Coastal Towns With Authentic Character

Essaouira

Essaouira sits on Morocco's Atlantic coast and has been a working port for centuries. The medina is fortified, white, blue-shuttered, and considerably calmer than Marrakech. Fishermen still bring in the day's catch to the harbour at the foot of the walls. The wind makes it a kitesurfing destination; it also makes the beach less of a sunbathing scene than the Mediterranean coast further north.

Collioure

Collioure, on the French Catalan coast just before the Spanish border, is the town the Fauvist painters made famous (Matisse and Derain summered here). The harbour, the bell tower in the water, and the anchovy-curing tradition are all still here. Three days is enough, paired with a day in Cadaqués over the border.

Piran

Piran is Slovenia's small coastal jewel on a slim peninsula in the Gulf of Trieste. The architecture is Venetian Gothic, the streets are walkable in 20 minutes end to end, and the salt pans nearby still produce salt by hand. It's the calmer counterpart to Trieste across the gulf.

Symi and Cefalù

Symi, in the Dodecanese north of Rhodes, is one ferry stop from a much busier island and feels entirely different: a neoclassical harbour stacked up two hillsides, mostly day-trippers in the morning who clear out by 4 pm.

Cefalù on the north coast of Sicily has a Norman cathedral with mosaics, a small medieval grid, and a long sand beach. It got famous via a film a few years ago and still survives the attention.