All destinations.

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

Bulgaria

A river winding through forested gorges of the central Rhodopes

Yuzhen tsentralen (South Central) · Bulgaria

Rhodope Mountains (Central Rhodopes)

Bulgaria's green mountain south: Pomak villages, the bagpipe heartland of Shiroka Laka, the Trigrad gorge where myth sends Orpheus into the underworld.

Mountain Villages Without Cars Sacred Landscapes

Czechia

Liberecký kraj (North Bohemia) · Czechia

Nový Bor

Two Bohemian glass towns still at work: furnaces you can stand over, Europe's oldest glass schools, and a basalt organ with no queue.

Craft Villages Post-Industrial Heritage

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.

Germany

Brandenburg (Lower Lusatia) · Germany

A wooden barge moored on a reed-lined canal in the Spreewald

2.5 / 10

Spreewald

A UNESCO water-forest an hour from Berlin, where Sorbian villages are reached by punt through a maze of 200 canals and a gherkin built the regional cuisine.

Border Country Slow Food Trails

Greece

Transhumance Routes Border Country

2.2 / 10

Epirus (Pindos) · Greece

Metsovo

A Vlach town at 1,150 m in the Pindos: flocks still move with the seasons, Aromanian is spoken on the square, and the town dairy smokes its own PDO cheese.

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

Italy

2 destinations →

Castel Savoia in winter at Gressoney-Saint-Jean, Aosta Valley

3.0 / 10

Valle d'Aosta · Italy

Gressoney and the Walser Lys Valley

The upper Lys Valley, where a medieval German-speaking people settled under Monte Rosa and still speak their own alpine tongue.

Mountain Villages Without Cars Border Country

3.0 / 10

Friuli-Venezia Giulia · Italy

Sappada / Plodn

A German-speaking Dolomite village of fifteen hamlets, where the Piave river is born and the Carnival masks have been carved from the same wood for centuries.

Mountain Villages Without Cars Border Country

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

Poland

2 destinations →

The town centre of Kartuzy in the Kashubian Lake District, Pomerania

Pomerania (Pomorskie) · Poland

Kashubia (Kaszuby)

A living language island in the Pomeranian lake hills, where Kashubian is Poland's only recognised regional language and the lakes are called Switzerland.

Border Country Craft Villages

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

Slovenia