As a girl with wanderlust coursing through her veins and a rather severe shortage in the Vitamin D department; I spend more time than I care to admit trawling through the internet in search of my next sun-soaked city break. And so it bodes pretty darn well for me that the lovely lot over at the holiday rental portal, Holidu, have – once again – read my mind like a travel guide book and taken some of the hard work off my plate.
Using the latest data from World Weather Online, the holiday-hotshots sifted through all of the European cities that boast over 200,000 inhabitants, in search of the most sun-soaked on the continent. They extracted the number of monthly sun hours in each city between the years of 2009 and 2026 to calculate each spot’s overall average number of sun hours per month. Using the average monthly sun hours alongside the average temperature of each city, Holidu were then able to crunch the numbers like a packet a Lays on the hotel balcony in order to give each city a ‘sun score’ out of 10.
The sunniest city in Europe
Once all the facts, figures, and findings were collected and crunched, Holidu curated them all into a handy list of the sunniest cities on the continent. And topping that list (for the second year in a row) was Cartagena in Spain. Picture-perfectly perched in the south-west region of Murcia, this historic port city is one of the twinkliest hidden gems in Europe’s overflowing treasure trove or gorgeous places to visit. With a rather impressive average of 282 sun hours a month and an average temperature of 19.1°C, the stunning Spanish spot managed to bag itself a sun score of 9.6 out of 10.
Cartagena is home to a beautifully-preserved Roman theatre that dates all the way back to 1BC (but was somehow only uncovered in 1988, having been hidden underneath a medieval cathedral for the best part of 2000 years) alongside a gorgeous castle, a picturesque old town, and a whole lot of sunshine. The very best part, I hear you ask? A trip there from London won’t break the bank. The closest airport to Cartagena is Murcia (another city that managed to earn a place on the list), and you can currently snap up a return flights from London for less than £50.
The 10 sunniest cities in Europe:
- Cartagena, Spain
- Malaga, Spain
- Seville, Spain
- Alicante, Spain
- Murcia, Spain
- Catania, Italy
- Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
- Cordoba, Spain
- Athens, Greece
- Palma de Mallorca, Spain
You can read Holidu’s full findings here.