All destinations.

A village and chapel above steep hay meadows in the Lesachtal

Kärnten (Carinthia) · Austria

Lesachtal

One of the Alps' most unspoilt valleys: mountain farms, a UNESCO bread-making tradition, water mills and a pilgrimage basilica, with no through-traffic.

Mountain Villages Without Cars Slow Food Trails

Denmark

Sjælland (Zealand) · Denmark

The white chalk cliffs of Møns Klint above turquoise water

2.5 / 10

Møn

Denmark's chalk-cliff island: Møns Klint blazing white above turquoise sea, Scandinavia's first Dark Sky Park, and medieval frescoes in village churches.

The Forgotten Coasts The Small Islands

Estonia

Border Country Craft Villages

South Estonia · Estonia

Setomaa

Estonia's Seto borderland in the far southeast: leelo polyphony and smoke saunas in a folk-Orthodox homeland the frontier cut in two.

Finland

Border Country Slow Food Trails

Kainuu · Finland

Kuhmo and the Wild Taiga

Finland's eastern border taiga, where the Kalevala was gathered: brown bears, runo-song heritage and a world-class chamber music festival in the deep forest.

France

An old stone arch bridge over the river near Florac in the Cévennes

Lozère · Languedoc-Roussillon · France

Florac and the Cévennes

Capital village of the Cévennes National Park. Stevenson and his donkey came through in 1878, and the chestnut forests are still here.

Mountain Villages Without Cars Slow Food Trails

Hungary

Nyugat-Dunántúl (Western Transdanubia) · Hungary

Őrség

Hungary's far-western "guard" country: dispersed hilltop hamlets, a living pottery tradition, pumpkin-seed oil, and a medieval church full of frescoes.

Border Country Craft Villages

Ireland

The Forgotten Coasts Silence

Atlantic coastline of the Sheep's Head peninsula on the Wild Atlantic Way, West Cork

1.8 / 10

West Cork · Ireland

Sheep's Head

A walking peninsula in West Cork: 88 km of waymarked old farm tracks between Bantry Bay and Dunmanus Bay, one farmhouse cheese, three villages.

Italy

Train-Only Europe Silence

The village of Aliano at sundown, perched above the clay gullies of Basilicata

2.0 / 10

Basilicata · Italy

Aliano

The village on the edge of the lunar calanchi where Carlo Levi served his exile, and where he chose to be buried.

Lithuania

Winter view from above of Trakiškiai village and the Ūla river, Dzūkija National Park

Dainava / Alytus County · Lithuania

Dzūkija (Marcinkonys & Zervynos)

Lithuania's great southern pine forest: ethnographic villages, a foraging culture built on mushrooms and honey, and a branch-line train to the Belarus border.

Slow Food Trails Train-Only Europe

Norway

Nordland / Nord-Norge · Norway

Helgeland Coast

Norway's quiet coast below the Arctic Circle: the Seven Sisters peaks, the holed mountain of Torghatten, and the UNESCO eider-down islands of Vega.

The Forgotten Coasts The Small Islands

Poland

2 destinations →

The historic wooden Orthodox tserkva among green trees at Bartne, Low Beskids

Małopolskie + Podkarpackie · Lesser Poland · Poland

Beskid Niski (Low Beskids)

The emptiest range in the Polish Carpathians: Lemko ghost villages and UNESCO wooden churches in the absence that 1947 left behind.

Mountain Villages Without Cars Border Country

The church of St Alexander in Suwałki, Poland

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

Portugal

Baixo Alentejo · Alentejo · Portugal

Mértola

A fortified spur where the Guadiana meets the Oeiras: Portugal's richest window onto Al-Andalus, with the country's only surviving medieval mosque.

Sacred Landscapes Post-Industrial Heritage

Slovenia