europedoor

Discovery without a map of borders

Europe, organised by what you came for.

Medieval Europe is not a country. Neither is sacred Europe, or Viking Europe, or the Europe you reach only by train. 13 of them cut across the Atlas, and each place under one of them stays linked to the country it is actually in.

Walls, guilds and the towns that stopped changing

Medieval Europe

Bruges · Siena · Tallinn · Sighișoara · York · Rhodes · Prague · Kotor

8 countries

Where people have gone on purpose for a thousand years

Sacred Europe

Santiago de Compostela · Vatican City · Canterbury · Meteora (Kalambaka) · Rila Monastery · Studenica · Glendalough · Garni & Geghard

8 countries

Ships, settlements and the places they reached

Viking Europe

Roskilde · Þingvellir · Lofoten (Svolvær) · Oslo · Bayeux & the Landing Beaches · Dublin · York · Reykjavík

6 countries

Eight ranges, one continent

Mountain Europe

Chamonix · Lauterbrunnen · Ortisei & the Dolomites · Zakopane & the Tatras · Mestia, Svaneti · Picos de Europa (Cangas de Onís) · Žabljak · Theth

8 countries

The empire, where it is still standing up

Roman Europe

Rome · Arles · Split · Selçuk & Ephesus · Bath · Plovdiv · Syracuse & Ortigia · Nicosia

7 countries

Eight regions that do not taste like each other

Wine Europe

Bordeaux · Beaune · Pinhão & the Douro valley · Tokaj · Sighnaghi & Kakheti · Mikulov · Santorini · Bacharach & the Rhine Gorge

7 countries

Journeys where the train is the destination

Rail Europe

Flåm · St. Moritz & the Engadin · Bacharach & the Rhine Gorge · Mokra Gora · Eryri / Snowdonia (Betws-y-Coed) · Pinhão & the Douro valley · Abisko · Lauterbrunnen

7 countries

Where the ferry timetable is the itinerary

Island Europe

Naxos · Vis · The Aran Islands (Inis Mór) · Texel · Islay · Victoria, Gozo · Nida, Curonian Spit · Lofoten (Svolvær)

8 countries

A thousand years, and what remains of it

Jewish Europe

Kraków · Prague · Toledo · Thessaloniki · Vilnius · Girona & the Empordà · Warsaw · Mikulov

5 countries

Where the money went

Renaissance Europe

Florence · Siena · Venice · Rome · Bologna · Amboise & the Loire châteaux · Colmar & the Alsace wine road · Antwerp

3 countries

The eighteenth-century route, still walkable

The Grand Tour

Paris · Lauterbrunnen · Milan · Venice · Florence · Rome · Naples · Athens

4 countries

Where the ground is warm

Thermal Europe

Bath · Budapest · Reykjavík · Helsinki · Bansko · Baku · Tbilisi · Höfn & Jökulsárlón

7 countries

The twentieth century, built

Modernist Europe

Rotterdam · Vienna · Utrecht · Berlin · Warsaw · Minsk · Brno · Skopje

7 countries

Each shape beside a theme is that theme’s own eight places on the continent, drawn to the same frame so the thirteen can be compared: a knot is an argument about one corner of Europe, a scatter is one about the whole of it. Drawn from Natural Earth 1:110m admin 0 countries, public domain. The places under each theme are not in travelling order, and the number beside them is how many countries the theme crosses rather than how many places it holds — every one of these holds eight. For an order that respects distance, put the ones you want into the Planner.