At the end of the day, when all is said and done, I’m just a girl with wanderlust coursing through her veins and a severe deficiency in the vitamin D department. And so the fact that the lovely lot over at holiday rental portal, Holiduhave read my mind like a travel guide book and rounded up the sunniest cities on the continent bodes extremely well for me. And spoiler alert: not a single one of them is in the UK. Shocking, I know.
Using data from World Weather Onlineevery city in Europe with over 200,000 inhabitants was put under the microscope. The holiday hotshots then extracted the number of sun hours per month in each city between the years of 2009 and 2025 to calculate each spot’s overall monthly average sun hours. Oh yeah, it was pretty darn thorough.
Topping the charts as the sunniest European city of all is Cartagena in Spain. Located in the south-east region of Murcia (another spot that made the top ten), this charmingly historic port city is a true hidden gem in Europe’s treasure chest of gorgeous places to visit. With an average of 283 sun hours a month and an average temperature of 19.1°CCartagena is home to a 1st century BC Roman Theatre, a picture-perfect old town, a gorgeous castle, and a whole load of sun rays to soak up. And the best part? Flights there and back from the capital are an absolute bargain. The closest airport to Cartagena is Murcia, and if you were to head there later this month, for example, you could snap up return flights from London on Skyscanner for as little as £44.
Spain dominated the entire list of the sunniest cities in Europe, really, with seven of the top ten being sunny Spanish spots. Alicante came in at second place with an average of 279.6 sun hours per monthand hot on Alicante’s heels was Malagaone of the oldest cities in Europe, with an average of 279.3 monthly sun hours.
The 10 sunniest cities in Europe:
- Cartagena, Spain
- Alicante, Spain
- Malaga, Spain
- Murcia, Spain
- Granada, Spain
- Catania, Italy
- Seville, Spain
- Cordoba, Spain
- Marseille, France
- Madrid, Spain
So, grab your sunnies and your SPF, folks – happy sun-soaking.
You can read Holidu’s full study here.
