While you can celebrate love anywhere in the world (especially if you are with your loved one!), there are some places that just exude LOVE. It might be a romantic setting, a historical setting that exemplifies love, or a location that changed the way we think about romantic love.

Juliet’s Balcony, Verona. Wikimedia Commons: Vivaverdi, adapted by Wandering Educators

Here are 9 great places to celebrate love...

1. India

You’ve got the Taj Mahal, the most enduring monument to love in the world. Shah Jahan built it for his beloved wife between 1631-1648. Now, millions have visited this beautiful location in Agra, India to marvel at love, craftsmanship, and history. Other monuments to love in India include the cities of Hyderabad and Jaisalmer. Don’t forget the Mughal Gardens in Kashmir, created by Shah Jahan’s father because he loved the area so much.

Taj Mahal in the morning mist. Wikimedia Commons: pnglife

2. Israel

One of the most famous gardens for wedding photography is the El Mona Gardens, Julis, Western Galilee. It is a privately owned garden where you can find a waterfall, trees, sculptures, flowers, and artwork. The garden is also a memorial to family members have passed. This is a special garden where memories are honored, held close – and made anew.

Entrance to El Mona Gardens. Wikimedia Commons: אבישי טייכר

3.  Egypt

One of the most famous monuments to love from ancient Egypt are the temples at Abu Simbel. Built by Pharaoh Ramesses II (1301-1213), the larger temple of Ramesses II and the smaller temple to his queen, the Temple of Nefertari, both show colossal sculptures of the two of them. The temples were carved out of rock – and MOVED! – in the 1960s, to make way for Lake Nasser.  Love endures.

Temples of Ramesses II and Nefertari at Abu Simbel. Photo Wikimedia Commons: Than217

4. Verona, Italy

Where else, but the location of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet? Today, visitors flock to Casa di Giulietta (the House of Juliet). While the location is full of love (that balcony, swoon!), one hopes that travelers don’t literally follow along in Romeo and Juliet’s footsteps, all the way to the crypt.

Romeo and Juliet, 1884, by artist Frank Dicksee.  Wikimedia Commons

5.    Teruel, Aragon, Spain

The story The Lovers of Teruel is based on actual events from 1217, when Diego and Isabel were in love and forbidden to marry. Diego left to earn a fortune, and she waited 5 long years for him. When she had given up hope that he would return on the appointed day, her father had married her to someone else. That moment, Diego showed up at the gate, not having counted the exact days to reunite. He begged her for a kiss, she said no (so sad!), and he expired on the spot. When she buried him the next day, she expired, too. In death, the citizens of the town were inspired by their love and had them buried side by side. Today, you can see their tombs, the Tombs of the Lovers of Teruel, sculpted by Juan de Avalos. Their hands almost touch! 

Tombs of the Lovers of Teruel, sculpted by Juan de Avalos. Wikimedia Commons: Montrealais

6.    Durban, South Africa

Want a romantic castle (it is for sale!)? Stratford Castle, in Camelot, South Africa, was built with love in mind. On the cornerstone of the North wing is engraved with Sir Walter Raleigh’s immortal words: “But true love is a durable fire, In the mind ever burning; Never sick, never old, never dead; From itself never turning.” The entire estate (including a golf course) radiates love and care.

7.    Canterbury, England

This is the site, of course, of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In the 699 line poem, The Parlement of Foules, is the first reference to linking Valentine’s Day and a special day to celebrate lovers. The poem is thought to celebrate the marriage of Anne of Bohemia and Richard II (1382), and talks about courtly love. 

West Gate, Canterbury, England. Wikimedia Commons: Snapshots of the Past

8.    Leeds Castle, Kent, England

Richard II makes another appearance here. Originally this castle was built for fortification, but it gradually turned into a place of love and respite, both for Edward I and his wife Eleanor, and Richard II and his wife Anne (as well as for Edward II and Isabella of France, Edward III and Margaret of France, Henry V and Catherine de Valois, and Henry VII and Catherine of Aragon). The castle was written about in Froissart’s Chronicles as a place of love. 

Leeds Castle in the mist. Wikimedia Commons: Ian Wilson

9.    Paris!

Paris is known as the City of Love for two reasons – being the location of the language of love (French), and the site of the most romantic place on earth. Why is Paris so romantic? Maybe the beautiful lights of the Eiffel Tower, walking hand in hand along the Seine, incredible food, and the romance in the air. 

Paris. Photo: Wikimedia Commons: Frank Kovalchek

Do you have any to add? What are the most romantic places in the world to you?