B E S T FOR R IVERBANK WANDE R S DANUBE PROMENADE, BUDAPEST: Few skylines in Europe are as audaciously grand as Budapest’s, built by Hungarian kings and Hapsburg emperors on a bend of the Danube. You can walk or jog along the mile-long stretch of promenade in Pest to Buda on the opposite side of the river. The route starts from Parliament-framed Kossuth Lajos tér square and runs to Erzsébet híd (Elizabeth Bridge). Sitting on a limestone plateau, the Royal Palace
and the crag-top, colonnaded St Gellért monument are at the top of most travellers’ wish lists here. But on the Pest promenade, you’ll also be drawn to a bronze of a bowing Shakespeare. Most touching of all, though, is Shoes on the Danube Bank by sculptor Gyula Pauer and film director Can Togay: 60 pairs of shoes in cast iron paying homage to the Hungarian Jews who were killed here in 1944, leaving their footwear behind. For route details and a map, download the app.
gpsmycity.com
B E S T FOR A R T Y V I S TA S EKEBERGPARKEN, OSLO: Come at sunrise or sunset, when the sky blazes above shimmering fords and renders the dark, rocky islands into shadows, and you can see why Oslo’s Ekebergparken inspired Munch to paint The Scream. With dress-circle views of the harbour-wrapped city, the huge hilltop park has since enraptured scores of artists. The two-mile sculpture trail wriggles through
pine, fir and ash forest, where 45 phenomenal works of art await — Rodin and Renoir nudes, Dalí’s surrealist Venus de Milo with Drawers and Damien Hirst’s ghoulish Anatomy of an Angel among them. If you fancy a good scream, seek out The Munch Spot, a giant frame created by Serbian conceptual artist Marina Abramović, which marks where the expressionist felt ‘an infinite scream passing through nature’. The sculpture trail starts at the Ekebergparken Museum, where you can also join guided walking tours.
ekebergparken.com
B E S T FOR S UN & S E A PROMENADE DES ANGLAIS, NICE: ‘Nice’ is too insipid an adjective to describe France’s sultry city on the Med. The belle of the Côte d’Azur is an easy sell: year-round sun, cinematic glamour, sea views and houses in pretty pastels. Matisse made it his home, and Picasso and Renoir were fond, too. The city’s lifeblood is the four-mile Promenade
des Anglais, taking in the palm-fringed sweep of the Baie des Anges (Bay of Angels), named aſter the English aristocrats who flocked here in the 19th century. Stroll it, run it, stop for a swim or some boat-fresh seafood. You’ll never forget the rhythmic thumps of the waves, the lavish architecture (check out pink-domed Hôtel Negresco) and the rows of blue-and-white deckchairs for surveying that turquoise sea. For something quieter, continue around four
miles further along the cove-dotted coastal path to the arguably even prettier Villefranche-sur- Mer.
explorenicecotedazur.com
National Geographic Traveller – European Cities Collection 29
IMAGES: ALAMY; DOROTTYA BARTHA; GETTY
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