Valley & Plain Villages

Collonges-la-Rouge in Corrèze, entirely built from red sandstone, was the founding village of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France in 1982.

Eguisheim's streets curve in concentric rings around its original medieval fortress, a layout still legible from above.

Lagrasse in the Corbières, Aude, is built around an 8th-century Benedictine abbey still active today, linked to the village by a 1308 stone bridge.

Follina in the Treviso Prealps, Veneto, is built around a 12th-century Cistercian abbey and lies along the UNESCO Prosecco Superiore wine hills.

Glorenza (Glurns) in South Tyrol is the Alps' only fully intact walled medieval town, rebuilt after 1499 with walls and towers still standing today.

Montagnana is encircled by one of the best-preserved sets of medieval city walls in Europe, complete with two fortified gates.

Santillana del Mar's historic center is closed to motor vehicles, its stone streets unchanged enough to have earned the town the nickname 'the town of three lies' — it is neither holy, flat, nor by the sea.