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
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
Ships, settlements and the places they reached
Viking Europe
Roskilde · Þingvellir · Lofoten (Svolvær) · Oslo · Bayeux & the Landing Beaches · Dublin · York · Reykjavík
Eight ranges, one continent
Mountain Europe
Chamonix · Lauterbrunnen · Ortisei & the Dolomites · Zakopane & the Tatras · Mestia, Svaneti · Picos de Europa (Cangas de Onís) · Žabljak · Theth
The empire, where it is still standing up
Roman Europe
Rome · Arles · Split · Selçuk & Ephesus · Bath · Plovdiv · Syracuse & Ortigia · Nicosia
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
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
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)
A thousand years, and what remains of it
Jewish Europe
Kraków · Prague · Toledo · Thessaloniki · Vilnius · Girona & the Empordà · Warsaw · Mikulov
Where the money went
Renaissance Europe
Florence · Siena · Venice · Rome · Bologna · Amboise & the Loire châteaux · Colmar & the Alsace wine road · Antwerp
The eighteenth-century route, still walkable
The Grand Tour
Paris · Lauterbrunnen · Milan · Venice · Florence · Rome · Naples · Athens
Where the ground is warm
Thermal Europe
Bath · Budapest · Reykjavík · Helsinki · Bansko · Baku · Tbilisi · Höfn & Jökulsárlón
The twentieth century, built
Modernist Europe
Rotterdam · Vienna · Utrecht · Berlin · Warsaw · Minsk · Brno · Skopje
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.