The 70 Most Breathtaking Natural Wonders in Europe

The Lofoten archipelago in northern Norway rises dramatically from the Norwegian Sea as a series of jagged peaks and sheltered bays.

Traditional red fishing cabins called rorbuer dot the shoreline against a backdrop of some of Europe's most spectacular mountain scenery, with the Northern Lights frequently visible in winter.

The Matterhorn's near-perfect pyramidal peak has made it one of the most recognised mountains in the world and the symbol of the Swiss Alps.

Rising 4,478 metres above the car-free village of Zermatt, it is reflected in the Riffelsee lake during clear summer mornings.

Plitvice Lakes National Park contains sixteen turquoise lakes connected by a series of waterfalls, cascades, and travertine barriers, all within an ancient beech forest.

The network of wooden boardwalks allows visitors to walk over and around the water in one of Europe's most enchanting natural landscapes.

Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon is a breathtaking glacial lake in southeast Iceland filled with icebergs that have calved from the Breidamerkurjokull glacier, which is an outlet of the massive Vatnajokull ice cap.

The icebergs range from small chunks to cathedral-sized masses and drift slowly out to sea past Diamond Beach.

Lake Bled is Slovenia's most famous sight — a glacial lake of impossibly vivid turquoise water, a tiny island crowned with a baroque church, and a medieval castle perched on a sheer cliff above.

The surrounding Julian Alps complete a scene that seems almost too perfect to be real.

A traditional pletna boat is the only way out to the island's 99 steps.

Billed as the world's slowest express train, the Glacier Express takes almost eight hours to cross the Swiss Alps between Zermatt and St Moritz, crossing 291 bridges and 91 tunnels while never exceeding 45 km/h, deliberately slow enough for the panoramic windows to take in the full scale of the Alps.

The curved Landwasser Viaduct is the journey's single most famous moment.

Scotland's largest and most dramatic island rises from the Inner Hebrides like a dark, brooding giant.

The jagged peaks of the Cuillin mountains, the eerie Quiraing landscape, the ancient Dunvegan Castle, and the famous Fairy Pools make Skye one of the UK's most spectacular destinations.

Geirangerfjord is a narrow arm of the sea in western Norway, walled in by near-vertical cliffs over a kilometre high and threaded with waterfalls such as the Seven Sisters.

A UNESCO World Heritage fjord, it can be seen by sightseeing boat, from a hairpin mountain road, or on foot along old farm paths.

Cruise ships call through the short summer season, but the scale of the cliffs and water still dominates.

The Cliffs of Moher are a 14-kilometre stretch of sea cliffs on the Atlantic coast of County Clare that rise to 214 metres at their highest point.

The view from the clifftop path, looking south towards the Burren and north towards Galway Bay, with the Aran Islands in the distance, is one of Ireland's most iconic.

Between Florence and Siena, Chianti's rolling hills are stitched with vineyards, olive groves and cypress-lined roads that define the classic image of the Tuscan countryside.

Stone farmhouses and hilltop towns like Greve and Radda anchor a landscape barely changed since medieval times, and the black rooster on Chianti Classico labels marks the region's historic heart.

Trolltunga, meaning Troll's Tongue, is a spectacular horizontal rock formation that juts 700 metres above Lake Ringedalsvatnet in western Norway.

The 27-kilometre return hike to reach it passes through some of Norway's most dramatic fjord landscape, ascending over 1,000 metres in elevation.

A cruise through Norway's steepest fjords, where waterfalls drop hundreds of metres past cliffside farms into water so still it mirrors the mountains.

Geirangerfjord and Naeroyfjord, both UNESCO-listed, narrow to barely a ship's width in places.

Small villages like Flam and Geiranger appear suddenly at the fjord's end, framed by snow long into summer.

Midnight sun in June extends the scenery well past a normal evening.

Svalbard is a remote Norwegian archipelago deep in the Arctic Ocean, roughly 60% covered by glaciers and home to more polar bears than people.

Longyearbyen, the main settlement, is the base for dog-sledding, snowmobiling and boat trips past calving glaciers and drifting sea ice, with the midnight sun in summer and polar night and northern lights in winter.

Almost everything beyond town requires an armed guide, which shapes the whole experience.

A cogwheel railway climbs through solid rock to a saddle between the Eiger and Mönch, 3,454 metres up, where the "Top of Europe" station opens onto the Aletsch Glacier, the largest ice stream in the Alps.

An ice palace, observation deck, and snow terrace fill out the visit, though thin air and shifting weather can erase the view without warning.

Portugal's Douro Valley is carved by centuries of hand-terraced vineyards climbing steeply from the river below, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape and the birthplace of port wine, still transported by traditional flat-bottomed rabelo boats that once carried barrels downriver to Porto.

The schist-terraced hillsides shift colour with the seasons.

Elafonisi, on Crete's southwestern tip, is known for sand that turns pale pink where crushed coral mixes with white quartz, and a shallow lagoon warm and calm enough to wade across to a small offshore islet.

The water is startlingly clear and turquoise even by Greek island standards, and the beach's gentle slope makes it one of the easier stretches of coast for families with young children.

Skogafoss is one of Iceland's most dramatic waterfalls, with the Skoga river plunging 60 metres over a cliff edge into a pool below, generating so much spray that a rainbow forms on sunny days.

A staircase of 527 steps climbs to the top of the falls, giving access to a scenic riverside trail.

Route 1 loops 1,332 kilometres around Iceland, stringing together nearly every landscape it's famous for: black sand beaches, glacier lagoons, geothermal fields, and waterfalls beside the road.

The south coast alone delivers Seljalandsfoss, Skogafoss and the icebergs of Jokulsarlon within hours.

Further round, the route crosses lava deserts and fishing villages, then the geothermal north near Lake Myvatn, before looping back to Reykjavik.

Delphi was the ancient world's most important oracle, where pilgrims travelled from across the Mediterranean to consult the priestess of Apollo.

The sanctuary's ruins climb a steep slope of Mount Parnassus overlooking a valley of olive groves that stretches to the Gulf of Corinth, and the on-site museum holds the bronze Charioteer, one of the finest surviving Greek statues.

The Grossglockner High Alpine Road climbs through 36 hairpin bends to over 2,500 metres, threading past Austria's highest peak and ending at a viewpoint over the Pasterze, the country's largest glacier.

Marmots and ibex are a common sight along the route, and a dozen or so panoramic pull-offs give reason to stop every few kilometres.

The road is only open from May to October, closing once snow makes the high pass impassable.

The Giant's Causeway is an area of approximately 40,000 interlocking basalt columns on the Antrim coast of Northern Ireland, formed by an ancient volcanic fissure eruption.

The hexagonal columns, which fit together with extraordinary geometric precision, were created around 50-60 million years ago and have inspired countless legends.

One of the steepest standard-gauge railways in the world, the Flam Railway climbs 866 metres in just 20km between the fjord-side village of Flam and the mountain station at Myrdal, passing waterfalls and hairpin turns carved through solid rock over 20 years of construction.

It makes a scheduled stop at Kjosfossen waterfall, where passengers step out onto a platform beside the falls.

The Rhine Gorge is a 65-kilometre stretch of the river between Koblenz and Bingen where more than 40 medieval castles sit on vineyard-terraced hillsides above the water, including the legendary Loreley rock where a siren was said to lure sailors to their deaths.

River cruises, a scenic rail line, and riverside cycling paths run the length of the valley, with half-timbered wine villages lining the banks at almost every bend.

A volcanic island in the mid-Atlantic nicknamed the "floating garden," Madeira packs cloud forest, terraced vineyards, and sea cliffs over 500 metres tall into an area smaller than greater London.

A 19th-century irrigation network of levadas laces the interior with walking trails through laurel forest and past hidden waterfalls, while a glass skywalk cantilevers out over Cabo Girão, one of Europe's highest sea cliffs.

Tuscany is Italy's most celebrated region, where rolling hills of vineyards and cypress trees, medieval hilltop towns, and Renaissance art create an idealised vision of the Italian countryside.

The Val d'Orcia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with its pale golden hills, isolated farmhouses, and winding white roads, is the part most people have in mind when they think of Tuscany.

A collapsed cave roof on Kefalonia opens onto an underground lake so clear that the rowing boats appear to hang in mid-air.

When the sun is directly overhead the water turns an electric blue that looks artificially enhanced but isn't.

A short boat trip takes you through the lit chamber and out under the open dome.

France's largest and most prestigious wine region surrounds the elegant 18th-century city of the same name, its Gironde estuary and two rivers shaping over 6,000 chateaux that have defined fine wine for centuries.

The Medoc's grand chateaux sit on some of the world's most valuable vineyard land, while Saint-Emilion's UNESCO-listed medieval village stands above a warren of limestone cellars on the right bank.

The Sa Calobra climb switchbacks up 26 hairpins through the limestone Serra de Tramuntana, including a spiralling loop where the road passes beneath itself, before dropping to a hidden cove on Mallorca's northwest coast.

Wider routes through the range link terraced olive groves, the monastery at Lluc and the ridge-top village of Deia.

The road is a pilgrimage climb for road cyclists and one of Europe's most celebrated stretches of tarmac.

This 95-mile stretch of Dorset and Devon coastline exposes 185 million years of rock layers in its cliffs, with fossils regularly still washing out after storms.

Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch stepping directly into the sea, is the coast's single most famous landmark.

Lulworth Cove's near-perfectly circular bay sits just a short walk away.

A domed sandstone chamber on the Algarve coast with its own crescent of beach and a circular hole in the roof that drops a column of sunlight onto the sand.

It can only be reached from the water, by kayak, paddleboard or tour boat, since swimming across from the neighbouring beach is now restricted.

Europe's deepest canyon plunges 700 meters, with the turquoise Verdon River winding through limestone walls below.

Scenic clifftop drives, hiking trails, and kayaking routes make it one of France's most dramatic natural landscapes, far quieter than the Côte d'Azur an hour south.

A roughly 170km hut-to-hut circuit around the Mont Blanc massif through France, Italy and Switzerland, climbing about 10,000m of ascent past glaciers, alpine lakes and larch forest.

Val Ferret and the Aiguilles Rouges give some of the best full-on views of Mont Blanc's summit.

Most walkers take 7-11 days, staying in refuges that range from rustic to modernised.

Huts fill fast in July and August.

This Neolithic passage tomb in the Boyne Valley predates Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids by centuries, its huge circular mound ringed with carved kerbstones and a roof-box aligned to flood the inner chamber with sunlight at the winter solstice.

Guided tours take you inside the narrow passage to the burial chamber, and a simulated solstice light show runs year-round.

The precision of 5,000-year-old engineering is the real draw.

Europe's tallest and most active volcano, looming over Sicily's east coast and erupting regularly enough that lava flows are a near-yearly event visible from Catania on clear nights.

Cable cars and 4x4 tours climb partway up its barren, ash-grey upper slopes, where guided hikes reach steaming craters and fields of hardened lava from past eruptions.

Vineyards ring its lower slopes, producing distinctive wines grown in volcanic soil, a striking contrast to the desolation higher up.

A vivid turquoise alpine lake at 1,578 meters, ringed by sheer limestone cliffs and wildflower meadows below the Blüemlisalp glacier.

Reached by cable car and a short walk, it's one of the Bernese Oberland's most spectacular — and comparatively uncrowded — spots.

The Zugspitze is Germany's highest peak, and a cable car climbs almost straight from the valley town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen to its summit, where the view on a clear day takes in more than 400 peaks across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy.

A small glacier survives near the top, along with a ski area that operates into summer, and the border with Austria runs directly across the summit platform.

The Krimml Waterfalls drop 380 metres in three tiers down a forested mountainside in the Hohe Tauern National Park, among the highest waterfalls in Europe.

A well-graded path climbs alongside the falls through spray-cooled air, with viewing platforms at each tier and a small waterfall-themed nature trail for families lower down.

On sunny mornings, rainbows form regularly in the mist at the base of the lower tier.

A canal-laced old town at the northern tip of one of Europe's cleanest lakes has earned Annecy the nickname "Venice of the Alps," its Thiou River canals lined with flower-draped, pastel houses and the small stone Palais de l'Île moored mid-stream.

Snow-capped peaks rise directly behind the water, and a lakeside path leads out to swimming spots and quieter viewpoints beyond the old town.

Gullfoss, meaning Golden Falls, is Iceland's most famous waterfall, where the Hvita river thunders down two impressive tiers into a rugged canyon below.

Part of the iconic Golden Circle tourist route, its power and the spray it generates mean that on sunny days you can often see several rainbows arcing across it simultaneously.

One of Iceland's most famous waterfalls drops 60 meters into a misty pool, with a rare path that lets visitors walk fully behind the curtain of falling water.

Right off the Ring Road and framed by green cliffs, it's striking in any weather, and lit up at night in the darker months.

Europe's largest and best-preserved river delta is a maze of reed-lined channels, lakes and marshland where the Danube meets the Black Sea.

Boat trips glide past pelicans, herons and over 300 other bird species in a UNESCO-protected wilderness.

Traditional fishing villages built on stilts add a lived-in texture to the wildlife-watching, and the sheer scale of untouched wetland is rare anywhere in Europe.

The Nordkette range rises so steeply above Innsbruck that a cable car runs directly from the edge of the old town to a mountain station above 2,300 metres in under 20 minutes.

From the top, the view takes in the Alpine capital below and rows of peaks stretching into Italy and Germany, and hiking trails and via ferrata routes continue further up the ridge.

Switzerland's largest lake curves along the base of the Alps between Geneva and Montreux, its mild microclimate supporting palm-lined promenades, terraced vineyards, and the turreted, moated Château de Chillon rising straight out of the water.

Lakeside towns like Montreux and Vevey give it a genteel, resort-town character, and paddle-steamers still cross between them much as they did a century ago.

A dramatic canyon in Vatnajökull National Park, carved by catastrophic glacial floods, home to the thunderous Dettifoss waterfall and the horseshoe-shaped Ásbyrgi depression.

Dark basalt cliffs and moss-covered riverbanks make it one of Iceland's starkest, most powerful landscapes.

Europe's largest waterfall by volume thunders over a 150-metre-wide limestone ledge near Schaffhausen, where the Rhine drops about 23 metres in a broad, permanent roar rather than a single dramatic drop.

Viewing platforms reach out over the spray from both banks, boats motor right up to the central rock, and the free riverside paths make it an easy stop rather than a planned expedition.

A narrow alpine lake in Austria's Salzkammergut lake district is ringed by forested peaks and postcard villages, the best-known of which, St.

Wolfgang, grew up around the lakeside White Horse Inn made famous by a 20th-century operetta.

Passenger ferries still cross the lake between villages, a rack railway climbs the Schafberg for panoramic views, and swimming spots line much of the shore in summer.

A flat, paved path traces the Danube's south bank through the Wachau, a UNESCO-listed valley of terraced vineyards, apricot orchards and medieval river towns between Melk and Krems.

Riders pass beneath Durnstein's ruined castle, where Richard the Lionheart was once imprisoned, while Melk's baroque abbey looms over the starting point.

The gentle downhill gradient and dedicated bike lane make it an easy half-day ride at any fitness level.

The Ring of Kerry is a 179-kilometre circular route around the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry in southwest Ireland, passing through some of the country's most dramatic coastal, mountain, and lakeside scenery.

The route takes in the colourful town of Kenmare, the spectacular Killarney National Park, and the ancient stone forts of Skellig Ring.

Slovenia's only national park protects nearly the entire Julian Alps range, centered on Mount Triglav, the country's highest peak and a genuine point of national identity.

Beyond the summit trek, the park holds the emerald Soča River valley, dramatic gorges, alpine lakes and the Vršič Pass's hairpin mountain road — the backbone of Slovenia's outdoor-adventure reputation, with hiking, rafting and via ferrata routes for every level.

The Black Forest is a stretch of dense, dark pine hills in southwestern Germany, dotted with storybook villages, cuckoo-clock workshops, and thermal spa towns like Baden-Baden.

Waterfalls, half-timbered farmhouses, and a network of well-marked hiking trails run through the region, and Triberg's falls — among Germany's highest — draw day-trippers from across the area.

Hexagonal basalt columns, formed the same way as the Giant's Causeway, arch into a natural sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa.

The cathedral-like interior, with waves echoing off the columned walls, inspired Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture.

Reaching it requires a boat crossing through open water, which keeps the cave far quieter than its Northern Irish cousin.

Twenty-four kilometres of galleries under the Slovenian karst, entered aboard an electric train that runs two kilometres into the rock before you continue on foot.

The formations range from delicate straws to a five-metre white column called the Brilliant.

An aquarium inside holds olms, the pale blind salamanders locals call baby dragons.

The glacier-capped volcano whose unpronounceable name became a household word after its 2010 eruption grounded air travel across Europe for days.

Beneath the ice cap, hiking trails on its lower slopes cross black volcanic sand plains and moss-covered lava fields, with views toward the glacier itself and, on the south side, the LAVA visitor centre explaining the eruption's science and impact.

It's more a dramatic backdrop for South Coast road trips than a single standalone hike.

A small, pine-fringed cove inside a protected natural park on Mallorca's southeast coast, with shallow, startlingly clear turquoise water that stays calm most of the year.

Because it sits within Mondrago Natural Park, development around the cove is deliberately limited, which keeps it looking much like the rest of the island did before mass tourism.

It's a short walk from the car park through scrub pine, which filters out casual visitors.

This wild stretch of County Galway packs bog, mountain, lake and rugged Atlantic coastline into one thinly populated region, its landscape barely touched since the days it inspired painters and poets.

Connemara National Park's quartzite peaks, the Sky Road's cliff-edge drive out of Clifden, and Kylemore Abbey beside its own lake are the anchor points, but much of the appeal is simply driving or hiking through empty, dramatic terrain.

Slovenia's largest permanent lake sits deeper inside Triglav National Park than its more famous neighbor Lake Bled, ringed by steep alpine peaks and largely free of the castle-and-island crowds that draw most day-trippers to Bled instead.

A cable car climbs to the Vogel ski area for panoramic views over the lake and surrounding mountains, while the Savica Waterfall trailhead sits at the lake's western end.

A quiet alpine reservoir in Ticino reached by one of Europe's steepest funicular railways, climbing to a plateau ringed by peaks and pine forest.

Far quieter than the Bernese Oberland lakes, with hiking trails that see only a fraction of the region's tourists.

The North Coast 500 loops 830 kilometres around the top of the Scottish Highlands, starting and finishing in Inverness.

Single-track roads wind past white sand beaches at Achmelvich, the sea stacks of Duncansby Head, and ruined castles over sea lochs, with the Applecross Pass climbing to one of Britain's highest road summits.

Midges and shifting weather are part of the deal, and passing places on narrower stretches demand attentive driving.

Iceland's most famous attraction is a geothermal spa set in a lava field on the Reykjanes Peninsula, where mineral-rich waters at 37-40 degrees create a milky blue pool against a backdrop of dark volcanic rock.

The silica mud face masks, steam rising in the cool air, and dramatic volcanic landscape make it a unique bathing experience.

The Soča River runs an almost unreal emerald-turquoise color through this alpine valley in Slovenia's northwest, framed by the Julian Alps and threaded with World War I trench remnants from the Isonzo Front.

Whitewater rafting, kayaking and canyoning draw travelers to some of Europe's cleanest, coldest alpine water, while quieter trails and the small town of Kobarid offer a slower pace with WWI history layered into the landscape.

A lava tube on Lanzarote formed when the Corona volcano erupted around 3,000 years ago, running six kilometres down towards the sea.

A kilometre of it is open, lit in ochre and green by the artist Jesus Soto, and the tour ends with an optical illusion so convincing that most visitors refuse to believe it until it is explained.

Pravčická brána is the largest natural sandstone arch in Europe, a 16-metre stone bridge rising from the forested plateau of Bohemian Switzerland National Park near the German border.

Closed to walkers since 1982 to halt erosion, it's instead viewed from three platforms and the 19th-century Sokolí hnízdo chalet built into the rock beneath it.

Reaching it means a steady uphill hike from Hřensko.

A glacier-carved valley in the Wicklow Mountains holds two lakes and the ruins of a 6th-century monastic settlement founded by St Kevin, including a remarkably intact round tower.

Trails loop around both lakes and climb into the surrounding hills, from a flat 30-minute stroll to a full afternoon's hike up to the Spinc ridge.

The mix of early-Christian ruins and scenic hiking makes it one of the most complete day trips from Dublin.

A 55km highland traverse from the rhyolite hot-spring valley of Landmannalaugar to the birch forest of Thorsmork, crossing black lava fields, steaming fumaroles and glacial river fords along the way.

Colour shifts constantly underfoot, from mineral-streaked mountains to green moss and white snow patches even in summer.

Mountain huts break the route into four days, though camping is also allowed alongside each hut.

A small, secluded tarn on the shoulder of Haystacks fell in the Lake District, where guidebook author Alfred Wainwright chose to have his ashes scattered.

Reached only on foot, it offers a quiet, mirror-still pool ringed by fells with none of the crowds of the district's bigger lakes.

England's largest gorge cuts through the Mendip Hills with limestone cliffs rising 137 metres above the road, a scale that surprises most visitors to this part of the country.

Britain's oldest complete human skeleton, Cheddar Man, was found in the show caves beneath the cliffs and dates back over 10,000 years.

A clifftop walking trail loops the gorge's rim for views down over the valley and out toward the Somerset Levels.

A wooden walkway clings to the cliff face above the Radovna River as it churns turquoise through this narrow limestone gorge, just a few kilometers from Lake Bled.

The 1.

6-kilometer boardwalk crosses the river repeatedly on small bridges before ending at the Šum Waterfall — an easy, well-engineered walk, but the gorge's tight, dramatic walls make it feel far wilder than its accessibility suggests.

A river cruise from Porto into the terraced vineyards of the Douro Valley, Portugal's oldest wine region and a UNESCO World Heritage landscape.

The ship locks through a series of dams as the valley narrows, with port wine estates, or quintas, visible on the hillsides at every bend.

Stops usually include a quinta tour and tasting, and sometimes the historic town of Pinhao.

Autumn turns the vine terraces gold and copper along the whole route.

Český ráj (Bohemian Paradise) is the Czech Republic's oldest protected landscape, a UNESCO Global Geopark of sandstone rock towers, castle ruins and pine forest ninety minutes from Prague.

Its best-known corner, Prachovské skály, threads narrow rock corridors and wooden stairways past viewpoints over layered stone pinnacles, while the twin-peaked ruin of Trosky Castle marks the skyline for miles around.

Iceland's compact and colourful capital sits between the mountains and the sea as the world's most northerly capital city.

Rainbow-painted corrugated iron houses, the soaring Hallgrímskirkja church, and a bar and music scene far larger than the population suggests fill a centre small enough to cross on foot.

It doubles as the base for Northern Lights trips and Golden Circle day tours.