The European year
September in Europe
16 recurring fixtures, 32 countries at their best and 15 in the quieter shoulder — which is usually where you should be going.
On in September
Meritxell Day, the national holiday
Meritxell
Limassol wine festival
Limassol
Wine harvest festivals in Moravia
Mikulov, Znojmo
Ruska, the Lapland autumn colour
Lapland
Les Vendanges — the wine harvest
Every wine region
Rtveli, the grape harvest
Kakheti
Oktoberfest — which starts in September
Munich
Réttir — the autumn sheep round-up, done on horseback
Rural valleys
Alpine cattle descent
Malbun and Steg
Moselle wine harvest festivals
The Moselle valley
Harvest festivals in the villages
Codru and Ștefan Vodă
Douro grape harvest
The Douro valley
George Enescu Festival, odd-numbered years
Bucharest
Bratislava Coronation festivities
Bratislava
La Mercè
Barcelona
Alpabzug — cattle descending in flowers
Alpine valleys
At their best in September
Peak season: the weather works, everything is open, and so is everyone else's calendar.
Albania
Closed to the world until 1991, and now the least developed and least expensive coast on the Mediterranean.
Armenia
The first state to adopt Christianity, in 301, with monasteries in gorges and a mountain it can see but not reach.
Azerbaijan
Fire that comes out of the ground, a walled medieval city, and oil money spent on architecture.
Belgium
Three languages, six governments, the best beer in the world and a genuine talent for not explaining itself.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Where the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian worlds meet in one street, and the 1990s are still within touching distance.
Bulgaria
Thracian gold, Orthodox monasteries, rose fields and the cheapest good skiing in Europe.
Croatia
A thousand islands, a Roman emperor's palace still lived in, and lakes that fall into each other.
Cyprus
The last divided capital in Europe, on an island of Byzantine churches and mountain wine.
Czechia
The most beautiful city in central Europe, and a country that drinks more beer per head than any other.
France
The most visited country on earth, and still mostly empty fifty kilometres from anywhere famous.
Georgia
Eight thousand years of winemaking, its own alphabet, and mountains higher than the Alps.
Germany
Sixteen states that were separate countries within living memory, and still behave like it.
Greece
Six thousand islands, of which two hundred and twenty-seven are inhabited, and a mainland almost nobody visits.
Hungary
A thermal-water capital on the Danube, a language related to almost nothing, and sweet wine that outlived empires.
Italy
A country invented in 1861 out of places that still think of themselves first.
Kosovo
Europe's youngest country by both age and population, with medieval monasteries and a mountain trail into two neighbours.
Liechtenstein
Twenty-five kilometres long, ruled from a castle on the hill, and walkable end to end in a day.
Luxembourg
A fortress city on a gorge, a wine river, and free public transport across the whole country.
Malta
Three inhabited islands of limestone, holding temples older than the pyramids and a city built by knights.
Moldova
The world's largest wine cellar, measured in kilometres, under one of Europe's least visited countries.
Monaco
Two square kilometres of rock, casino and Grand Prix circuit, wedged between France and the sea.
Montenegro
A drowned river canyon that looks like a fjord, with black mountains straight up behind it.
North Macedonia
One of the oldest lakes on earth, a bazaar that never stopped trading, and a capital that rebuilt itself in marble.
Portugal
Europe's western edge, facing an ocean it once mapped, with the oldest fixed borders on the continent.
Romania
Saxon fortified churches, painted monasteries, and the largest population of brown bears in Europe.
San Marino
The world's oldest surviving republic, on a limestone crag with three towers on the ridge.
Serbia
A confluence capital with the best nightlife in the Balkans, and monasteries frescoed eight hundred years ago.
Slovakia
The smallest high mountains in Europe, more castles per head than anywhere, and hardly anyone looking.
Slovenia
Alps, karst caves, vineyards and 46 kilometres of coast, all within two hours of each other.
Spain
Several countries wearing one flag, with the second-highest average altitude in Europe.
Türkiye
A city on two continents, and a Mediterranean coast with more classical ruins than Greece.
Vatican City
The smallest state in the world, at 0.49 square kilometres, and one of its largest art collections.
Quieter, and often better, in September
Shoulder season. The Journey Planner scores these upward rather than downward for exactly this month.
Andorra
A Pyrenean co-principality with two heads of state, no airport, and the highest capital in Europe.
Austria
An imperial capital with a small country attached, most of it vertical.
Denmark
Small, flat, bicycled, and disproportionately good at deciding how things should look.
Estonia
A medieval hanseatic capital run by the most digital state in Europe.
Finland
Forest, lake, sauna, silence — and a design tradition that came out of all four.
Iceland
A geological work in progress, with a literary tradition older than most European states.
Ireland
A small wet island that exported its writers, its music and a third of its people, and kept the landscape.
Latvia
The largest collection of Art Nouveau in Europe, on the edge of a great pine forest.
Lithuania
A baroque capital, a sand spit shared with Russia, and a hill of a hundred thousand crosses.
Netherlands
A country built on purpose, mostly below sea level, and cycled end to end.
Norway
A country shaped by water that had somewhere to be.
Poland
A country that was erased from the map for 123 years and rebuilt its capital from paintings.
Sweden
An archipelago capital, a thousand miles of forest, and a country that would rather you were comfortable than impressed.
Switzerland
The most expensive country in Europe and the one that most reliably justifies it.
United Kingdom
Four nations, one small island group, and an argument about all of it that has run for a thousand years.
Where we would actually send you
Quiet places in countries that are in shoulder season this month — the intersection of the two things that matter. The drawing is where those six are, on one frame. Drawn from Natural Earth 1:110m admin 0 countries, public domain.
Madriu-Perafita-Claror
A glacial valley with no road into it, on the UNESCO list for a cultural landscape of summer pasture and stone huts.
Dürnstein & the Wachau
A blue baroque tower over the Danube, terraced vineyards behind, and the castle where Richard the Lionheart was held.
Belovezhskaya Pushcha
The Belarusian half of Europe's last primeval lowland forest, with bison and trees that have never been cut.
Roskilde
Viking ships raised from the fjord, thirty-nine Danish monarchs in one cathedral, and a festival in a field.
Skagen
The country's northern tip, where two seas meet visibly and a school of painters came for the light.
Kuressaare, Saaremaa
An island town around a moated bishop's castle, on Estonia's largest and slowest island.