Where to go in July?

France · Corse-du-Sud

☀️ 14.3 h/day · 🌧️ 5 mm/month · 🌡️ 28°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 · Haute-Corse

☀️ 14.4 h/day · 🌧️ 2 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 · Corse-du-Sud

☀️ 14.2 h/day · 🌧️ 4 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 · Corse-du-Sud

☀️ 14.4 h/day · 🌧️ 7 mm/month · 🌡️ 26°C

Porto opens onto an emerald gulf ringed by ochre cliffs, with the Calanches de Piana just up the road, where granite has weathered into shapes people spend whole afternoons naming. A Genoese tower keeps watch over the beach, and boats leave the gulf for the Scandola reserve, reachable only from the water. Maquis and lemon trees scent the evening air.

• Gulf of Porto (UNESCO)
• Calanches de Piana (red rocks)
• Scandola reserve (UNESCO, by boat)
• Genoese tower and beach

When to go to Porto (Corsica)? →

France · Corse-du-Sud

☀️ 14.3 h/day · 🌧️ 2 mm/month · 🌡️ 26°C

Ochre façades, a wide gulf and mountains immediately behind: the Corsican capital catches the light early and holds it late. The Maison Bonaparte, where Napoleon was born, is preserved room by room, and the Musée Fesch gathers Italian painting and Napoleonic portraits a few streets away. At dusk, boats head out to the Îles Sanguinaires, which turn deep red as the sun drops.

• Maison Bonaparte
• Gulf of Ajaccio
• Fesch Museum (Napoleonic art)
• Sanguinaires islands

When to go to Ajaccio? →

France · Var

☀️ 14.2 h/day · 🌧️ 3 mm/month · 🌡️ 27°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 · Bouches-du-Rhône

☀️ 14.0 h/day · 🌧️ 5 mm/month · 🌡️ 27°C

White cliffs fold into inlets of green water, and the coastal path towards En-Vau delivers one drop after another. Back in the harbour, boats moor a few metres from the wine bars, where the local white, grown on terraces above the sea, is the obvious order. Garrigue scents the lanes between one swim and the next.

• Calanques (UNESCO)
• Cassis harbour
• En-Vau cliffs
• Cassis AOC vineyards

When to go to Cassis? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Var

☀️ 14.2 h/day · 🌧️ 4 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

Spain

☀️ 13.5 h/day · 🌧️ 0 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

Greece

☀️ 13.8 h/day · 🌧️ 1 mm/month · 🌡️ 30°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? →

Tunisia

☀️ 13.0 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 30°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? →

Greece

☀️ 13.5 h/day · 🌧️ 2 mm/month · 🌡️ 30°C

Marble-paved lanes, bougainvillea and Venetian shutters make Nafplio an easy town to walk slowly. Palamidi fortress waits at the top of 999 steps, the Bourtzi sits on its own islet in the bay, and Syntagma Square fills with tables at dusk. Mycenae and the great theatre of Epidaurus are both within an easy morning's drive.

• Palamidi fortress (999 steps)
• Bourtzi (islet citadel)
• Old town and Syntagma Square
• Mycenae and Epidaurus (day trips)

When to go to Nafplio? →

Spain

☀️ 13.2 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 30°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

Tunisia

☀️ 13.0 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 30°C

Sousse's medina still works as a medina, its walls enclosing the souks, the austere Great Mosque and the Ribat, whose watchtower gives the best view over the rooftops and out to sea. Roman mosaics fill the archaeological museum up in the kasbah. North of town, Port El Kantaoui adds a marina, golf and a long stretch of beach.

• Medina (UNESCO) and Great Mosque
• Ribat (fortress)
• Archaeological museum (mosaics)
• Port El Kantaoui (marina)

When to go to Sousse? →

Greece

☀️ 13.8 h/day · 🌧️ 2 mm/month · 🌡️ 29°C

Zakynthos sends every visitor to Navagio first: a shipwreck on white sand, walled in by chalk cliffs and reachable only by boat. Round the northern tip, the Blue Caves throw an electric glow up onto the rock, and at Gerakas loggerhead turtles come ashore on a beach kept deliberately quiet. Town life gathers on Solomos Square, all arcades and evening coffee.

• Navagio (Shipwreck Beach)
• Blue Caves
• Gerakas beach (loggerhead turtles)
• Old town and Solomos Square

When to go to Zakynthos? →

Malta

☀️ 13.9 h/day · 🌧️ 1 mm/month · 🌡️ 28°C

Valletta fills a narrow peninsula between two harbours, laid out on a grid of golden limestone and very steep steps. St John's Co-Cathedral hides a riot of gilt and marble behind a plain front, along with Caravaggio's Beheading of St John the Baptist. From the Upper Barrakka Gardens you look down on the Grand Harbour and across to the Three Cities, a short ferry ride over the water.

• St John's Co-Cathedral (Caravaggio)
• Upper Barrakka Gardens (panorama)
• Grandmaster's Palace
• Three Cities (boat trip)

When to go to Valletta? →

Egypt

☀️ 13.0 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 35°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

☀️ 12.4 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 35°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? →

Uzbekistan

☀️ 13.4 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 33°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? →

Egypt

☀️ 13.6 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 32°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? →

Egypt

☀️ 12.9 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 32°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

☀️ 12.2 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 35°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? →

Türkiye

☀️ 13.9 h/day · 🌧️ 1 mm/month · 🌡️ 31°C

Ölüdeniz shelters a lagoon so still it reads as two different blues, with paragliders drifting down from the ridge above. Butterfly Valley is reached by boat: a shingle beach at the foot of a gorge, with a waterfall at its far end. Above the town, Lycian tombs cut into the cliff face look out over the harbour, and the Lycian Way sets off along the coast from here.

• Ölüdeniz (Blue Lagoon)
• Butterfly Valley
• Lycian rock tombs
• Lycian Way (hiking trail)

When to go to Fethiye? →

Türkiye

☀️ 13.8 h/day · 🌧️ 1 mm/month · 🌡️ 30°C

St Peter's Castle stands on its headland between two bays, honey-coloured and full of Aegean underwater finds. Close by lies the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Out along the peninsula, Bitez and Gümbet give you sheltered swimming, gulets at anchor and grilled fish in whitewashed fishing villages.

• St Peter's Castle
• Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
• Bitez and Gümbet beaches
• Bodrum peninsula

When to go to Bodrum? →