Curious places, places in Europe that seem made up.

Some trips are made for a city, a beach or a mountain, and some are made for a single image: a village with rock for a roof, a cathedral carved in salt, a castle that blocks the mouth of a cave. This zone is not a territory but an idea. It brings together places in Spain and Europe that surprise you the first time you see them and that almost always have a very specific explanation behind them: a river, a mine, a gorge or a way of life.

What are curious places?

They are places that do not fit what you expect. We are not looking for fairground oddities, but real landscapes and villages where geology or the work of generations has left something hard to believe. We group them into four families: impossible villages, worlds underground, landscapes that do not look like they belong here and human works set into nature. Almost all can be seen in half a day or a day, and work well as a stop within a longer trip.

Which villages look impossible?

In Setenil de las Bodegas, in Cádiz, the river Trejo carved out a gorge with huge overhangs and the locals closed the gaps with whitewashed façades: there are whole streets with rock for a ceiling. It is about 20 minutes from Ronda.

In Italy, Civita di Bagnoregio is a medieval village on top of a tuff crag that erosion keeps whittling away, in the middle of a valley of clay ravines. You can only enter on foot, along a long, steep footbridge, and very few residents remain. Further south, in Basilicata, Matera is two districts of cave houses, rock-cut churches and cisterns dug into the limestone, hanging over a ravine; people lived in them until the 1950s and today they are a World Heritage Site.

In the Netherlands, Giethoorn is the opposite of all the above: a flat village of reed-thatched houses, each on its own island, linked by wooden bridges. Cars do not enter the old centre.

What can you see underground?

In Wieliczka, 10 km from Kraków, seven centuries of salt mining left galleries, salt lakes and an underground cathedral with lamps and reliefs carved in salt. You visit with a guide, at a depth of 135 metres, going down about 800 steps. In Slovenia, the Postojna Cave is first toured on an electric train through a network of 24 km of galleries; 9 km away, Predjama Castle seals the mouth of another cave halfway up a cliff. Both sites keep the same temperature all year, so they work in heat or cold.

Which landscapes do not look like they belong here?

The Bardenas Reales, in southern Navarre, are a desert of clay and gypsum with hillocks sculpted by the wind, such as Castildetierra. A 25 km track circles the Bardena Blanca and is driven at a maximum of 40 km/h, from 8:00 until an hour before dark.

Las Médulas, in El Bierzo, look natural and are not: they were the largest open-cast gold mine of the Roman Empire. The Romans brought down whole mountains with water, and left red peaks among chestnut trees and galleries you can walk through.

Which human works surprise most?

The Caminito del Rey, in Málaga, is a walkway hung on the walls of the Gaitanes gorge: 8 km in three or four hours, with entry from €10 on the official website and a minimum age of 8. And the Zaanse Schans, 17 minutes by train from Amsterdam, preserves windmills for paint, oil and spices that still grind beside green wooden houses.

How do you get to each one?

There is no route linking them: you reach each one from a base city. From Málaga, the Caminito del Rey is an hour by car or 45 minutes by train, and Setenil, via Ronda, a little more. Las Médulas are reached by car via Ponferrada, and the Bardenas from Arguedas, near Tudela. For Matera, the useful airport is Bari, with a train of an hour and a half to two hours. Civita is in the province of Viterbo, between Rome and Orvieto, and needs a car or a train with a bus. Postojna is 50 km from Ljubljana; Wieliczka, a commuter train from Kraków; Zaanse Schans and Giethoorn, from Amsterdam by train, in the case of Giethoorn with a bus from Steenwijk.

When to go and for how long?

Spring and autumn are the best times for almost all of them. In summer, Setenil, Matera, the Bardenas and the Caminito del Rey are punishing at midday, and the Caminito has no shade. The caves and the mine are the exception: they can be visited just the same all year. For most, half a day is enough; Matera needs at least a night, because the Sassi look different at dusk.

What should you know before you go?

Several have timed entry: the Caminito del Rey, Wieliczka in languages other than Polish and Postojna leave in fixed shifts, and it is best to book on their official websites. Civita charges an entrance fee to cross the bridge. These places are famous for an image and attract groups: arriving first thing or last thing completely changes the visit, especially in Giethoorn, Zaanse Schans and Civita.