The chestnut roaster on the Ponte Vecchio, a charcoal brazier, the smoke rising through the gaps between the goldsmiths’ shops, the smell of roasting chestnuts drifting across the Arno, hands you a paper cone of warm, split-shelled nuts for €3, and the first one burns your tongue in exactly the way you remember from childhood. Autumn in Florence, the tourists thinning, the light turning golden, the truffles appearing on every restaurant menu, is the season the city exhales. The summer siege is over. The Florentines reclaim their streets. And the chestnuts, the porcini, the first bottles of the new olive oil (olio nuovo, the bright green, peppery oil that stings the back of your throat) are the taste of a city returning to itself.

Three Cities That Are Better in Autumn

Florence (October-November): The Uffizi in October, the queue manageable, the Botticelli room (the Birth of Venus, Primavera) visited without the jostle of summer, is a different museum. The truffle season (October-November, the white truffle of San Miniato, the most prized, the most expensive, the aroma filling the restaurant the moment the truffle is shaved over your pasta, available in every trattoria and worth the splurge at least once) defines the autumn menu. The Olio Novo (the new olive oil, pressed in November, the tasting at the frantoio, the olive press, in the Chianti hills, the oil bright green and peppery and so fresh it tastes alive) is the autumn ritual. The weather, 12-20°C, crisp mornings, warm afternoons, the occasional rain, is ideal for walking. The price, accommodation 20-30% cheaper than summer, flights the same, is the bonus.

Vienna (October): The coffee houses, the Café Central (opened 1876, the vaulted ceiling, the piano, the Trotsky-in-exile playing chess in the corner, not literally, but the spirit of the place evokes it), the Café Sperl (1880, the billiard tables, the newspapers on wooden racks, the Sachertorte, the dense chocolate cake, the apricot jam, the whipped cream, the Viennese afternoon ritual), the Café Hawelka (1939, the Biedermeier interior, the Buchteln, sweet yeast buns filled with plum jam, baked fresh by Josefine Hawelka, who ran the café with her husband Leopold from 1939 until her death in 2005, the tradition continued by their son), are at their most atmospheric in autumn: the damp, cool air outside, the warmth and the coffee and the newspapers inside. The Vienna Wine Hiking Day (Wiener Weinwandertag, a weekend in late September, the vineyards on the city’s outskirts, the Viennese have been making wine within the city limits since the 12th century, opening their doors, the Heurigen, the wine taverns, serving the new vintage, the Gemischter Satz (the traditional Viennese field blend, white grapes grown together and fermented together) the taste of the city) is the autumn highlight.

Edinburgh (September-October): The Edinburgh Festival is over. The city breathes. The Royal Mile is walkable again, the Castle, visible from every quarter, the rock it sits on a volcanic plug 340 million years old, not besieged. The autumn colour, the trees in Princes Street Gardens turning gold and copper, the view of the Castle from the Gardens the most photographed in Scotland, is magnificent. Arthur’s Seat, the climb in the crisp autumn air, the view from the summit (the Forth, the bridges, the hills of Fife, the Pentlands to the south), is the essential Edinburgh walk at its most beautiful. The pubs, the Oxford Bar (Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus drinks here, the regulars will tell you which stool is his, they are patient with literary tourists), the Guildford Arms, the Café Royal, are at their cosiest. The fire is lit. The cask ale is on. The rain, the Edinburgh haar, the haar is not rain but a sea mist that rolls in from the Forth and blankets the city in October, the Castle emerging from the fog like a ship at sea, is atmospheric rather than dispiriting. The city in autumn is at its most romantic and its most brooding, and the combination, the gothic skyline, the autumn leaves, the haar rolling down the Royal Mile, is unforgettable.