Top 10 Things to Do in Europe

Europe's ancient sites thrust you into 5,000 years of history, with weathered ruins and preserved artifacts that awaken a sense of the past. From cool, shadowed caves adorned with prehistoric art to sun-drenched classical ruins and mist-shrouded Celtic fortresses, the continent's timeworn landscapes teem with sensory details that fuel the imagination.

• Urban layers: Walk through cities where ancient foundations, medieval streets, and modern architecture mingle in a captivating fusion of textures and hues.
• Immersive guides: Join experts who breathe life into silent ruins and weave tales that populate archaeological parks with long-ago voices.
• Hushed discoveries: Seek out lesser-known sites where the tread of your footsteps and the rasp of ancient stone summon a powerful, personal connection to the past.
• Epochal encounters: Delight in sensory contrasts between rough-hewn prehistoric relics, imperial Roman grandeur, and the flickering aura of medieval church candles.
• Time-steeped visits: Savor the interplay of light and shadow, the shift in atmosphere and energy as you explore ancient sites in early-morning quiet or late-afternoon glow.

Best Places for Ancient History

• Greece
• Italy
• England
• Norway
• Turkey
• Spain

For more inspiration, take a look at our customizable Luxury European Escapade.

Food tours across Europe highlight how landscape, tradition, and ingenuity shape richly varied cuisines, sometimes within just a few miles. Heritage recipes and innovative approaches entwine as countries embrace their gastronomic roots with all senses engaged. Wandering fragrant markets, family-run eateries, and visionary restaurants grants an intimate view of local culture and zest for life.

• Market mornings: Awaken to color, aroma, and texture as you explore stalls brimming with dewy produce, floral honey, artisan cheeses, and crusty breads.
• Street food symphony: Let your nose guide you to vendors dishing up sizzling, spice-dusted, piping hot snacks that tempt locals from dawn to dusk.
• Regional variations: Notice how mealtimes, ingredient rituals, and service styles change from one country or city district to the next, revealing culinary customs.
• Terroir on the table: Sample how unique landscapes like briny coves, sunbaked plains, and misty mountains shape the flavors on your plate.
• Heritage and invention: Trace the threads between traditional dishes and creative interpretations that weave past and future into a new culinary story.

Best Places for Food

• Italy
• France
• Spain
• Germany
• Denmark

Our Wine Delights Tour of Spain and Portugal has more information to tempt your taste buds.

Castles and palaces across Europe drip with tales of power, artistry, and intrigue, evoking a real-life fairy-tale ambiance. Trace your fingers along cool, hand-cut stone and shimmering gilded paneling as you explore fortress towers, grand halls, and tiered gardens that reveal the triumphs and trials of long-ago rulers.

• Dual designs: Compare stern, rampart-ringed castles with airy, ornate palaces to experience the shift from armored might to cultured finesse.
• Elevated views: Ascend lofty towers and sweeping staircases for bird's-eye vistas over landscapes and fluttering estate gardens.
• Regal stories: Hear whispered anecdotes of alliance, scandal, and romance that bring to life the names and dates populating family trees.
• Seasonal spectacle: Time your visit for warm-weather fêtes that fill palace lawns with music, markets, and costumed reenactments.
• Garden glory: Stroll through geometric hedgerows and flower-fringed pools that exemplify the opulence and aesthetics of aristocratic life.

Best Places for Castles and Palaces

• United Kingdom
• Ireland
• Germany
• Spain
• France
• Portugal

Zicasso’s Perfect London, Paris, and Rome Tour can be customized to take you to all the castles you have ever wanted to visit.

Europe's wine regions showcase a remarkable spectrum of grapes, terroirs, and vintner visions. From surf-splashed vineyards to alpine estates and sun-bathed plains, private winery visits and tasting routes reveal landscapes and communities shaped by centuries of viticulture. Dedicated wine-focused journeys or day trips from cities unveil renowned labels and small-batch gems.

• Cave contrasts: Tour traditional, vaulted cellars and sleek, contemporary facilities to see how architecture influences a wine's birth and development.
• Tutored tastings: Savor themed flights that showcase distinctions between regions, grape types, or aging techniques.
• Seasonal sips: Visit during harvest to inhale the sugar-musk scent of ripe grapes and experience the buzz of activity from vine to vat.
• Perfect pairings: Delight in meals expertly crafted to accentuate the unique character of each wine. Savor how a bite of aged manchego unleashes a Rioja's spicy, dried fruit notes, or how a silken spoonful of panna cotta tames the effervescent zip of a chilled prosecco.
• Vine to glass: Travel scenic roads lacing vineyards and villages to gain a sensory appreciation for how soil, slope, and microclimate shape each sip.

Best Places for Wine

• France
• Italy
• Spain
• Croatia
• Germany
• Portugal

Our Best Europe Food and Wine Tours is brimful of information to guide you.

Private artisan visits reveal the traditions behind Europe's most characteristic crafts, from hand-painted ceramics to hand-loomed textiles and skillfully blown glass. Meeting makers in their ateliers spotlights the sensory details of their work, be it a whiff of warmed clay, the treadle clack of a loom, or the furnace roar of a glass studio, and the passion they pour into preserving and evolving rare techniques.

• Hands-on discoveries: Try your hand at age-old methods under an artisan's encouraging eye to deepen your appreciation for the skill and artistry involved.
• Heritage workshops: Visit family-run studios where tools, materials, designs, and expertise have been passed down for generations.
• Material sagas: Trace the journey from raw clay, wool, wood, or sand to finished piece, inhaling the scents and sampling the textures along the way.
• Tradition and innovation: See how classic patterns and motifs are reimagined in contemporary colorways and forms.
• Storied souvenirs: Select one-of-a-kind pieces imbued with a deeper sense of place and personal connection.

Best Places for Artisan Visits

• Portugal
• Italy
• Germany
• Spain
• Turkey
• Switzerland

For inspiration on visiting Turkey for its creative heritage, see our Highlights of Turkey Tour: History and Culture.

Europe's museums contain an unrivaled wealth of painting, sculpture, and multimedia riches, from classical antiquities to cutting-edge contemporary works. Many collections span multiple periods and genres in buildings as impressive as the art they hold. Visiting these institutions, whether renowned or rarely toured, unveils cultural narratives and cross-border influences that have shaped European aesthetics across the ages.

• Expert angles: Join private, scholar-led tours that decode pivotal works and reveal easily missed details and connections.
• Architectural aura: Let your eyes wander over the soaring atriums, frescoed ceilings, and luminous galleries that create a transporting atmosphere in each museum.
• Contextual galleries: Explore rooms grouped by era, style, or subject to glean richer insights into artistic evolutions and revolutions.
• Reflective spaces: Seek out less-frequented wings where you can contemplate undersung pieces in peace.
• Creative currents: Pair museum visits with stops at nearby studios and galleries to experience the living, evolving art scene.

Best Places for Art Museums

• England
• Spain
• France
• Netherlands
• Italy
• Germany

Zicasso’s 10 Best Cities for Art Lovers in Europe will bring you face-to-face with some of the world’s greatest masters and their works.

Europe's ski regions boast some of the world's most scenic and celebrated terrain for winter sports. Wide, gentle pistes, pulse-pounding steeps, and untouched backcountry appeal to skiers and snowboarders of all ages and abilities. Attractive towns and alpine villages pair the thrill of the slopes with the warmth of old-world charm and lively après-ski.

• Interconnected adventure: Discover sprawling, lift-linked ski areas that grant access to multiple mountains and valleys in a single, stunning circuit.
• High-altitude fare: Savor regional specialties like fondue, raclette, and schnapps that warm you from within after a day in the bracing air.
• All-ages allure: Find gentle terrain and plentiful off-slope diversions, from sledding to ice skating, to enchant the whole family.
• Timeless towns: Unwind in car-free villages where half-timbered chalets and Baroque churches gleam beneath snow-tipped roofs.
• Seasonal spirit: Join festive Christmas markets, torch-lit ski parades, and winter carnivals that infuse alpine nights with music, light, and laughter.

Best Places for Skiing

• Switzerland
• Austria
• France
• Italy
• Norway

Let our Snowy Slopes and Emerald Countryside itinerary inspire your trip to Europe.

An evening at the opera envelops you in one of Europe's most transporting performance traditions. Lavish productions staged in jewel-box theaters and contemporary masterpieces sung in industrial-chic spaces grant entry to passion and pathos, comedy and catharsis. Attending the opera, whether for a classic or an innovative premiere, reveals how each city celebrates its musical legacy.

• Temple tours: Go behind the scenes at legendary opera houses where glittering foyers and opulent boxes conjure the drama and mystique of a bygone age.
• Regional works: Experience pieces and composers closely tied to a particular city or country for a deeper sense of place and artistic heritage.
• Backstage pass: Enjoy private tours that reveal the inner workings of a production, from rehearsal rooms to costume workshops to the hallowed stage.
• Timeworn rituals: Savor the sociable pleasures of opera-going, from pre-performance aperitifs to spirited intermission discussions.
• Festival focus: Plan visits around opera festivals that draw international luminaries for limited engagements.

Best Places for Opera

• Germany
• Italy
• Austria
• France
• Poland

Ask our travel specialists to include a night at the opera in our Classic One-Week Austria History and Culture Tour.

For a hands-on, sensory-filled adventure in Europe’s culinary riches, take a private cooking class. Learn treasured recipes and techniques from home cooks and noted chefs who unlock the lore, quirks, and family stories that make a dish truly traditional. Whether mastering a single showpiece or a multi-course meal, these sessions satisfy in ways a restaurant dinner simply can't.

• Regional flair: Focus on dishes and ingredients iconic to a particular area, from coastal villages to alpine hamlets.
• Homespun wisdom: Opt for intimate, in-home lessons where culinary secrets are shared against a backdrop of real life.
• Farm to fork: Combine market shopping with kitchen time to experience the journey of ingredients from stall to skillet.
• Practical souvenirs: Take home recipes, techniques, and flavor memories you can recreate for years to come.
• Communal tables: Relish the camaraderie of cooking together and swapping stories over a meal you had a hand in crafting.

Best Places for Cooking Classes

• Spain
• Italy
• France
• Germany
• Sweden
• Greece
• Switzerland

Zicasso’s Culinary Beacons of Europe: Bordeaux to Northern Spain Tour will take you from the fertile vineyards of France’s wine region to the tasty tapas of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Hiking in Europe immerses you in all manner of landscapes, from foam-fringed coasts and deep-cut gorges to wildflower meadows and snowcapped peaks. Well-maintained trail networks and time-honored routes, from easy half-day rambles to epic cross-border treks, put these natural riches within reach of every ability level. Sprinkled along the way, alpine huts, agriturismi, and country inns offer a restorative taste of rural hospitality.

• Storied footsteps: Follow ancient pilgrim paths and shepherd trails to experience landscapes shaped by centuries of passage and ritual.
• Custom distances: Mix gentle nature walks and more challenging summit ascents to satisfy your personal appetite for adventure.
• Four-season splendor: Savor the changing palette of the trails, from spring's electric greens to fall's russet-and-gold patchworks.
• Authentic outposts: Sleep in snug mountain refuges and on working farms where local lore and recipes are shared over hearty, post-hike meals.
• Insider perspectives: Hike with local guides who unveil the wildlife, geology, and folk traditions woven through each landscape.

Best Places for Hiking

• Norway
• Portugal
• Spain
• Scotland
• Italy
• Austria
• Switzerland

For more details, dip into our 7 Best Places to Hike in Europe guide.

From snowcapped peaks to sun-kissed coastlines, awe-inspiring art to mouthwatering meals, Europe has an unprecedented number of sights, sensations, and experiences. With so many ways to craft a memorable trip, whether a blissful beach escape, a museum-hopping city break, or a food-fueled countryside ramble, you can return again and again and still uncover fresh facets of the continent's culture and scenery.

Turn to our in-depth Europe travel guide and curated Europe tours and vacations to explore your options in finer detail. These resources distill our team's expertise into concrete ideas and sample itineraries you can adapt to your interests, schedule, and travel style.