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QuickTake:
What's the appeal of the large cities that can all start to seem the same? Here are a few off-the-beaten-path villages that offer more fun, less stress and a better sense of local culture.
Travel guides often lure people from small-town America to big-city Europe — Paris, Munich and the like. Believe me, it’s more fun and less stressful to visit small towns instead.
Here in Oregon you might well choose to spend a week’s vacation in a place like Sisters, Joseph or Yachats. Why not visit cities this size when you go to Europe? The people you meet in villages may actually stop and say hi. There’s less crime, more parking and a better sense of local culture.
Janell and I have lived several years in Europe. We’ve hitchhiked, bicycled, taken trains, rented cars and walked through pretty much every country there. I’m going to share with you some of our favorite small towns ― ones that are not usually featured in guidebooks.
I have a lot of recommendations, some of which I’ll save for later. We’ll start with three towns within driving distance of Frankfurt, Germany, where direct flights from the U.S. are plentiful. These towns are mostly too small to have train stations. Although it is possible to get there by bus, it’s easiest to rent a car and venture out on the back roads of Europe.
Miltenberg, Germany
First, we’ll visit the oldest hotel in Germany, in a riverside village an hour’s drive east of Frankfurt. The Hotel zum Riesen is an elaborately half-timbered five-story building that dates to 1158. Dozens of kings have stayed there. The hotel’s “Emperor Suite,” with vaulted ceilings and crystal chandeliers, rents for about $150. Other rooms are less expensive.
The hotel restaurant recommends asparagus soup for $25, but instead you might head to a pub like the Gasthof Anker, just down the street. There you can order maultaschen, a kind of German ravioli. Served with bacon, onions and homemade sauerkraut, it costs a mere $10.
Once a powerful trade center, Miltenberg became frozen in time when Napoleon made it part of distant Bavaria. Today the town has an excellent museum and a half-ruined castle, complete with a climbable tower.
Cheb, Czech Republic
Here’s an alternative to the crowds of Prague — a small, picturesque city in the hills by the German border. Cheb was a German-speaking town until World War II, when the locals voted to join Hitler’s Reich. After they lost the war, the 40,000 German speakers were expelled. The Czechs moved into a city that turned out to be a time capsule from the late Middle Ages, with an imperial castle from the 1100s and a market square fronted by 100 buildings dating from 1300 to 1600.
Today the big tourist hit in Cheb is the Tour of Attics. It’s the opposite of an underground tour. A guide leads you beneath the rooftops of the old town. Expect to climb hidden staircases and crawl through ancient doorways.
The tour costs about $5 and leaves the tourist information center at 11 a.m. most days. And yes, the beer at Cheb’s pubs is just as plentiful and cheap as in Prague.
Echternach, Luxembourg
Most people have never heard of the country named Luxembourg. Or if they have, they may only know the capital city of the same name, perhaps because of its cheap airport. I’m going to recommend that you visit an even smaller town in Luxembourg.
Echternach is smack in the middle of Europe, equidistant from Amsterdam, Paris and Stuttgart. The town has the charm of a tiny Paris, but the people here happily speak four languages — French, German, Luxembourgish and English.
Long ago, Echternach was a cultural crossroads of the Roman Empire. Today you can visit the ruins of the largest Roman villa north of the Alps. An Irish monk introduced Christianity to Echternach in the year 620. A Scriptorium Museum beside the Abbey Church describes how the monks here developed the high art of decorating handwritten Bibles.
The car-free downtown of Echternach is a walkable dozen blocks of shops and ice cream cafes in cute stone buildings with slate roofs.
For me, however, the best part of Echternach is the Wolf’s Gorge, a 3-mile hiking trail that descends a sandstone canyon with caves, overhangs and tight squeezes through rock slots. Imagine a miniature Zion National Park in a beech forest.
Europe is a crowded continent. It can be intimidating to those of us from the wide-open spaces of the American West. If you zoom from one large city to another they can all start to seem the same.
Slow down. Think small. It’s more fun to travel Europe by searching out the scenic small towns.