Where to go in August?

France · Corse-du-Sud

☀️ 12.5 h/day · 🌧️ 20 mm/month · 🌡️ 27°C

Umbrella pines come down almost to the sand at Palombaggia and Santa Giulia, where the water shades from glass-clear to deep blue. Above the gulf, the upper town keeps its Genoese fortress and a grid of narrow streets that only fill after dark. Maquis scrub scents everything in between: rock rose, myrtle, juniper, warmed all day by the sun.

• Palombaggia beach
• Santa Giulia beach
• Gulf of Porto-Vecchio
• Genoese fortress

When to go to Porto-Vecchio? →

France · Corse-du-Sud

☀️ 12.5 h/day · 🌧️ 20 mm/month · 🌡️ 26°C

Limestone cliffs carry the citadel right to the edge, houses leaning out over a straight drop to the sea. Inside the walls the lanes are narrow enough to funnel the wind, and the King of Aragon's staircase cuts down the rock face in one long diagonal. Boats cross the Straits to coves that can be reached no other way.

• White limestone cliffs
• Citadel and old town
• Strait of Bonifacio
• King of Aragon's staircase

When to go to Bonifacio? →

France · Haute-Corse

☀️ 12.5 h/day · 🌧️ 24 mm/month · 🌡️ 27°C

The Genoese citadel holds the headland, and below it six kilometres of sand curve round the bay towards the pines. Fishing boats and café terraces share the old port, while the chapel of Notre-Dame-de-la-Serra, on a hill inland, takes in the whole gulf and the mountains behind at once. Boat trips run north to the red cliffs of Scandola, a UNESCO reserve.

• Genoese citadel
• Calvi beach (6 km)
• Scandola (UNESCO reserve nearby)
• Notre-Dame-de-la-Serra chapel

When to go to Calvi? →

France · Var

☀️ 12.6 h/day · 🌧️ 22 mm/month · 🌡️ 26°C

Pampelonne's sand runs for kilometres south of the village, while the citadel looks down on ochre roofs and a harbour that still lands fish. On market days the Place des Lices fills with produce and craft stalls under the plane trees. In a former Renaissance chapel, the Musée de l'Annonciade shows Fauve and Pointillist canvases in carefully softened light.

• Pampelonne beaches
• Saint-Tropez citadel
• Musée de l'Annonciade
• Place des Lices

When to go to Saint-Tropez? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Var

☀️ 12.6 h/day · 🌧️ 26 mm/month · 🌡️ 26°C

Red porphyry meets clear water along the Corniche d'Or, the coast road that bends between the town and the calanques of Le Dramont. The old harbour keeps its cafés and its morning market, and neighbouring Fréjus adds a Roman amphitheatre to the itinerary. Swimming, walking and a little archaeology, all within a few kilometres of each other.

• Calanques du Dramont
• Old harbour
• Corniche d'Or
• Fréjus (Roman arena)

When to go to Saint-Raphaël? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Hérault

☀️ 12.5 h/day · 🌧️ 23 mm/month · 🌡️ 26°C

Life converges on the Place de la Comédie, a wide sweep of pale stone where café terraces face the opera house. Behind it, the oldest botanical garden in France keeps its shaded alleys and glasshouses, and the Musée Fabre holds centuries of painting. Walk east and the register changes completely: Antigone's monumental neo-classical concrete, drawn by Ricardo Bofill.

• Place de la Comédie
• Jardin des plantes (France's oldest)
• Fabre Museum
• Antigone district (Ricardo Bofill)

When to go to Montpellier? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Bouches-du-Rhône

☀️ 12.5 h/day · 🌧️ 33 mm/month · 🌡️ 26°C

Van Gogh's yellow light is still the local currency, and the foundation that carries his name shows contemporary artists against it. The Roman arena and theatre stand inside the town rather than beside it, tiers of seating opening straight onto everyday streets, with the cryptoporticoes running underground below. St Trophime's cloister keeps its carved arcades and its shade.

• Roman arena (UNESCO)
• Ancient theatre and cryptoporticoes
• Vincent van Gogh Foundation
• Saint-Trophime cloister

When to go to Arles? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Pyrénées-Orientales

☀️ 12.3 h/day · 🌧️ 27 mm/month · 🌡️ 27°C

The bell tower of Notre-Dame-des-Anges was a lighthouse before it was a steeple, and it has stood in the water making the postcard ever since Matisse and Derain invented Fauvism here — a marked trail sets their canvases where they were painted. The royal castle closes the bay, anchovies are still salted in town, and the Côte Vermeille runs on in coves to the Spanish border.

• Royal castle on the shore
• Notre-Dame-des-Anges and its lighthouse belfry
• Fauvism trail (Matisse, Derain)
• Coves of the Côte Vermeille

When to go to Collioure? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

Greece

☀️ 12.8 h/day · 🌧️ 1 mm/month · 🌡️ 29°C

The Knights of St John left Rhodes a walled medieval town people still live in, a warren of cobbles, arches and courtyards below the Palace of the Grand Masters. Down the coast, Lindos stacks white houses beneath an acropolis on a headland above two bays. Anthony Quinn Bay keeps its clear water and pine-backed rocks for anyone willing to swim off stones.

• Medieval old town (UNESCO)
• Palace of the Grand Master
• Lindos and its acropolis
• Anthony Quinn beach

When to go to Rhodes? →

Spain

☀️ 12.7 h/day · 🌧️ 1 mm/month · 🌡️ 31°C

Inside the Mezquita, red-and-white arches repeat until the eye gives up counting, and orange trees fill the courtyard outside. Córdoba's Judería is a maze of whitewashed walls and flowering patios, thrown open to visitors each May. Down at the Guadalquivir, the Roman bridge carries you across for the best view back over the old city.

• Mezquita (Mosque-Cathedral, UNESCO)
• Juderia (Jewish quarter)
• Flower-filled patios (festival in May)
• Roman bridge

When to go to Córdoba? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

Tunisia

☀️ 12.6 h/day · 🌧️ 5 mm/month · 🌡️ 29°C

Flat, sandy and full of date palms, Djerba does island life at low volume. Houmt Souk trades pottery, silver and sponges under whitewashed arcades, while Sidi Mahrès unrolls a long strip of shallow warm water. Inland, the village of Erriadh has been covered in murals by artists from around the world, and the Ghriba, one of North Africa's oldest synagogues, keeps its painted blue interior nearby.

• Houmt Souk (medina and souks)
• Ghriba Synagogue
• Sidi Mahrès beaches
• Erriadh (Djerbahood street art village)

When to go to Djerba? →

Spain

☀️ 12.6 h/day · 🌧️ 4 mm/month · 🌡️ 29°C

The Giralda began as a minaret and now carries the bells of the largest Gothic cathedral anywhere; a ramp, not a staircase, climbs to the top. Seville keeps its Alcázar behind a plain wall, all Mudéjar plasterwork and gardens of orange and myrtle. Across the Guadalquivir, Triana works in painted tile and flamenco, and the Plaza de España curves round its canal in azulejos.

• Seville Cathedral and Giralda
• Alcázar of Seville
• Triana district
• Plaza de España

When to go to Seville? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

Greece

☀️ 12.9 h/day · 🌧️ 3 mm/month · 🌡️ 27°C

Santorini's white villages line the rim of a flooded volcanic crater, terraces hanging over deep blue water. Oia takes its sunset seriously, and so does everyone who walks up for it. Down at sea level the beaches turn red and black with volcanic sand, and Akrotiri lies preserved beneath the ash, its streets and staircases still standing where they were left.

• Sunset at Oia
• Caldera and white villages
• Red beach and black beach
• Akrotiri archaeological site

When to go to Santorini? →

Greece

☀️ 12.9 h/day · 🌧️ 8 mm/month · 🌡️ 28°C

Chania's Venetian harbour curves round to a white lighthouse, and the tavernas along it fill up as the light drops. Behind, the old town climbs in pastel lanes of workshops, leather sandals and oregano-scented kitchens. Day trips head out to the Samaria Gorge, a long walk down through the White Mountains, or to the pale sandbars of Balos.

• Old Venetian harbour and lighthouse
• Old town and Jewish quarter
• Samaria Gorge (day trip)
• Balos beach (day trip)

When to go to Chania (Crete)? →

Morocco

☀️ 12.0 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 31°C

You walk into the medina with a budget and a firm resolve, and mislay both somewhere around the third glass of mint tea. The souks arrive in colours that make sunglasses feel like a moral decision, which is why the Majorelle Garden exists: a cool blue pause before you plunge back towards Djemaa el-Fna. Even the palm trees look as though they are negotiating for shade.

• Djemaa el-Fna
• Medina and souks
• Majorelle Garden
• Bahia Palace

When to go to Marrakech? →

Spain

☀️ 12.7 h/day · 🌧️ 2 mm/month · 🌡️ 28°C

Granada wears the Alhambra like a crown, its golden walls catching the late light above the rooftops, with the cool green terraces of the Generalife just below. Steep lanes in the Albaicín carry the smell of jasmine and mint tea, and flamenco runs late into the night in the Sacromonte caves. The peaks of the Sierra Nevada close the horizon.

• Alhambra (UNESCO)
• Generalife (gardens)
• Albaicín (Moorish quarter)
• Sacromonte (flamenco caves)

When to go to Granada? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

Egypt

☀️ 12.3 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 36°C

Ras Mohammed, where two gulfs meet, hands Sharm El Sheikh some of the Red Sea's finest diving: sheer walls and coral gardens a short boat ride from shore. Naama Bay takes care of the rest, with sheltered swimming, dive centres and long evenings. Inland the Sinai turns granite and empty, and the classic outing is the night climb up Mount Sinai to meet the sunrise.

• Ras Mohammed National Park (diving)
• Naama Bay beach
• Sinai desert (day trip)
• Mount Sinai (sunrise)

When to go to Sharm El Sheikh? →

Egypt

☀️ 12.0 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 36°C

Ancient Thebes spreads over both banks of the Nile, and a felucca is still the sensible way between them. Karnak's hypostyle hall is a forest of columns you walk through rather than look at, while Luxor Temple is best after dark, when the lighting picks out the reliefs. On the west bank lie the Valley of the Kings and the terraces of Hatshepsut's temple against the cliff.

• Karnak Temple
• Valley of the Kings
• Luxor Temple
• Temple of Hatshepsut

When to go to Luxor? →

Egypt

☀️ 12.1 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 33°C

Everything here points underwater: Red Sea coral just off the beach, and day boats out to the Giftun Islands for snorkelling over gardens of soft coral and reef fish. Back on land, the marina fills up in the evening with seafood restaurants and slow strolling. Behind the town, the Eastern Desert opens into flat gravel plains best crossed by 4x4.

• Coral reefs and diving (Red Sea)
• Giftun Islands (snorkelling)
• Marina Hurghada
• Eastern desert (4x4 day trip)

When to go to Hurghada? →

Egypt

☀️ 12.0 h/day · 🌧️ 1 mm/month · 🌡️ 36°C

The Nile is at its most photogenic at Aswan: granite boulders, white sails and desert on both banks. Philae stands on its island, columns and pylons rising straight from the water, while Abu Simbel and its colossi lie upriver to the south. In town the souk sells hibiscus, spices and cotton, and Elephantine Island is a short ferry hop away.

• Abu Simbel (day trip, UNESCO)
• Philae Temple (island)
• Nile cruise
• Aswan souk and Elephantine Island

When to go to Aswan? →

Egypt

☀️ 12.2 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 31°C

Nobody has yet photographed the Sphinx without a camera app failing at precisely the wrong moment, and that faint smile suggests it has noticed. The pyramids, magnificently indifferent to your satellite navigation, will still be there long after you have finished haggling for a camel at Khan el-Khalili as though it were a takeaway. Above it all, the Citadel keeps watch over queues that lengthen like evening shadows.

• Pyramids of Giza and Sphinx
• Egyptian Museum
• Citadel of Saladin
• Khan el-Khalili bazaar

When to go to Cairo? →

Uzbekistan

☀️ 12.5 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 30°C

Bukhara keeps its old town whole: trading domes, madrasas and a pool shaded by mulberry trees where the town still gathers. The Kalan minaret guided caravans across the desert for centuries, and the mosque beside it opens onto a courtyard of white arcades. The Samanid Mausoleum, small and built entirely of patterned brick, works its effect through geometry alone.

• Old town (UNESCO)
• Samanid Mausoleum
• Kalan Mosque and minaret
• Ark of Bukhara (fortress)

When to go to Bukhara? →

Türkiye

☀️ 12.8 h/day · 🌧️ 2 mm/month · 🌡️ 31°C

Hot springs have been depositing calcite here for millennia, leaving a hillside of white terraces and shallow warm pools you walk through barefoot. On the plateau above stands Hierapolis, with its theatre and its long colonnaded street. Cleopatra's Pool lets you swim among fallen marble columns in water that stays at bath temperature.

• Travertines (limestone terraces, UNESCO)
• Hierapolis (ancient city)
• Cleopatra's Pool
• Necropolis and theatre

When to go to Pamukkale? →

Jordan

☀️ 12.7 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 29°C

Sandstone massifs rise out of red sand in a landscape with almost no middle distance: it is all foreground and horizon. Jeeps and camels cover the ground between them, stopping at the Khazali canyon where Thamudic petroglyphs are cut into the walls. Nights are spent in Bedouin camps, with a fire, coffee poured from a long-spouted pot and a sky nobody wants to stop looking at.

• Red desert (Valley of the Moon)
• Bivouac under the stars
• Khazali rock (petroglyphs)
• 4x4 or camel tour

When to go to Wadi Rum? →