2018: 12 Cities in 12 Months

Reykjavik is a surprisingly busy city on the west coast of Iceland. Surrounded by black volcanic stone and yellow grass the city is striking. Arctic winds blow in from the coast, and Iceland is the third windiest place in the world. Houses are generally low with sloped roofs to avoid the ever-present wind.

The city has a strange character. Deeply religious with a number of well attended churches, old and incredible architecture vies with a a number of bland modern options and scattered throughout are futurist brutalist structures of incredible strangeness.

Belgrade, as it is not served by any low cost airlines, is spared the stag dos and hen dos that fill other eastern European cities. As such, it's tourism is lower volume and less crass. The city is served by a good network of Trams, which are surprisingly thiner than the average tram in other cities.

Tiny winding streets with old buildings, hugely driven by city break tourism rather than the more sedate options are part of the character of Split. The small tight streets in the old town have lead to the adoption of motorised cards, like you may see in a warehouse for moving goods around.

A beautiful city with some stunning architecture, sprawling does not do this city justice, it is in fact two cities, Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube, facing each other over the river.

“Quaint” it is both quite small and very old, storybook streets of cobblestones and brightly painted houses. Tall towers of stone topped with red tiles. The old town is a lot like the outdoor museum in Oslo, a place of history. Toompea is this even more distilled.

Sprawling across islands, inlets, it is a big place. Architecture has a lot in common with Sweden. Moomins are everywhere, they are a prized cultural thing here. There is a level of indifference to the snow and Ice that Gothenburg cannot match.

Gaudi’s influence can be felt throughout the city, even though there are in truth only a small number of his buildings in a large sprawling city the influence of colour and shape make Barcelona an interesting city. Whilst it has many of the dull square buildings that infest major cities, it also has old churches in immaculate repair and colourful shapes and sculptures scattered through the city.