These 2 Lesser Known Cities Named Europe’s Top Culture Hotspots For 2025
4 min readHome to ancient cities that predate the Americans by literal millennia and fairytale castles that are known to have inspired Walt Disney's dreamiest creations, Europe is the first destination that comes to the mind of the average American when they think of a cultural getaway. From the Haussmann boulevards of Paris, to the canal-traversed historic …
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Home to ancient cities that predate the Americans by literal millennia and fairytale castles that are known to have inspired Walt Disney’s dreamiest creations, Europe is the first destination that comes to the mind of the average American when they think of a cultural getaway.
From the Haussmann boulevards of Paris, to the canal-traversed historic center of Venice, and every manmade wonder in between, you could dedicate an entire lifetime to discovering the Old Continent, and still barely scratch the surface.
Feel overwhelmed much?
Visiting the two current designated European Capitals of Culture, as chosen by the European Commission, might be a good place to start in 2025:
Chemnitz, Germany
One of the cultural centers in Saxony, a historic region in southeastern Germany famous for its verdant landscapes and rich medieval heritages, Chemnitz is one of two European Capitals of Culture for the upcoming year.
Its Old Town is essentially Disneyland for History buffs, from the medieval Red Tower, part of the city’s medieval fortifications, to the monumental St. Petri Church, and the iconic Karl Marx monument is a long-standing relic from East Germany’s communist era.
Kaßberg is a vibrant district where narrow streets are lined with Art Nouveau buildings, the petit Rabenstein is the smallest medieval castle in all of Saxony (and adorable and fairytale-like as it sounds), and for the opera lovers, don’t forget to pay the stately Theater Chemnitz a visit.
Chemnitz is also great for sampling the meat and potato-heavy traditional food of Saxony, with a plethora of German-run restaurants to pick from, though if we were to pick one, it would be Kellerhaus for the timbered exterior, their generous meat cuts and homemade sauce.
From the United States, the easiest way to get to Chemnitz is flying to Berlin: from the German capital, it’s a short 3-and-a-half-hour train to Chemnitz, with tickets costing from $21 when booked in advance through Trainline.
Gorizia / Nova Gorica, Italy and… Slovenia?
This one’s a bit unusual, as it is a city formally administered not by one, but two countries: straddling the Italian-Slovene border, Gorizia’s historic center, which dates back to the medieval period, falls into Italian jurisdiction, while the modernist New Town into Slovenian.
Officially called the European Capital of Borderless Culture, there are no checkpoints separating old Gorizia from ‘Nova Gorica’, which means you can easily walk from one side to the other without presenting a passport.
Over in Italy, the main attraction is Gorizia Castle, an imposing 11th century fortress offering views of the surrounding Italian and Slovene countryside, the ornate Porta Leopoldina, one of the town’s last-surviving medieval gateways, and the Renaissance Palazzo Coronini Cronberg.
Most of the historic sites in Gorizia lie south of the border, in the Italian-claimed medieval core, but you shouldn’t overlook the ‘Nova’ side, either, especially if you’ve always been curious to see Brutalist town-planning up close, and experience Eastern European life.
Naturally, there are no nonstop flights from the U.S. to this part of Italy, but lucky for the culture-hungry tourists like us, a new high-speed train has just launched from Rome, all the way north to Slovenian border, connecting the Italian capital to Gorizia without transfers.
There is an entire continent to be discovered beyond all your usual tourism hotspots, and the best thing about it is, seeing most tourists tend to flock into the exact same 3-5 cities, many equally-gorgeous European towns remain virtually undiscovered!
Looking for unexpected, lesser-known gems to explore in 2025, be it a Soviet-influenced Eastern capital, or the youngest national capital in Europe, issued from a country that only gained its independence in 2007?
Read further (and start planning your cultural getaway) here.
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This article originally appeared on TravelOffPath.com
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