We live in stormy times but sometimes a crisis is a good opportunity to change tack and set a new course. How about Zürich, Hamburg or Fukuoka? The captain of our ship weighs up the possibilities.

We take a good swig of Vienna’s wonderful water and find out why ditching the car has turned our writer into a joyrider. But first: Vancouver’s mini libraries, Latin American litter pickers and Berlin’s barbecues.

A cable-car service has been brought back to life in Sarajevo. We hitch a ride in a city on the up.

With World Cup fever sweeping Midori House, we’ve put together a squad of marauding mayoral superstars willing to put in 110 per cent. Ultimately goals win games and, from improving public transport to (two-footed) tackling racism, our team has no shortage of top scorers.

Proving ballet isn’t just for the young, a troupe of Auckland women in their sixties and beyond is dancing to keep fit and happy.

Venice’s emergency services – from police on patrol to doctors on call – all rely on one thing: a very fast boat.

We meet the wise man who returned from exile to build a welcoming beach club.

Finland’s ambassador to Poland can take the heat, whether relaxing in her sauna or building relations with regional leaders.

You want a city that’s well run, delivers on life’s essentials and is fun too? This is our ranking of the top 25 in the world.

Urban transformation often begins on a local scale, as these inspiring initiatives prove

Moscow has been undergoing a massive programme of urban renewal but this scheme to make the city more liveable isn’t without its costs.

Be it Brazil or Beirut, effective urban regeneration needs ideas from residents who understand their city’s problems and potential. Here’s a global line-up of innovative citizen initiatives.

Few have strong opinions about ‘street furniture’ – the chairs, bins and bike-parking facilities that are tucked into our urban environment – yet its design has a profound effect on how we perceive our surroundings. We meet the city mood enhancers.

With millions of listeners tuning in, the early-morning current-affairs slot is a competitive one in French radio. We hear what stations are doing to make their show stand out and set the nation up for the rest of the day.

With its bustling gallery scene and artist-friendly lifestyle, Cape Town is the epicentre of new South African art.

City dwellers are turning to the pleasures of the natural world as an antidote to urban stress. We uncover the green shoots of renewal in Paris, Munich and Beirut.

Summoned by the sun, students and suits alike flock to the Bains des Pâquis – and the baths’ custodians want to ensure that the water remains inviting all year round.

We’ve all heard tell of Basque cuisine but what about the growers, producers and chefs plying their trade in neighbouring regions? We take a roadtrip to find out.

A new venture in London has gone back to basics: launch a market, fill it with tasty food purveyors and watch as hungry customers get in line.

Escaping the bustle of Paris, a handful of designers and makers are setting up shop in Arles, reviving this quiet Provençal city’s fabled fashion traditions.

In the rough and tumble of Japan’s wash-and-go laundry market, we visit a drycleaner that values service over speed (your shirt will be back in three weeks).

Kavala doesn’t look like many other cities. The harbourside community of just over 50,000 in northern Greece has stayed small thanks to its compact geography. Once home to the Romans and later the Ottomans, today it’s an experiment in reviving urban life led by a crop of homegrown hospitality entrepreneurs.

Get lost among the sheets of foam, coloured pencils and felt-tip pens at this Kreuzberg stationary empire.

Greece’s smart city, Poland’s left-wing mayor (and potential future president) and Lisbon’s street art.

A school of cities in Toronto, São Paulo tries to do dockless bikes right and can a park in South Carolina bridge racial divides?

Vietnam’s battle for the best city transport system, a neighbourhood makeover in Seoul and Shanghai’s riverside gets a spruce-up.

Morocco injects funds into its cities’ medinas, Beirut gets some much-needed public space and Kigali’s transformation into a university town.

The future of libraries, a canny way to navigate busy streets and the Taipei thoroughfare that's turned an entire district around.

We help Sydney improve the quality of after-life, meet the Vietnamese designers looking to the past for new solutions and venture into the dapper new showroom of an Italian design giant.

Food finds from Atlanta and Amsterdam, plus how to make a crab and quail egg salad.

A new shop in Monaco and a countdown of the best sunglasses to pick up this summer.

From a manor next to Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia plantation to an off-grid pad out in the Swedish stix, here’s our round-up of new openings and places that have made their way onto our discerning hospitality radar.

Folksy plates, charming ceramics and the sharpest of knives, plus a rooftop escape, the best in books and the tastiest tipples for your drinks cabinet.

The betc founder has never read a management book – and probably never will. Yet over the past 24 years his trusting and laidback approach has helped build an advertising giant that is not only rewriting the business rulebook but the book on Paris’s future too.

Relocating its headquarters, London-based fashion label Cos adapted a historic building to suit its business needs.

How a wayward woodsman became a titan of the Italian wine industry.

The co-operative apartment block in Valencia that’s a brutalist triumph, casting a spiritual spell on its devoted residents.

A sedate Stein (or six) at a beer garden, in the shade of horse-chestnut trees, is a Bavarian pastime going back centuries. So integral is the custom, any whiff of interference rouses the usually peaceful beer-lovers to fight for their right to party. Monocle gets in a round and soaks in the rituals of these particularly traditional punters.

No menswear item is more divisive than a pair of speedos. And opinions on ‘banana hammocks’ are informed by national psyche. We reveal all.

Prevailing trends may come and go but some items and looks remain fundamental to any well-dressed wardrobe. Here we celebrate those practical, long-lasting and mood-enhancing clothes and accessories.

Where to sleep, eat and shop this month.