6 cool places (just) off the beaten path

These six destinations are close enough to common travel routes that there are a lot of chances to get to them, but still often fly under the radar.

Ohrid, Macedonia

In Montenegro or Greece? Swing through Macedonia!

Although Macedonia’s capital city Skopje was severely damaged in a 1963 earthquake and rebuilt under two of the worst architectural regimes in history – communism and 1960s modernism –  lovely Ohrid, the linguistic and cultural heart of Macedonia, retains its ancient charm. When I was there in 2008 it was bustling and fun, full of Macedonians on holiday but almost no foreign tourists. It has a compact medieval old town right on the banks of beautiful Lake Ohrid, a tectonic lake, one of the oldest lakes in the world and the deepest in the Balkans. (693 m or 2273 ft!).

Kea, Greece

In the Cyclades and tired of loads of tourists? Or in Athens and not much time to spend taking ferries?

Me making a sun tent with some sticks and my shirt. On a deserted beach with my friends on Kea. We would swim out to that tiny island for fun. No roads at all to this beach, we walked to it on mule trails. It was strange, the beach was sandy but also had paving stones that looked like they were laid by humans but were actually natural. Nice to walk on.

Kea is one of the Cycladic islands, actually much closer to the mainland and Athens than the others, yet strangely

overlooked. It has a bustling pleasant little port town of Korissia and a picturesque small white-painted inland capital called Ioulis.

While I was there  in summer I was at one of the stranger parties/small festivals I have been to. Starting late one night an inland hill village had a traditional all-night goat and cow slaughtering. It was bizarre – they were (apparently secretly as it breaks EU regs) killing the animals and cooking them straight away, eating ALL night, in front of a little orthodox church in the countryside, drinking wine, dancing, playing traditional instruments. At one point I was literally having a piece of grilled goat happily shoved in my face and one of the locals passed by with a wheelbarrow FULL of entrails –  the wet squishy guts sloshed onto my leg while I was eating. Memorable. Authentic? Check.

Haifa, Israel

Headed to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? Then head north!

Haifa has a stunning natural setting, tumbling down Mt. Carmel to the beautiful round bay it shares with the well-preserved crusader town Akko or Acre visible in the distance and making a perfect day trip.

From its busy cosmopolitan port area at the bottom with Russian and Ethiopian immigrants, up though cubic-house neighborhoods with lots of narrow stepped passageways, past the beautiful gardens and domed headquarters of the Bahá’í faith, to the top of Mt. Carmel with the University of Haifa and local Druze villages (Note – the area of the villages suffered in the fires of last year and I haven’t been there since). I spent a semester at the Univ. of Haifa and really enjoyed the city – nice underground brick-cellar Jazz clubs, the busy port, the great views.

Frigiliana, Spain

On the beach in Nerja

The lovely seaside town of Nerja on the southern coast of Spain is already worth a visit if you are doing the common Cordoba-Granada-Seville route.

But Frigiliana, just a short distance inland up the hill, adds still more reason to visit. The perfect whitewashed little village is blindingly white with geraniums in every window. A perfect spot to spend the day wandering around. (note – It was a while since I was there and it already had a lot of esp. English tourism, so I hope it has not become completely overrun and changed for the worst. Any updates from anyone?)

Fano, Italy

On the busy Adriatic in Summer and want to get away from the non-Italian throngs and see something Roman that isn’t a church to boot?

Personally, the Italian side of the Adriatic is not my favorite Mediterranean coast – the parts I have seen are crowded, flat and the water is not the nicest in the Med  (although I think it gets better further south). But we stumbled across this town located at the end of one of the main Roman roads.  The center retains its Roman grid layout and pleasant town center of stone and brick buildings. In summer there is a healthy local tourism that makes for late night shopping and plenty of restaurants, but without overwhelming the place and ruining its “Italianness” in the way masses of foreign tourists can. Although tourist-free can be nice I find that local tourism is often nice in its way as it keeps a place bustling but still allows you to meet people from the country you are in as opposed to only other foreigners.

Görlitz, Germany/Poland

(no good photos from me - so here's a wiki photo)

In eastern Germany/central Europe?

Situated on the river between Germany and Poland near the Czech Republic this town managed to avoid major damage in WW II and avoid modernization during communism, making it perfect to serve as the shooting location for parts of Inglorious Basterds and The Reader. The traditional heart of Silesian culture Görlitz is loaded with many towers and styles from every architectural period – Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Art Nouveau and modern.

In the streets of Görlitz One of my first trips abroad, as a volunteer. I am standing with the guy who was teaching us traditional woodworking methods. The city was lovely and charmingly dilapidated then. -Since then it has been restored, cleaned, painted etc. You can see how the buildings behind us desperately needed paint, structural work, and plaster work.