Barcelona, Spain

 
Bar-celona -- where it's a good time every time.

While most old Mediterranean port cities look and act their age, Barcelona remains one of the world’s most exuberant, youthful cities -- saturated with style, cocky architecture, good eating, around-the-clock partying and unprompted comments like the following nugget from a random Catalonian shoe salesman at the Placa de Catalunya Cort Ingles department store. 

“A lot of people may think of Paris as the most fashionable city in the world. People in Barcelona think this is pretty funny. We think people in France actually don’t dress that well at all. And also the food is better here.”

The sixth most-visited city in Europe according to Euromonitor International, Barcelona’s inviting weather, plethora of nocturnal bars (you thought the city’s first three letters were a fluke?), pedestrian-friendly zones like La Rambla and the Gothic Quarter, beach access and all-around good-times vibe garnered a recent gold in the British Travel Awards, beating arch-rival Paris as the “Best City Break Destination.”