The Best Countryside Tours in Europe

The Georgian countryside is one of the best destinations in Europe for food, wine and nature lovers. This nine-day group tour with Culture Trip starts in Tbilisi, but you’ll swiftly travel to Kakheti – where you’ll learn about Georgia’s millennia-old winemaking tradition at the source. Feast like a Georgian, then work off all that wine and Georgian cheese bread as the tour moves into the mountains. First, you’ll be hiking in the forests of the remote Lagodekhi National Park. Then, you’ll venture high into the Caucasus Mountains to visit churches and glaciers in Stepantsminda, before finishing your trip with a sulphur bath soak in Tbilisi.

Looking for sun, sea, wine and artisanal bread? Then this 10-day Culture Trip tour into Southern Italy’s countryside could well be the one for you. Join the group for pizza in Naples, before travelling along the sun-drenched shores off the Amalfi Coast as you slowly make your way south. Experience the gourmet heart of the Italian countryside in Altamura – where you can try artisan bread that’s been baked here for centuries. You’ll cycle, hike and tour through valleys, vineyards and olive groves as you explore Puglia – before ending the trip in Lecce, a compact city that’s better known as the Florence of the South.

There’s no better way to see Scotland than from the comfort of a window seat – the founding principle of this seven-day Rail Trip. You’ll actually start in London, catching the overnight sleeper train to Fort William. Warm up with a wee dram of whisky at Ben Nevis Distillery, take the iconic Jacobite steam train across Glenfinnan Viaduct and explore the Isle of Skye by boat across a week of outdoorsy fun in the UK’s most dramatic landscape. Enjoy glassy lochs, fairytale woodlands and rocky mountains in the Cairngorms National Park, before getting back to civilisation for a couple of nights in Edinburgh.