Top 10 Most Underrated European Cities

A car-free city center, a dragon-guarded bridge, and Lake Bled thirty minutes away — Ljubljana has everything a European capital should at a fraction of the tourist density.

Bruges is the tourist trap; Ghent is the actual gem — a medieval university city with Van Eyck's masterpiece, better beer bars, and locals who still outnumber visitors.

Sulfur baths, a wine tradition older than France's, and a brutalist-meets-Art Nouveau skyline make Tbilisi the most exciting city in Europe that most Europeans haven't visited.

The EU's smallest capital packs 7,000 years of history, Knights Templar fortifications, and some of the Mediterranean's clearest water into an area you can walk across in twenty minutes.

Italians call it "La Grassa" (The Fat One) because it has the best food in Italy — and if Italy has the best food in Europe, the transitive property speaks for itself.

Over 100 bridges, 300 hidden bronze dwarfs, and a market square that rivals Prague's without a single tour bus — Wrocław is Krakow's quietly superior sibling.

Athens has the Acropolis but Thessaloniki has better food, better nightlife, Byzantine walls, and a waterfront that doesn't require dodging motorbikes to enjoy.

The world's densest collection of Art Nouveau buildings hides in a Baltic capital where a world-class meal costs less than a London pub lunch.

Older than Rome, Athens, and Constantinople, Plovdiv was the 2019 European Capital of Culture and still charges a tenth of what those cities do for the same Mediterranean warmth.