is little more to add to Lee Marshall, Telegraph Travel's Rome expert, of the Eternal City's appeal: It has "a pulsating energy of a place which lives life as a form of theatre." The scale, archaeological finesse and craftsmanship shown in the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Forum and the Palatine, the Baths of Caracalla… (the list goes on) hint at the might and intelligence of an empire that was making strides when the occupants of England were still living in mud shacks in fields.
• The best hotels in Rome
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Cape Town, South Africa
Pippa De Bruyn, our Cape Town expert, is right when she says that there is really no way to overstate the case for visiting the South African city: "First, there's the in-your-face beauty of a craggy mountain range that drops precipitously into a glittering sea, its flanks carpeted in greens and delicate florals - the Cape Floral Kingdom, smallest yet richest in the world. Then there's the pristine white beaches lapped by - it must be said - a chilly Atlantic, their curves defined by giant granite boulders." Couple this with good food, better wine, thriving art scene and possibly one of the best ranges of accommodation in the southern hemisphere, from boutique guesthouse to luxury resort - and there is little reason not to visit.
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Sydney, Australia
"Ridiculously good looking" is how our city expert Ariela Bard describes Sydney. It has the Opera House, which was designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon in 1956 with sails made from over one million white tiles. It has Bondi Beach - one of just many stretches of alluring sand on this stretch of the eastern Australian coast. It has Centennial Park, which stretches over 540 acres of formal gardens, 10 ponds, and bike-friendly parkland. It has vibrant food, bar, and arts scenes. There is a reason Sydney is the go-to for pretty much every British tourist heading to Australasia.
• The best hotels in Sydney
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Bruges, Belgium
Colin Farrell - star of the brilliant 2008 film In Bruges - wasn't impressed, but every other visitor to this Belgian gem will be seduced by the almost perfect medieval ensemble of canals, churches, squares and cobbled streets. Not to mention the undeniably beautiful chips, chocolate and local beers.
• The best hotels in Bruges
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Fes, Morocco
Forget Marrakesh. Infinitely more stylish is Fes, primarily its ninth-century medina - the largest urban car-free area in the world - that secretes tiny doors, behind which sit beautiful spaces converted into boutique riad hotels (as with much vernacular architecture in the Islamic world, what lies within is much more beautiful than the often dull exteriors). Try the Palais Amani, where Nigel Tisdall got a taste of Fes's emerging culinary scene, or the Riad Anata, with its brass lanterns, rich pink chairs and bejmat (unglazed terracotta) floors. Accommodation aside, strike out up the hill - partly covered with an Islamic cemetery - that overlooks the city just before sunset to hear the call to prayer ring round, the teeny green lights of mosques grow brighter and brighter, and swallows flicker across a lazy blue sky.
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Seville, Spain
The breathtaking Alcázar Palace, built when Spain was under Islamic rule, the Santa Cruz area, formerly the Jewish quarter of medieval Seville, and the enormous cathedral, originally built as a mosque in the 12th century, are the highlights of this museum-piece southern Spanish city. But don't overlook the quotidian pleasures of wandering the distinctive districts, visiting the tapas bars, including El Rinconcillo Bar, one of the city's oldest, and sampling the nightlife of Paseo de Cristóbal Colón.
• The best hotels in Seville
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Cartagena, Colombia
For too long, Colombia was synonymous with FARC kidnapping, torture and extortion. In the past decade, it has been justly recognised as one of the most beguiling countries in South America. The northern coastal city of Cartagena in particular has had a renaissance. Telegraph Travel's South America expert, Chris Moss, described it as, "the most romantic city in the Americas. It's the best-preserved walled city I've ever seen, protected not only against time and the ocean but also, thanks to its peninsular location, from the modernising influences of the mainland." Fun fact: it is also home to a version of the Hay Festival - more commonly associated with the small Welsh town.
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Jodhpur, India
Gill Charlton, Telegraph Travel's India expert, says that Jodhpur is "the most appealing of the Rajput cities, its traditional blue-washed old quarter a delight to walk through". Mehrangarh Fort, which peers 400 feet over the city from a cliff with straight sides, is beautifully restored and preserved, under the leadership of Maharaja Gaj Singh II, the current head of the Rathore clan for whom the fort has been their headquarters for five centuries.
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Bath, UK
The Romans set up a pretty fine set of baths here. Jane Austen made it her home. There are dinky little streets and sweeping roads encircled by lush landscapes that segue into the west country. Bath has a lot going for it, including, according to our city expert Fred Mawer, "digestible galleries and museums - including the recently revamped Holburne and One Royal Crescent " and some excellent retail therapy opportunities that transcend the porcelain-and-shortbread offering of so many of Britain's tourist-heavy cities. • The best hotels in Bath
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Lausanne, Switzerland
Central Lausanne is achingly beautiful: the steep streets are home to an old wooden stairway leading to the city's 12th century cathedral. Combine this with parks preened to Swiss perfection, and a waterfront district giving onto Lake Geneva, with majestic views of mountains all round, and - prices aside - we wonder why there isn't a continual flow of British tourists on its doorstep. It is also home to some historic hotels, including the Beau-Rivage Palace, where the Treaty of Lausanne was hammered out in the 1920s, and where finer points of this year's nuclear deal with Iran were ironed out.
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Tallinn, Estonia
For anyone jaded by tacky German-style Christmas markets in Britain, the capital of Estonia will restore faith in the festive marketing of mulled wine and undefinable wooden decorations. The Baltic city has the festive season down to an authentic and tasteful tee, but its medieval streets - forming one of Europe's best preserved old towns - and modern cafes and eclectic collection of museums and galleries are worth visiting at any time of the year. Difficult to believe that just 25 years ago it was clad in Soviet gloom.
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Riga, Latvia
The largest of the Baltic capitals, Riga is a symphony of spires, steeples and some of the most fantastical Art Nouveau architecture in the world. The old town contains 800-year-old streets lined with red-brick churches, Baroque townhouses, and the 13th-century Dome Cathedral, the largest medieval church in the Baltic states. In addition to the Scandinavian and Teutonic traces there are also signs of the more recent Soviet past, most notably in the form of the Stalinesque Academy of Sciences, still very much a feature of the Riga skyline.
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Venice, Italy
As with many of the world's most beautiful cities, every other tourist on the planet has also cottoned on to Venice's splendour. This means that parts of it have been tainted - ignore the touts selling theatre masks, odd little gondolier figurines and "authentic prints" of watercolours around the Rialto bridge. But allow yourself to get lost in Venice's alleyways, where leather ateliers and workshops creating marbled paper stack on top of each other, dangle your legs by the canal while eating white peach and chocolate gelato, and you will be reminded why Venice is as photogenic, and achingly alluring, as it is has always been.
• The best hotels in Venice
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Khiva, Uzbekistan
In his guide to journeys along the Silk Road, Chris Moss describes Khiva as one of a clutch of Uzbek cities (others are Bukhara and Samarkand) that have "long been the most scintillating cities for foreign visitors to central Asia." Although Khiva has been "prettified", he adds that "its twisting back lanes and minaret look gorgeous at dawn and dusk".
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Edinburgh, Scotland
Cast from your mind tourist shops selling sporrans and tartan blankets. Even through the fairly-likely rain, Edinburgh is a beautiful capital city, complete with castle, fine art collections, in the National Gallery, and a dormant volcano (Arthur's Seat). Scottish food and accommodation offerings have has improved immeasurably over the past decade, to boot.
• The best hotels in Edinburgh
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London, England
Where do we start? The old City walls? Wren's masterpiece, St Paul's, or St Martins in the Fields? The expanses of Hampstead Heath, where a sunset over the skyscrapers in front of the recently-reopened Kenwood House is indescribably pleasing to the eye? The majesty of the Thames, as she snakes her way to the coast? The street scenes and restaurants defined by their multiculturalism, from Little Venice to Little Beirut in west London, to Little Italy and the Italian delis dotted from Angel to Walthamstow? Some of the world's best museums (The British Museum, the Victoria & Albert, the Science Museum - we could go on). We would happily amend Samuel Johnson's observation that when one is tired of London, one is tired of life. When one is tired of taking a moment to reflect on the splendour of this city of 10 million people, one must be truly fatigued.
• The best hotels in central London
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Havana, Cuba
Havana beats to a pulse unlike any other on earth. It combines heady, fading glamour of the years of investment built on mafia wealth - the mid-century hotels, the big, bombastic American cars, the stench of petrol still lingering in the air - with crumbling colonial buildings that beguile and sadden in equal measure. Havana is an idiosyncrasy on this planet that lures and frustrates in equal measure, where the (surprisingly informative and well-kept) museums, the superb 18th century Cathedral of The Virgin Mary, and wood panelled pharmacies with Victorian-style tills, co-exist with modern art shops, eager young Cubans opening paladares - non-state restaurant - in townhouses, and the spirit of a young population, excited by the prospect of increasing ties with the outside world after years of isolation.
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Prague, Czech Republic
Ignore the stag party reputation and accept that you won't be the only tourist on Prague's main square in the old town - Staré Město district - admiring the Astronomical Clock, walking across Charles Bridge, or making his or her way up to Prague Castle, and you will enjoy this splendid Czech city all the more. Our city expert recommends the Veletržní Palace, housing the National Gallery's modernist collection, and Žižkov Tower, "a retro Space Age spire originally built to block Western broadcast signals".
• The best hotels in Prague
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Moscow, Russia
Left-of-field, perhaps. But the Russian capital has a brutal beauty in its Soviet era buildings – notably the Seven Sisters towers, built at great expense by Stalin after the Second World War. There is too the mind-boggling Red Square, which combines the Kremlin, what our Moscow expert describes as the “psychedelic onion domes” of St Basil’s Cathedral, and the GUM department store.
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St Petersburg, Russia
…But we couldn’t ignore the more traditional contender in Russia, either. Perhaps slightly “Disney” in some eyes, this former capital and Russia’s “Window to Europe”, nevertheless combines splendours such as the Winter Palace, the Church on Spilled Blood, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan with the more quotidian wonders of Gostiny Dvor, the city’s oldest and largest shopping complex, in an 18th-century building, and the bizarre attractions of Vasilevskiy Island, which include a pair of 15th-century sphinxes from Egypt and the skeleton and heart of Peter the Great’s gigantic personal servant.
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Dubrovnik, Croatia
In its 16th century golden age, Dubrovnik had one of the largest merchant naval fleets in the world, and the sea is still integral to its identity – albeit more for leisure activities than trade. Jane Foster, our Croatia expert, describes it as possessing a “sublime location”, “one of the world’s most magnificent walled cities”, and “aristocratic palazzi and elegant Baroque churches”
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Suzhou, China
Telegraph Travel's Sally Peck, a former resident of China, recommends Suzhou, in eastern China. Its gardens are on Unesco's list of World Heritage Sites, and are generally renowned as masterpieces of the genre of classic Chinese garden design. Unesco says: "Dating from the 11th-19th century, the gardens reflect the profound metaphysical importance of natural beauty in Chinese culture in their meticulous design."
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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
With Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf mountain in the backdrop, Rio is, at least from the air, one of the world's most beautiful cities. Our expert writes: "The jaw-dropping beauty of the landscape encompasses Atlantic rainforest-covered mountains, postcard-perfect lakes, occasionally stunning architecture and, of course, those golden beaches. It's not surprising that residents are fiercely protective of it all, and visitors invariably fall in love with the place."
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