There’s something magical about walking through a village where every building seems dipped in sorbet colors. These places feel like stepping into a watercolor painting, where soft pinks, mint greens, and buttery yellows create streetscapes that make your camera work overtime.
From remote fishing villages to tourist favorites, these communities have embraced pastel palettes as their signature look, turning entire neighborhoods into real-life candy lands. Here is a list of 20 villages worldwide where pastel homes create unforgettable landscapes that draw visitors from across the globe.
Burano, Italy
This tiny island near Venice looks like someone scattered rainbow sherbet across a lagoon. Fishermen originally painted their homes in bright colors to spot them through thick fog, and today’s residents keep the tradition alive with strict color codes for each house.
The local government even requires homeowners to submit applications before repainting, ensuring the island maintains its famous kaleidoscope effect.
Portmeirion, Wales
Architect Clough Williams-Ellis spent 50 years building this Italian-style village on the Welsh coast, painting each building in dreamy pastels. The village served as the backdrop for the 1960s TV show ‘The Prisoner’ and continues to attract architecture buffs who marvel at its Mediterranean vibe in rainy Wales.
Every structure follows Williams-Ellis’s vision of creating a place that proves beauty and development can coexist harmoniously.
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Júzcar, Spain
This Andalusian village was transformed from traditional white to Smurf blue 2011 for a movie promotion, and then decided to stay that way. While technically monochrome rather than multi-pastel, the soft blue creates such a striking effect that locals voted to keep it despite Sony’s paint-over offer.
The blue buildings now attract 80,000 tourists annually to a village of just 250 residents.
Punda, Curaçao
The waterfront district of Willemstad features Dutch colonial architecture painted in tropical pastels that reflect in the harbor. Legend says a governor ordered the white buildings painted because the glare gave him migraines, though historians suspect merchants just wanted their shops to stand out.
Today, the UNESCO World Heritage site maintains its candy-colored facade through strict preservation laws.
Manarola, Italy
This Cinque Terre village tumbles down cliffsides in layers of peach, pink, and lemon-colored houses. The pastel palette helps fishermen identify their homes from the sea, while narrow alleyways between buildings create a vertical maze of soft colors.
Unlike some tourist destinations, Manarola remains a working fishing village where locals hang laundry between pastel walls.
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Bo-Kaap, Cape Town
This historic Muslim quarter explodes with color on Cape Town’s slopes. Former slave quarters became symbols of freedom through bright paint. Residents began painting their homes in vivid pastels after apartheid ended, celebrating their cultural identity and property ownership.
The cobblestone streets now showcase every shade imaginable, from mint green to flamingo pink.
Tobermory, Scotland
The main street of this harbor town on the Isle of Mull features a row of pastel buildings that mirror in the bay. Originally painted to help sailors identify specific businesses from the water, the colorful facades now star in countless whisky advertisements and postcards.
The town served as the model for the fictional village of Balamory in the children’s TV series of the same name.
Guatapé, Colombia
Every building in this lakeside town features intricate baseboards called ‘zócalos’ painted in contrasting pastels. The tradition started in the early 1900s when residents began decorating their homes with colorful geometric patterns and images depicting local life.
The town square alone contains over 100 uniquely decorated facades, creating an outdoor gallery of folk art.
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Colmar, France
This Alsatian town’s medieval half-timbered houses sport soft pastels that reflect in multiple canals. The ‘Little Venice’ district particularly showcases the pastel palette, where buildings lean over waterways like elderly couples sharing secrets.
Wine merchants originally chose the colors to distinguish their shops, creating a tradition that survives to this day.
Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia
This cliffside village maintains a strict blue-and-white color scheme that feels like Greece relocated to North Africa. Every door, window frame, and architectural detail follows the pastel blue tradition established by French artist Baron Rodolphe d’Erlanger in the early 1900s.
The consistency creates a serene atmosphere that inspired artists like Paul Klee and August Macke.
Procida, Italy
This tiny island near Naples predates its famous neighbors, Capri and Ischia, as a pastel paradise. Fishermen’s houses cascade down to Marina Corricella in shades of pink, yellow, and peach, creating Italy’s most photographed harbor.
The island’s resistance to large-scale tourism helps preserve its authentic character and color scheme.
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Paraty, Brazil
This colonial port town preserves its 18th-century architecture with strictly regulated pastel facades. The historic center floods during high tide, creating mirror effects that double the visual impact of its colorful buildings.
Cars are banned from the cobblestone streets, allowing visitors to wander freely among the candy-colored houses and churches.
Hallstatt, Austria
While famous for its Alpine setting, this lakeside village also charms visitors with its pastel house facades. The soft colors complement the dramatic mountain backdrop, creating a scene that feels pulled from a fairy tale.
Chinese developers loved it so much they built a replica in Guangdong Province, complete with matching pastel paint schemes.
Klima, Greece
This tiny Milos island village features traditional boat garages painted in bright pastels and matching colored doors. The ‘syrmata’ buildings served dual purposes: boat storage below and fishermen’s quarters above, with each family choosing distinct colors.
The result looks like a row of beach huts designed by a cheerful architect.
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Menton, France
Along the Italian border, this Riviera town shines with sunny pastel colors reminiscent of its citrus roots. The buildings of the old town wear shades of lemon yellow, orange, and pink that reflect the colors of the fruits grown in the locality.
Even the Belle Époque villas adhere to the pastel theme, keeping the colors uniform from the harbor to the hills.
Gamla Stan, Stockholm
Stockholm’s old town illuminates Nordic winters with buildings in bright pastel colors. Medieval buildings wear ochre, terracotta, and dusty pink tones that contrast with Sweden’s drab skies.
The Nobel Museum and adjacent squares demonstrate how even centuries-old buildings can welcome color without sacrificing dignity.
Vernazza, Italy
Another Cinque Terre jewel, Vernazza, lays out its pastel-colored houses in a carefully constructed artist’s palette. The tiny harbor forms a natural amphitheater in which pink, green, and yellow buildings form the background.
The village church stands out in white, as a visual anchor for the rainbow of homes surrounding it.
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Nyhavn, Copenhagen
This 17th-century waterfront district lines both sides of a canal with colorful townhouses where Hans Christian Andersen once lived. The buildings’ bright facades reflect the Danish tradition of fighting winter darkness with cheerful colors.
Restaurants and cafés now occupy most ground floors, but residents still maintain the upper floors and their historic paint schemes.
Jaipur’s Old City, India
The ‘Pink City’ earned its nickname when Maharaja Ram Singh painted the entire old quarter pink to welcome Prince Albert in 1876. Today, the terracotta-pink buildings create a unified cityscape unique to Indian municipalities.
Local law requires all buildings within the old city walls to maintain the signature color, preserving the royal gesture for future generations.
Cudillero, Spain
This Asturian fishing village aligns its houses in a natural amphitheater toward the sea, each painted in various pastels. The hillsides are steep, so each row of houses overlooks the roofs below, a tiered display of color.
Local fishermen use the harbor daily, keeping the village’s working nature despite its postcard looks.
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Where Paintbrushes Write History
These villages in pastels remind us that color selections recount stories of culture, tradition, and human ingenuity. From Italian sailors sailing through mist to South Africans marking freedom, each dash of pastel paint is imbued with meaning beyond aesthetics.
As cities become more enamored with neutral palettes and glass buildings, these neighborhoods remain happy outcasts, demonstrating that whole neighborhoods can be practical and magical if their inhabitants are willing to dream in pink, blue, or yellow.
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