European Bar Guide

Nantes 🇨🇵
It's a first visit and a fleeting one, so getting to grips with the city's geography, connections and attractions quickly was important. Thankfully, its a city that makes this very easy.

The attractions are linked along a green line, ligne verte painted across the city. It's a city of boats and trams, both of which are free of charge on weekends. Stops like Chantenay, Trentemoult and Hangar a Bananes deposit you in different social scenes.

Chantenay is home to the impressive Atlantique Brewery with its vast converted space and outdoor seating overlooking the Loire. Trentemoult is an old fashioned fishing village with painted houses and folk festivals. Hangar a Bananes is your usual converted ex-industrial space with art installations, craft beer taprooms and fab views.

In the city centre, smart grey-white renaissance architecture and a handful of worthy bars. Beer continues to surge to the ascendancy in France these days and most bars you visit will offer several on tap and usually at least one that can be fairly described as independent and local or from the region.

For beer fans, Atlantique, Aerofab, Le Sur Mesure, 100p and Le Chemin de Traverse will have what you need.

For those seeking grand interiors, Le Cigale is a brasserie the equal of any in France.

For outdoor drinking try the Hangar a Bananes area, or Le Guingettes.

There is a real live music culture in Nantes, with an unusually high number of bars hosting music. Le Chat Noir and Zygobar are good starting points, as well as being a little bit alternative and offbeat.

All-in-all, a trip to Nantes has just the right amount of everything for a fulfilling long weekend. It could possibly use a few more interesting late bars and perhaps lacks true standouts, Atlantique, aside. It's unlikely to disappoint you though.

After July's trip, there's a big update for our Spain 🇪🇦 page gone live today!

6 new bar profiles for Seville
5 new bar profiles for Cádiz
& 9 new bar profiles for Jerez de la Frontera

Updated maps 🗺️, galleries and full write-ups to explore!

We still have to complete San Sebastian and Zaragoza but as usual, working towards it. 💪✍️

For more, follow the link below:

https://theeuropeanbarguide.com/spain/

When starting European Bar Guide I had no idea that simply what makes me human: flawed web design, spelling and grammatical errors, iffy photography and highly subjective tastes & whims would become an asset.

In helping illustrate our guide is run by humans, it is set apart from the likes of this new website below:

AI generated content, compost of sifted human memories and ancient web content into a soulless, joyless splurge of repetitive points. A machine trying to convey authority.

My favourite bit in their Berlin section is where it recommends that any clubbers worried about whether touching another clubber without their permission should seek guidance from an on-site awareness team.

Hopefully I'll continue ploughing along in human form to provide an antidote to sites like this.

Europe Nightlife Guides: Things to Do, Itineraries & Planning Tips Europe nightlife guides for every city — best bars, clubs, rooftop bars, pub crawls, and late-night food across London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Prague, Barcelona and 55+ European cities.

A reasonable attempt by BBC travel to promote Czech pubs and the hospoda - that is to say the type of pub where friends primarily meet to socialise and where eating sits in the background.

Nice to see the likes of U Jary name-checked, definitely an old school pub that has calmly gone under the radar. That's cool. I can picture it becoming a cult place like U Hrocha in the decades to come.

I'm not sure Žižkov is anymore the local working class district the article is making out. It's fast becoming an appendage to hipstery Vinohrady.

Holešovice, Kobylisy or Libeň might have been better settings to illustrate the point in this article.

Some of the tidbits about Czech pub etiquette are quite rigid too. While you can indicate you're finished by placing the beer mat on your glass, that's more the done thing in big beer halls than local hospůdky, where you'd only do that if it was really busy.

That said, in Ostrava in March I got a replacement beer without even glancing in the direction of the bar! They seemed so sad when I explained I had a bus to catch!

Why visitors to Prague should drink in a traditional pub Prague is synonymous with pubs – but for the real thing, travellers should venture away from its touristy centre and seek out an old-school "hospoda".

Exciting news for Belgium🇧🇪 & Netherlands 🇳🇱 as insurgent movement Kroegtijgers 🐯 declares 12th September their national pub day 🍻

Kroegtijgers zetten de nacht in na ‘Tournée Nationale’: volg de festiviteiten van De Nationale Cafédag hier mee Kroegtijgers, de beweging die zich inzet voor de lokale cafécultuur, heeft zaterdag 12 september uitgeroepen tot De Nationale Caf....

Thank you 🇨🇿 TN.cz for covering our Top 100 Bars in Europe 2026! 🍻

Zveřejnili 100 nejlepších barů v Evropě. Do top 10 se dostal i český podnik | TN.cz Web European Bar Guide zveřejnil stovku nejlepších barů v Evropě pro rok 2026. Česko mezi vybranými podniky má 11 zástupců a pražský bar U Hrocha pronikl až do první desítky.

The Highland Laddie, Leeds 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The immortal words of the resigned previous owner "No-one will make it work" spring to mind whenever I visit. The pub, that had been a depressing Sky Sports and Carling operation (despite great raw materials) then shut for several years.

Bravery and imagination is what makes music in life.

It was brave to create a foodie, beer specialist pub in an area of Leeds written off as half council housing and half student flats. Not "the right" area, supposedly.

It was imaginative to transform the pub into an arch traditional city tavern with heavy curtains, wet gloss ceiling, leather banquettes, candlelight and leaded windows.

As I sip this collab between Kirkstall and Black Lodge, a beautiful cask conditioned bitter with undercurrents of lush bramble and forest fruit staying entirely in their lane, I am surrounded by the realisation of ambition: bravery and imagination. No wonder this pub won the Best Food Pub in England last year, within 12 months of opening.

Businesses like this are heartening because they show that even with the supposed odds stacked against them, with courage aligned with ex*****on, it can be done.

A new housing development across Kirkstall Road should increase custom further 🍻👍

Danke schön Travelbook .de 🇩🇪 for covering our Top 100 Bars in Europe 2026! 🍻✨

Auch eine deutsche dabei: Die besten Bars in Europa - TRAVELBOOK Für das neue Ranking der Top 100 besten Bars Europas zählen Atmosphäre, Tradition und authentische Barkultur. TRAVELBOOK zeigt die 10 Sieger.