A good bookshop is one of the best things a city break can produce. It is slow, cheap, and almost never disappointing. Finding one takes slightly more effort than finding a coffee shop, but not much.

The Tools

AbeBooks maintains a directory of independent bookshops worldwide. It is searchable by city and is more comprehensive than most travel guides for this specific purpose. The results include both new and second-hand shops, with addresses.

The European and International Booksellers Federation also lists independent shops by country. It is less user-friendly but covers cities that AbeBooks might miss.

For English-language shops specifically, the expat community in most major European cities has done this work already. A quick search for "English bookshop [city name]" produces reliable results.

The English-Language Bookshop as Destination

Shakespeare and Company in Paris is the most famous, on the left bank facing Notre Dame. It is genuinely good, not just a tourist attraction: the stock is carefully chosen, the shop has multiple floors of useful chaos, and the events programme is serious. It gets crowded on weekend afternoons. Go on a Tuesday morning.

The English Bookshop in Rome, on Via di Ripetta, is smaller and calmer. It stocks a good selection of Italian literature in translation alongside general fiction and travel writing. A useful stop after the Piazza del Popolo.

Atlantis Books in Oia, Santorini, is a different category entirely: a cave-like shop on the caldera cliff run by a collective of booksellers who arrived on the island and never left. The stock is eclectic, the atmosphere is exceptional, and it is worth visiting even if you do not buy anything.

Second-Hand vs New

Second-hand shops in continental Europe often have English-language sections that are genuinely interesting rather than the usual discard pile. French second-hand shops in particular receive donations from the large English-speaking expat communities in Paris and Lyon. Look for the "romans anglais" section.

Bookshops with Cafes

Several European bookshops double as cafes: El Ateneo Grand Splendid in Buenos Aires is the famous case, but closer to home, Livraria Bertrand in Lisbon is a working bookshop in a building from 1732, and Libreria Acqua Alta in Venice has a cafe attachment. These are worth visiting as spaces even when you are not buying.