Bordeaux

They called it la belle endormie – the sleeping beauty – and for most of the twentieth century it was not a flattering comparison. The quays along the Garonne that had once welcomed merchant ships from across the Atlantic stood neglected, the city's neoclassical facades slowly greying behind decades of indifference.

That changed in the early 2000s. Trams replaced car parks, the riverfront promenade was reborn, and UNESCO added the historic centre – 317 listed buildings – to its World Heritage list. The TGV brought Paris within two hours. Bordeaux woke up.

The city that emerged is quietly confident, and it has wines to prove the point. VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours go deeper: the Golden Triangle's streets named for Enlightenment philosophers, a wine shop whose 20,000 bottles climb a 12-metre spiral staircase, the canelé – Bordeaux's custardy rum cake – whose recipe survived a revolution in a convent's keeping. Or simply stop at the coffee roaster on Rue de la Vieille Tour and let the afternoon unravel from there.

Earbuds in. La belle endormie has things to tell you.