Admire the most beautiful autumn colors in Europe during a city trip. See the treasures of Greek Antiquity in Athens, the warmest capital in Europe, warm up during fika in Stockholm’s old town and watch Luxembourg City change color from Adolf’s Bridge. Discover the nicest cities during the fall.
Autumn is one of the best times for a city trip. Of course because you avoid the crowds of the high season, but also because the light of the low sun does something with the sights. Ornate parks such as the Nachte galenpark in Antwerp, Hyde Park in London or the Englis cher Garten in Munich are less green, but more colorful. In Athens and Valencia you can still relax on the beach, the vineyards of Bordeaux are beautiful and in Antwerp you can take the annual autumn evening walk with the whole family.
1. Hiking and art in the Englischer Garten in Munich
In the beer gardens in the Englischer Garten in Munich it is nice to drink beers with the locals. The park is larger than New York’s Central Park and has more than 78 kilometers of hiking trails. Stroll past the 25 meter high Chinese pagoda, the round Greek temple Monopteros and the calm waters of the Kleinhesseloher See.
There are two museums in the park. The Bayerisches Nationalmuseum is dedicated to Bavarian art and culture and the Haus der Kunst exhibits German art. That museum was opened in 1937 by Adolf Hitler. Although a number of paintings from that period can still be found in the Golden Bar, today the museum is devoted to modern art. About ten different exhibitions a year showcase the works of both emerging talent and established artists.
3. Peace and space in Stockholm
Take the boat to the Swedish capital of Stockholm, a mix of a bustling city and green oasis. In the medieval town of Gamla Stan you join the locals for fika, a local tradition that roughly translates to ‘coffee break’. Between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., colleagues, family and friends come together to drink coffee and indulge in sweets such as kanelbullar (cinnamon bread) and semla (bread ball filled with whipped cream and almond paste).
The greenest island is Djurgarden, where you can enjoy yourself for days: smell flowers in the gardens of Rosendael Castle, show your musical talents in the ABBA museum, walk along tree-lined paths along the water, through colorful gardens and vast meadows. Lake Isbladskärret is home to grebes, green and spotted woodpeckers, marsh warblers and tufted ducks. In the open-air museum Skansen you can walk through five centuries of Swedish history, past 150 traditional houses, churches and shops and meadows with moose and reindeer.
4. Soak up culture in warm Athens
In autumn, the Greek sun is no longer so hot in the warmest capital in Europe. Perfect even for climbing the table mountain Acropolis, with the Parthenon as the literal highlight. Walk in the shadow of 46 10-meter-high columns that form the impressive marble temple from 490 BC. form. It was built in honor of the goddess Athena who gave the Greeks the first olive tree, the symbol of peace and vigor.
In 1896, the pitch-black athletics track of the Panathinaiko (Old Olympic Stadium) sounded the starting signal for the first modern Olympic Games. Take a sprint and stroll past the whitewashed and pastel-colored houses of the Plaka district. Those who still want to sunbathe, lay out their towel on one of the beaches of Athens, such as the trendy Glyfáda. Still bad weather? At the National Archaeological Museum, you will pass the time exploring the archaeological excavations, from prehistory to ancient Greece and Roman times.
5. Walking through the autumn colors of Antwerp
In the autumn, the warm Belgian pubs fill up and the beers change colour. In Antwerp, take a walking tour around the Stadswaag around the university campus, where families and students relax on the square that turns yellow after the summer. Or walk through the four parks in the south of the city, together the Nachtegalenpark. Plan a trip past the castle from 1789 in Den Brandt park, through the French garden with characteristic gravel paths and box hedges and the English garden with rippling canals and ponds.
One of the best activities for the whole family is the annual autumn walk De Grote Schijn, which is organized for two weeks around October and November. During a 2 kilometer long evening tour through the Rivierenhof city park, a magical story is told without words, by means of light effects, images, sound and even smell.