Cities in Europe where you can easily tour the best sights by walking

the center of Sevilla, Spain.
Seville, Spain.

Even in big European cities walking is often the best way to go from one central place to another. Naturally, in big cities like Paris or London you need to complement walking with underground, bus, bicycle or electric scooter, but the sights are accessible by foot. That’s how old cities were built: the center was densely built with narrow roads and alleys, and that’s were the historic landmarks usually are. If you want to optimize the distance you walk in popular tourist destinations, here are the European cities with shortest distances between renowned sights.

Preply, a service that finds language tutors for people who want to learn a new language, has studied distances between the must-see sights in most visited cities in Europe. The result is a top 18 ranking of destinations with the shortest distance between their 5 essential sights.

  1. Sevilla, Spain
  2. Venice, Italy
  3. Porto, Portugal
  4. Florence, Italy
  5. Athens, Greece
  6. Amsterdam, Netherlands
  7. Cologne, Germany
  8. Milan, Italy
  9. Verona, Italy
  10. Nice, France
  11. Rome, Italy
  12. Istanbul, Turkey
  13. Copenhagen, Denmark
  14. Madrid, Spain
  15. Krakow, Poland
  16. Berlin, Germany
  17. Reykjavik, Iceland
  18. Barcelona, Spain


It is somewhat surprising to find cities like Milan, Rome, Madrid and Barcelona at the top of the list, but of course, choices have to be made which cities are included and which ones left out. For example Nordic cities Stockholm, Helsinki, and Tallinn and the Belgian city of Brugge are easy and safe to explore by foot.

cafe at Esplanade park in Helsinki
Esplanade Park in Helsinki, Finland.