23 Most Beautiful Streets In Europe

The most beautiful streets in Europe come in many shapes and sizes, and are spread far and wide around the continent.

They vary from a grand Parisian boulevard and one of the magnificent Georgian crescents of Bath to narrow medieval alleyways full of half-timbered houses.

And from one of just two streets in a picture-perfect Portuguese mountaintop village to the palaces of the Grand Canal in Venice.

Here’s my guide to 23 of the most picturesque streets in Europe, which includes some background information and history of each street as well as images to entice you. Enjoy!

Most Beautiful Streets In Europe

Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris

I’d also urge you to visit the Arc de Triomphe, an amazing monument with astounding views over the city – including one of the best Eiffel Tower views.

Walking along the upper part of the Champs-Élysées is a bit of a let-down. With overpriced shops, cafes and chain restaurants charging a premium for their location, there are plenty of better places to eat out in Paris.

Rue de l’Abreuvoir, in the Montmartre district, is one of the most picturesque streets in Paris.

The street is lined with pretty houses on one side, and a buttressed, fortress-like wall on the other. It’s home to La Maison Rose, a popular restaurant and photographers’ favourite. This lovely pastel pink restaurant was visited by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali, and painted by Maurice Utrillo. And Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro lived at number 12.

Walk down the hill to the bottom of Rue de l’Abreuvoir, where you’ll come to Place Dalida, named after the popular singer who lived nearby. A small statue commemorates her.

From here there’s a wonderful view back up the street, with the tower and dome of Sacre Coeur Basilica  rising above the ivy-clad houses. It’s one of the loveliest views in Paris, well worth the climb up the hill to see.

The Grand Canal is one of the most beautiful – and famous – streets in the world.  It’s incomparable, a journey through a thousand years of history, a trip through the memories of a great maritime empire that grew from a few huts on muddy islands in a lagoon.

The Venetian Empire struck it extraordinarily rich – and this is reflected in the astonishing palaces that line the city’s main thoroughfare. It’s also the setting for some of the most beautiful churches in Venice, and the Ponte di Rialto is one of the most famous bridges in Europe.

It takes you from the workaday surroundings of the bus and train stations to the crowd-saturated Piazza di San Marco (St Mark’s Square), home to the exotic domes of St Mark’s Basilica and the Doge’s Palace, the official residence of the leader of the Venetian Republic. The number 1 ferry along its length is one of the most spectacular public transport journeys in the world.

See Also: Grand Canal Venice  – An Expert Guide With Photos

Casa Lleo Morera is an ornate palace with florid sculptures, then two here houses up the street, Casa Amatller is reminiscent of a gabled northern European townhouse, something you’d expect to find near the German Baltic coast. Next door to that, Antoni Gaudi’s Casa Batllo has a mosaic façade and a roof that resembles a dragon’s back. With a chimney.

A few blocks from there, don’t miss Gaudi’s Casa Mila (La Pedrera), his famous wavy apartment block with more amazing rooftop sculptures.

The Golden Lane is the one street on this list that you have to pay to enter, as it’s on the circuit of main sights within the Prague Castle precincts.

Zlata ulicka is well-preserved row of tiny picturesque cottages within the grounds of the Castle.  They were originally built to house the Castle’s guards, but were eventually taken over by various artisans, including goldsmiths.

An armoury museum occupies the upper floors of some of the houses, and several of the buildings serve as craft and souvenir shops. Author Franz Kafka resided at number 22 with his sister for a year.

One of the highlights is number 12, which was home to film historian Josef Kazda. The cottage is piled with film canisters and memorabilia which he concealed from the Nazis after they invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939.

See Also: Prague Streets – 17 Must-See Streets In The Czech Capital

Monsaraz is one of the most beautiful villages in Europe, a tiny time capsule from the 17^th century on a mountaintop overlooking the border with Spain.

The main part of the village consists of two long streets running along its length, linked by a few steep alleyways. Both streets lead to its Castle, which once helped guard the border, but now serves as an amazing vantage point over the surrounding countryside and Alqueva lakes below.

Rua Direita is gorgeous, a long cobbled stretch of whitewashed houses with a square halfway along. Here you’ll find two of the village’s churches, Nossa Senhora da Lagoa and the Igreja da Misericordia.

We visited in early April, at the very beginning of the tourist season. At night we had the village to ourselves. It was like walking 400 years back in time, the 21^st century feeling a very distant place indeed. Possibly THE most beautiful village in Europe in my book.  

It’s one of the most beautiful streets in Bath, and almost certainly the grandest. The Royal Crescent is a magnificent sweep of 30 Georgian terraced houses, with outstanding views of the city. Bath was intended to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, and this street is the culmination of it.

Number 1 Royal Crescent, at one end of the terrace, is a re-creation of a house as it would have been decorated in the late 18^th century, soon after its completion by John Wood the Younger. 

Burano is a famous fishing village on an island in the north of the Venetian lagoon. Its renowned for its wonderful brightly painted houses, with every shade of red, yellow, blue, green, orange and pink represented here. There’s not a dull grey or brown in sight.

I could have chosen several streets for this article, but have opted for Fondamenta della Pescheria, on a canal in the south of the island.

From the bridge at the northern end of the canal, you can enjoy the extraordinary view along this multicoloured street, with the leaning belltower of the island’s parish church, wonkily rising above the rooftops.

For more information, check out my guide to the best things to do in Burano. 

If you love medieval architecture, try to allocate at least one day of your life to visiting Rouen. The ancient capital of Normandy is one of the most beautiful medieval cities in Europe, yet has always somehow stayed off the beaten track. Which is no bad thing, of course.

Rouen’s medieval Old Town is clustered around its vast Cathedral and a few stunning Gothic churches. These are all wondrous, but one of the joys of visiting this city is wandering its streets.

Two of these stand out. Rue du Gros Horloge – the Street of the Great Clock – is dominated by the stunning 14^th-century Astronomical Clock, which is mounted above an archway above the street.

And Rue Damiette is a little further from the centre of the city, its half-timbered houses framing the delicate late Gothic tower of the Abbey of Saint-Ouen.

See Also: 12 Wonderful Things To Do In Rouen, France  

Tenby Harbour is the focal point of one of the best seaside towns in Wales, a sight that has graced countless calendars and postcards. The Georgian pastel-painted terraced houses are gorgeous, set above a tidal beach and harbour, below what remains of Tenby Castle on the hill just above.

Tenby Harbour consists of a few streets which converge around the waterfront – Pier Hill, the evocatively named Penniless Cove Hill and Bridge Street. Boat trips run from there to the monastery at nearby Caldey Island, and there are also wildlife-spotting and fishing trips to enjoy.

From the Harbour, it’s a short walk to any of the other three Tenby beaches. And there’s also plenty more to see around this wonderful coastal town whose Welsh name, Dinbych y Pysgod, means ‘Fortress of the Fish’.

See Also: Things To Do in Tenby  

This is one of my personal favourite streets in Europe. It’s a grand walkway, with the Baroque Jesuit College on one side and open on the other, with a row of statues of saints overlooking the parkland and countryside below.

It’s named after the Cathedral of St Barbara, to which it leads. This stunning Cathedral is one of the great Gothic churches of Central Europe, its tent-style roof and flying buttresses dominating one end of the street.

What the Plönlein is to Germany, Gold Hill was to England for many years. The steep cobbled street in the Dorset town of Shaftesbury is impossibly picturesque, with its row of cottages, some of them with traditional thatched roofs.

It became famous in the 1973 TV advert for Hovis bread, and for many years became shorthand for ‘England’ as much as Big Ben or the White Cliffs of Dover.

Over 50 years on, it’s still the most popular TV ad of all time in the UK.  The buttress walls across the street from the cottages support ground that was part of Shaftesbury Abbey. The gardens in the ruins of the Abbey are well worth a visit too.

The Piazza del Duomo is the main square on the island of Ortigia, the historic heart of Siracusa in Sicily. I’ve included it in this article as it’s a rather elongated square, part of which feels like a wide street. And it would almost be cheating you not to mention it.

The focal point of this square is the Cathedral, an ancient church incorporating elements of a Greek temple. It now has a gorgeous 18^th century Baroque façade, rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake which devastated much of Sicily.

The Piazza is a popular place for the passeggiata, when families go for an evening stroll. We headed there every evening of the week we spent on Ortigia, going to the same café for the same delicious gelato every time.  It’s where we introduced Our Little Man to gelato. And I can still hear the wistful accordion tunes in my head as I write this. My favourite square in the world.

The Shambles is one of the most famous streets in Britain, and rightly so. It’s also one of the most beautiful streets in the country, a narrow alleyway of medieval timber-framed houses, the oldest of which date back to the 14^th century. Some of the upper storeys of the houses lean forward, adding to the street’s atmosphere.

The name ‘shambles’ is a centuries-old word for a meat market, possibly a slaughterhouse. Late in the 19^th century there were 31 butchers’ shops on the street, although these have all long gone.

The Shambles is now a mixture of gift and souvenir shops, selling everything from Celtic jewellery to potions and perfumes.

It’s also worth dropping in at the York Oratory to visit the shrine of St Margaret Clitherow. This local woman was the wife of a butcher and lived in a house on The Shambles. She was crushed to death in 1586 for her refusal to enter a plea to the charge of protecting Catholic priests. She was canonised in 1970.

This short section of riverfront between the Dancing House and National Theatre is the most beautiful in Prague.  It’s a row of stunning Art Nouveau mansions, including the famous Hlahol house which is home to one of the oldest choirs in the Czech Republic.

The Prague tram 17 runs along the street, on its journey from the south to the north of the city via the scenic Vltava River and Old Town.

I recommend walking along the street and taking the tram. After the Národní divadlo (Theatre) stop the superb view of St Vitus Cathedral and Prague Castle opens up.

If you’re on foot, Slovansky ostrov (Slavic Island) has a great playground for kids and is also home to Palac Zofin, the distinctive yellow concert venue next to the river. Boats can also be hired from the island during the summer months.

The Long Market is one of the most beautiful streets in Poland, full of outstanding buildings from the heyday of this Hanseatic city also known as Danzig.

The Market runs from the riverside Green Gate (Brama Zielona) to the magnificent Town Hall (Ratusz) and 17^th-century Neptune Fountain.

The street is also lined with beautiful townhouses, including the 17^th-century Golden House and, at number 12, Uphagen’s House, which has been kept in the same 18^th-centruy style as when the merchant owner died.

Długi Targ continues into Ulica Długa, Long Street, which is almost as impressive.

This little corner of Rothenburg ob der Tauber has also become shorthand for ‘Germany’, every bit as much as the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

It’s actually a junction, the meeting place of two cobbled streets, Unter Schmiedgasse and Kobolzeller Steige. The small half-timbered house on the corner is probably the most-photographed house in Germany. There are many others like it around the country, but few have such a backdrop as this, with two medieval city wall towers behind it.

David Angel is a British photographer, writer and historian. He is a European travel expert with over 30 years’ experience exploring Europe. He has a degree in History from Manchester University, and his work is regularly featured in global media including the BBC, Condé Nast Traveler, The Guardian, The Times, and The Sunday Times.  David is fluent in French and Welsh, and can also converse in Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech and Polish.

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