Address Book

Athens On Christmas Day 1944, resistance fighters packed the sewers under the Grande Bretagne with dynamite, then called the attack off when they learned Winston Churchill had arrived. The hotel is still there on Syntagma. Explore city

Barcelona Barcelona's oldest shop sells candles, its oldest food shop still roasts almonds in a wood-fired oven, and the café where Picasso had his first exhibition went bankrupt within six years because its owner kept feeding his friends for free. Explore city

Capri In 1845 a British doctor opened a sanatorium on Capri and called it Quisisana: here one heals. The island has been selling recovery ever since, along with sandals, scent and the view of the Explore city

Comporta For most of its history Comporta was a farm: an estate on the Sado estuary that grew rice and made salt. From 1991 its owners, the Espírito Santo banking family, began turning it towards Explore city

Corsica Corsica produced a Bonaparte and an aperitif, and has built a monument to each: Cardinal Fesch's picture gallery in Ajaccio, and in Bastia the only shopfront on the island listed as a Explore city

Dublin Dublin's core is small enough to cross on foot in twenty minutes, which is part of why this list runs to twenty-four addresses rather than forty or fifty. Explore city

Hydra There are no cars or scooters on Hydra. Luggage goes up from the harbour on the backs of mules, and the old houses face inward behind high grey walls, built by ship-owners who Explore city

London London is the only city in this series with a Members' Clubs category at all. Mayfair alone supplies most of its entries, on streets where the more interesting door rarely has a sign on it. Explore city

Madrid Madrid's oldest addresses have a habit of outliving the people who wrote about them. Picasso was buried in a cape from a shop that still makes them. Explore city

Marrakech A good part of the Marrakech that visitors now photograph was put together by foreigners who came for a season and stayed: a French painter who patented his own shade of blue, an American decorator named Bill Willis, a couturier whose ashes were scattered in the painter's garden. Explore city

Mexico City In December 1914 Pancho Villa is said to have fired a pistol into the ceiling of a cantina on Avenida Cinco de Mayo to quiet the room, and the hole is still pointed out Explore city

Milan Milan keeps most of what is worth seeing behind a door. Its best rooms are inside other buildings: a hotel in a sixteenth-century seminary, a café designed by a film director in a former distillery. Explore city

New York New York changes too quickly for a definitive guide. These are the addresses worth keeping: social rooms, old institutions, newer tables and places with enough character to survive the hype cycle. Explore city

Paris Paris closed its most important museum for the rest of the decade. The Centre Pompidou shut in September 2025 for a five-year renovation, scattering its collection across the city. Explore city

Porto Cervo Karim Aga Khan first came into this inlet with four or five friends on a twelve-metre boat, and by his own account there was nothing there. On 14 March 1962 he and five Explore city

Punta del Este Punta del Este fills for a few weeks around New Year, mostly with Argentines, and empties again by March. The addresses that last here were mostly made by one person with a fixed idea: Explore city

Spetses A good deal of modern Spetses was paid for by one man. Sotirios Anargyros, who went to America and came back rich from tobacco, opened a grand hotel on the harbour in 1914. Explore city

Tangier In 1777 Morocco became the first country to recognise the United States, and in 1821 its sultan gave the Americans a building in Tangier, which they still own. The city spent much of the Explore city

Taormina Before the First World War Taormina took in a particular kind of foreigner: English painters with private incomes, a German emperor who came three times, and men who found the town more tolerant than Explore city

The South of France The South of France is badly served by lists. The same palace hotels, beach clubs and restaurants circulate with little distinction between somewhere worth knowing and somewhere with an efficient publicity department. This address Explore city