Croatia

One of the best-preserved medieval city walls in the world enclose a city of Baroque churches, limestone streets, and a marble-paved main promenade — the Stradun — that has served as the social center of Dubrovnik life since the 13th century. The city walls, 1,940 meters in circumference and walking distance in their entirety, provide views of the Old Town's terracotta rooftops and the Adriatic beyond that are among the most beautiful in Europe. Arriving at Dubrovnik by sea at dusk, as the walls are lit and the boats in the harbour rock gently, is one of the great arriving moments in travel.

The sunniest island in Croatia and one of the most beautiful in the Adriatic, Hvar combines a medieval walled town with an interior of lavender fields, cypress forests, and ancient dry-stone walls, and a coastline of extraordinarily clear water with coves accessible only by boat. The Pakleni Islands, a short boat ride from Hvar town, offer the best swimming in the Adriatic in a landscape of pine-covered islets and sheltered anchorages where the water is shallow enough to see the seabed from the surface.

The jewel of Croatia's interior, Plitvice Lakes consists of sixteen terraced lakes connected by a series of waterfalls — the color of the water, produced by the interaction of minerals, algae, and sunlight, shifts continuously through the day from turquoise to mint green to deep emerald. The park was established in 1949 and is entirely car-free within its boundaries; wooden boardwalks and boat ferries across the largest lakes provide access to a landscape that requires no photographic enhancement to look extraordinary.

Built by the Roman emperor Diocletian as his retirement palace in 305 AD and continuously inhabited for 1,700 years, Diocletian's Palace now forms the living center of Split — a labyrinth of medieval apartments, restaurants, and boutiques occupying the rooms and cellars of an ancient Roman imperial residence. The cathedral is the world's oldest continuously used in its original building, converted from Diocletian's mausoleum in the 7th century. The view from the palace walls across Split harbour to the Brač island peaks is one of the finest in Dalmatia.

A long, forested island in central Dalmatia with a medieval walled town often compared to Dubrovnik in miniature, Korčula is claimed by locals to be the birthplace of Marco Polo — a claim impossible to verify and entirely credible to believe when standing in the narrow streets of the old town. The island's interior vineyards produce Pošip and Grk, two white wines unique to Korčula, and the weekly moreška sword dance, performed continuously since the 16th century, is one of the most authentic folk traditions in the Adriatic.

A triangular peninsula at the northern tip of the Adriatic, Istria was Venetian for 400 years and retains the lion of St Mark above doorways and in piazzas from Pula to Rovinj, alongside a cuisine shaped by centuries of Italian influence — truffles, prosciutto, olive oil, and wines that compete with any in Italy. Motovun, Grožnjan, and Oprtalj are hilltop towns largely undiscovered by mass tourism, and the truffle forests around Buzet produce some of the finest black and white truffles in Europe.