Orvieto cathedral rising above the town's rooftops, Umbria

Orvieto — Umbria · Italy →Photo: bluejayphoto / iStock

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All destinations.

99 places carrying our editorial line — every one of them genuinely undertouristed, every one of them with a named editor and a real local voice.

Belgium

1 destination →

1.5 / 10

Gaume (Belgian Lorraine) · Belgium

Orval and the Gaume

A Cistercian abbey in Belgium's quietest corner: medieval ruins beside a working monastery, one of eleven Trappist beers on earth, and beech forest all around.

Monastic Europe Border Country

Greece

1 destination →

The lit central bridge over the Lithaios river in Trikala at night

2.5 / 10

Thessaly · Greece

Trikala

Gateway to Meteora, birthplace of Asclepius, Greece's first "smart city": all three at once, on the rail line through Thessaly.

Train-Only Europe Mountain Villages Without Cars

Hungary

1 destination →

2.9 / 10

Győr-Moson-Sopron (Western Transdanubia) · Hungary

Pannonhalma

Benedictines have kept the hours on this hill since 996 — basilica, school, winery and lavender rows run to the same bells, and day-trippers leave by dusk.

Monastic Europe Lesser-Known Wine Regions

Poland

1 destination →

1.0 / 10

Podlasie (Podlaskie) · Poland

Suwalszczyzna

Poland's wild north-east: the deepest lake in Central Europe, a glacial landscape park and the lost Yotvingian borderland, reached by Rail Baltica.

Border Country Train-Only Europe

Romania

2 destinations →

0.7 / 10

Vâlcea (Oltenia) · Romania

Horezu

The Oltenian market town where the rooster plate is still thrown, horned and painted in family yards — with Brâncoveanu's finest monastery 3 km away.

Craft Villages Monastic Europe

A carved wooden monastery church in Maramureș, flowers in the foreground

2.0 / 10

Nord-Vest · Romania

Maramureș

Romania's living peasant north: UNESCO wooden churches, carved gates, the painted Merry Cemetery, and a forestry steam train up the Vaser valley.

Craft Villages Mountain Villages Without Cars

Slovenia

1 destination →

2.4 / 10

Savinjska · Slovenia

Podčetrtek

On the Slovenian-Croatian border: one of the country's biggest thermal spas, a medieval castle reopened in 2024, a Pauline monastery pharmacy from 1675.

Lesser-Known Wine Regions Sacred Landscapes

Spain

1 destination →

2.6 / 10

Urola–Debagoiena · Basque Country · Spain

Tierra Ignaciana

Ignatius's birthplace and the starting line of the 650 km Camino Ignaciano, in the Basque hills around the Jesuit-Baroque Sanctuary of Loyola.

Monastic Europe Sacred Landscapes