The Côa Valley Archaeological Park in northeastern Portugal protects the largest concentration of open-air Palaeolithic rock art in the world — approximately 1,200 engraved panels of horses, aurochs, and ibex carved into schist bedrock between 22,000 and 10,000 BCE. UNESCO-listed since 1998 and extended to include Siega Verde (Spain) in 2010, the site was saved from flooding after the cancellation of the Foz Côa dam in 1996 following an international campaign. Guided visits depart from the Museu do Côa in Vila Nova de Foz Côa; the Alto Douro Wine Region lies 80 km to the west.

The Alto Douro Wine Region in northeastern Portugal is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2001) and the world’s oldest officially demarcated wine appellation — a boundary drawn in 1756, 99 years before Bordeaux’s famous classification. The 24,600-hectare landscape of hand-built terraced vineyards (socalcos), historic quintas, and the scenic Douro Line railway stretches between Mesão Frio and Barca d’Alva, producing Port wine and an increasingly prominent range of dry table wines from over 80 indigenous grape varieties.

Naumburg Cathedral in Saxony-Anhalt, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2018, holds the twelve Founders’ Statues carved by the anonymous Naumburg Master around 1250 — among them the statue of Uta von Ballenstedt, whose individuated face and distinctive gesture have made her the most reproduced image of a medieval German noblewoman and a putative model for Disney’s Snow White.

Stralsund and Wismar, two Hanseatic cities on the Baltic coast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, form a single UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2002. Both cities were Swedish possessions from 1648 — Wismar until 1803, Stralsund until 1815 — and their Brick Gothic churches, market squares, and harbour fronts preserve the architecture and urban structure of the medieval Baltic trading world.

The Old Town of Regensburg in Bavaria, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2006, is the largest intact medieval city centre in Germany, with 1,500 listed buildings in 1.7 square kilometres. Its 12th-century Stone Bridge crossed the Danube as the sole bridge between Ulm and Vienna for 800 years, and its Cathedral choir, the Domspatzen, has been documented since 975 CE — the world’s oldest boys’ choir still in operation.

The island of Reichenau in Lake Constance, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000, preserves three Carolingian and Romanesque churches from a Benedictine abbey that served as the leading scriptorium of the Carolingian and Ottonian empires. The church of St George at Oberzell contains 10th-century Ottonian wall paintings depicting the miracles of Christ, plastered over after the medieval period and rediscovered in 1880.

Wartburg Castle above Eisenach in Thuringia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999, is where Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German in 1521–1522, creating the foundational text of the modern German language. The castle also preserves the Romanesque Palas of 1157–1170 and was the childhood home of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary, canonised just four years after her death in 1231.

Kernave, on the Neris River 35 km northwest of Vilnius, was the first capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 13th century — a state that would grow to be the largest in medieval Europe. Destroyed by the Teutonic Knights in 1390 and never rebuilt, its five hillforts and buried medieval town were preserved intact under six centuries of undisturbed ground until systematic excavation began in the 1980s.

The Curonian Spit stretches 98 km along the eastern Baltic coast, separating the Curonian Lagoon from the sea with sand dunes up to 60 metres high that buried entire villages in the 18th century before systematic reforestation stabilised them from the 1820s onward. The town of Nida on the Lithuanian section preserves Thomas Mann’s summer house, where the Nobel laureate wrote part of “Joseph and His Brothers” in 1930–1932.

Six caves in the Swabian Jura of Baden-Württemberg contain the world’s oldest known figurative art — ivory carvings dated to 40,000–43,000 years ago, including the Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel and the Venus of Hohle Fels. Both originals are displayed at the Ulmer Museum in Ulm; the cave sites are accessible by car from Schelklingen and Asselfingen.