Norcia, Italy Kardamili, Greece Arild, Sweden Koguva, Estonia 12 SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: UNDISCOVERED GEMS Terschelling, The Netherlands Slavonice, Czech Republic Getaria, Spain Aberdour, Scotland
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Lavenham, England Viscri, Romania Giornico, Switzerland Montenegro: Kotor } Norcia, Italy In this eastern Umbrian citadel, artisanal culinary traditions endure. Pecorino cheese is aged for two years, trained dogs sniff out black truffles in the woodlands, and honey is sourced from the red wildflowers that bloom in the plains. But it’s thecinghiale that takes pride of place. Throughout the centro storico, the scent of spiced wild-boar salumi carries from the norcineria (delis) into the traffic-free roads. Step past the prosciutti hanging in storefronts to find shopkeepers curing cuts of the pork with methods perfected over the past 800 years. Ask them to slice up fresh ciauscoli, and bring it to the Piazza San Benedetto, where villagers celebrate the Festival of Saint Benedict in the spring.
How to Get There: Norcia is 69 miles northeast of Rome.
Where to Stay: The 24-room Palazzo Seneca, set in a 16th-century palace.
Where to Eat: Il Granaro del Monte, for plates of black-truffle strangozzi pasta.
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS Kardamili, Greece If you’ve heard murmurs that the jagged mountains and white-sand beaches of the Mani region are worth the trip from Athens, you’re not alone. Insiders head there for a traditional experience: authentic Greek salads and moussaka at Lela’s Taverna before spending the evening at the Elies Hotel’s outdoor patio, which overlooks the Gulf of Messenia. About three hours away on the Ionian Sea is the 765-room Costa Navarino resort with an observatory and tourism office dedicated to sustaining the village’s community and seafront.
How to Get There: Fly to Athens, then drive three hours south through the Peloponnese to the Mani.
Where to Stay: Elies Hotel has 10 rooms and maisonettes set within olive groves. On the hillside, Notos Hotel has 14 simple apartments with views of Ritsa Beach.
Where to Eat: Lela’s Taverna for Greek home-cooking.
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS Arild, Sweden Though there’s plenty of natural beauty in Arild, a fishing village on a peninsula in southwest Sweden, the town’s most notable site is actually man-made. In 1980 the artist Lars Vilks began nailing together driftwood and lumber in a cove at the bottom of a hillside; he even declared the place an independent country called Ladonia. After police tried to dismantle the work, artists Christo and Joseph Beuys stepped in to protect the installation. Today the public art exhibit, officially christened Nimis, is the Scandinavian version of Los Angeles’s Watts Towers. The maze of 300-foot aboveground tunnels and 45-foot-high climbing towers feels like an alternate — albeit somewhat unsturdy — universe for intrepid explorers.
How to Get There: The trip is a two-hour drive plus a ferry ride from Copenhagen.
Where to Stay and Eat: The 17th-century Hotel Rusthållargården has a restaurant that serves egg cake with lingonberries.
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS Koguva, Estonia In this Estonian island hamlet — once a Swedish feudal territory — the local trades of fishing and shepherding have left the surrounding wilds untouched by large-scale agricultural development. Visitors can still catch glimpses of wild goats, fox, deer, moose, and — in spring — migrating swans; or head to the 60-foot Üügu Cliff to ogle over 20 species of orchids.
How to Get There: Ferries depart on the hour from Virtsu for Kuivastu, on Muhu Island.
Where to Stay and Eat: The 24-room Pädaste Manor has the island’s finest Nordic restaurant.
Local Take: In July, nearby Nautse village hosts a jazz festival.
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS Getaria, Spain Were it not for San Sebastián, just 15 miles away, this Basque harborside village might have become Spain’s Next Great Getaway. Instead, the port is known solely for its seafood — baby squid and turbot pulled from the Bay of Biscay and then grilled a la plancha. Prime dining is Saturday and Sunday lunch, when locals fillasadores dressed in creamy summer-weight cashmere (those in white-soled shoes arrived by boat) for that distinctly Spanish indulgence: a leisurely multicourse meal paired with bottles of white Rioja.
How to Get There: Getaria is 15 miles west from San Sebastián.
Where to Stay: Saiaz Getaria with four-poster beds and views of Gaztetape Beach.
Where to Eat: Reserve a table at Restaurante Elkano, one of the most celebrated asadores in Spain.
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS Terschelling, The Netherlands Though just 85-odd miles from Amsterdam and northeast of Vlieland (nicknamed “Vli-biza” by Amsterdammers), the 18-mile- long island Terschelling remains a haven for travelers craving tranquil stretches of sand in lieu of the thumping beach clubs on the mainland. Here, gabled 19th-century villas and clapboard houses are illuminated by the Brandaris lighthouse — the oldest surviving lighthouse in the Netherlands (built in 1594). When dusk falls, around midnight during the summer months, locals sit up late at bistros along the harbor drinking Jupiler beer and toasting their exceptionally good fortune.
How to Get There: Ferries depart daily March through November from Harlingen and Vlieland.
Where to Stay: The three-room Wellness Hotel Caracol, with slick interiors and Hästens beds, is just a block away from the harbor.
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS Aberdour, Scotland The train from Edinburgh stops at a Victorian station next to a riot of neatly planted flowers in a hidden glen in the shadow of a medieval castle. Aberdour is not car-friendly, but why should it be when anything you would want to see is in town and connected by well-kept walkways? In August, this hamlet serves as a tranquil base for visiting the Edinburgh International Festival, but for the rest of the year, it is a working village with a general store, four cozy pubs, and even a shop dedicated to Wiccan supplies, situated provocatively equidistant from the Churches of Scotland and the Scottish Episcopal Church.
How to Get There: Aberdour is 30 minutes by train from Edinburgh.
Where to Stay and Eat: The Woodside Hotel offers rooms decorated in individual tartans. The bar, whose paneling came from a 19th-century passenger ship, serves local Highland beef.
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS Slavonice, Czech Republic During 41 years of Communist rule, Slavonice, halfway between Prague and Vienna, was too close to the Iron Curtain for the government’s comfort. But since the Velvet Revolution in 1989, this off-the-radar hamlet — composed of two town squares and burgher houses painted with Renaissance-era graffiti of biblical scenes — has attracted painters and potters from Prague looking for refuge. We’re not betting that this village will become a mini Berlin, but British-born architect John Lifton’s Slavonice Institute, a center for art and progressive thought, may put the village on the art world map yet.
How to Get There: Slavonice is a two-hour drive south of Prague.
Where to Stay: Spare interiors were designed by artists at Besídka.
Where to Eat: Alfa serves goulash and dumplings in a late-Gothic building.
Local Take: Jan Bohac, owner of Besídka, recommends visiting the village’s 12th-century tunnels.
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS Giornico, Switzerland The charm of Ticino, the Italian-speaking canton of southern Switzerland, is the not-quite-here, not-quite-there, lost-in-time feel of the place. To fully appreciate it, drive north 35 miles from the popular lake resort towns of Ascona and Locarno and find the turnoff for Giornico, a stone relic of 14th-century Europe hiding off the main road. Descend into the valley and arrive at a trickling little river crossed by two arching stone bridges.
How to Get There: From the lake resorts, drive north 50 minutes on the A13 and N2.
Where to Stay: There are no hotels in Giornico, so stay in nearby Ascona at the pink Hotel Giardino.
Where to Eat: The family-run restaurants of the region are called grotte. The best, Grotto dei due Ponti, has a shaded terrace that overlooks the river and serves dishes like spezzatino (meat ragoût) with polenta and tart local Merlot.
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS Lavenham, England Lavenham, in Suffolk, may just be the prettiest town in England. It boasts more than 350 heritage houses, and its high street is lined with the kind of bric-a-brac shops and teahouses (serving scones and clotted cream) that are on the endangered list throughout rural England — and all but extinct in glossier reaches, such as the Cotswolds and West Dorset. Sarah Townsend, former owner of the superchic Palazzo Terranova, in Umbria, was so charmed by the region that she just opened a small inn in nearby Buxhall.
How to Get There: Trains depart London’s Liverpool Street Station several times daily for Stowmarket, 14 miles away. Or, get off at Colchester and take the Chambers 753 bus line into town.
Where to Stay and Eat: The contemporary Great House Hotel is in Lavenham’s town center. The Great House Restaurant, with its gastropub take on English fare, is one of Suffolk’s finest.
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS Montenegro: Kotor In the fall, a mist settles into the hills surrounding the bay of Kotor, so thick you can hardly see the blood-orange trees in front of you. That hasn’t stopped the tide of wealthy Europeans: British expats are selling real estate, Russians are buying farmhouses in the hills, and the dark-haired, green-eyed people of the black mountains (how Montenegro gets its name) have opened restaurants to introduce visitors to the tastes of Montenegrin stewed meat. Beaches are not yet overrun, but this wild side of the Dalmatian Coast won’t stay undeveloped for long.
How to Get There: Kotor is 50 miles from Podgorica, the capital.
Where to Stay: Palazzo Radomiri was built from Croatian stone.
Where to Eat: Stari Mlini, on a mountain stream.
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS Viscri, Romania This Saxon village got a lucky break when it became the beneficiary of the Mihai Eminescu Trust, a nonprofit overseen by Prince Charles that’s devoted to protecting the heritage of Transylvania’s country towns. In Viscri, that means the church and its cemetery (which dates back to the 12th century) is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Indigenous pear trees were replanted, the lone blacksmith has a new shop, and a new road along the pastel-colored brick houses and farms provides visitors — and the philanthropic elite — a glimpse into the authentic Saxon way of life.
How to Get There: Drive four hours northwest from Bucharest.
Where to Stay: Try the MET Guesthouse, with a 200-year-old Saxon bed, a cabinet with a pullout mattress. The owner will serve a home-cooked meal of m˘am˘alig˘a (cornmeal porridge).
SECRET EUROPEAN VILLAGES: 12 UNDISCOVERED GEMS