The World's Romance Architecture

To commemorate Valentine’s Day, here’s a sampling of some of the world’s most romantic architectural (and urban) settings:

• Waterside dining along Venice’s Grand Canal as the gondoliers pole past.

• Bangers and mash at midday in a venerable London pub (with or without a pint of stout).

• Walking the stalls of the jade market on Hong Kong’s Kowloon peninsula.

• Sunset overlooking the historic center of Florence and the River Arno below, from the Michelangelo Piazza.

• Riding the narrow streets of old Macau to a casino aboard a pedicab.

• Coming up on the gleaming white cliffs of Dover on the sunny deck of a windswept channel ferry.

• Enjoying the sights from the night train from Nice to Milan.

• Posing with an iguana before sampling the street vendor’s fish tacos in Puerta Vallarta.

• Sharing a jambon sandwich while walking the cobbled lanes of old Salzburg.

• Whispering amid the humid silence of the towering sequoias of Muir Woods north of San Francisco.

• Dancing along with the island revelers of the midnight Junkanoo parade in Nassau, Bahamas.

• Observing the dancing fountains of The Bellagio Hotel & Casino from the balcony of a honeymoon suite.

• Lazing along the Danube River through central Germany on a wine cruise.

• Dusk in Paris strolling past the nightlit Cathedral of Notre Dame on the way to the Louvre.

• Chugging through the boat people (and dogs) of Hong Kong Harbor on the way to an outlying island’s Buddhist temples.

• Sampling the quaint waterside shops of Sausalito’s marina.

• Watching the setting sun transform the colors of the Grand Canyon or Bryce Canyon.

• Enjoying the street performers of Mallory Square while awaiting a Key West sunset.

• Taking in the spectacle that is Rockefeller Center at Christmas.

• Banqueting at the Villa D’Este restaurant in the Tuscan hills outside Rome.

• Traversing the historic timber bridges criss-crossing Lake Lucerne.

• Strolling canalside in central Amsterdam to the Rembrandt Museum.