Estoril

Estoril's casino carries the most unusual wartime history in this entire atlas: neutral Portugal's coastline became a crowded waiting room for exiled European royalty and intelligence operatives from both sides during the Second World War, and the casino was their evening meeting ground. Ian Fleming's own time working nearby for British naval intelligence, and a reported evening at these tables against a Yugoslav double agent, is widely cited as part of the origin of Casino Royale.

Today's building, a 1960s modernist reconstruction set behind formal gardens, is one of the largest casinos in Europe by floor area, and the wider Estoril and Cascais coastline retains a genteel, slightly faded resort-town glamour quite distinct from the Riviera's more overt luxury.