Moldova, a cellar at a time.
Which cellar you can cycle through. Where the church is cut into the cliff. What the crossing east of the Dniester actually involves. Every tour in the country, reviewed.
Wine cellars, a cliff church and a border the maps argue about.
Moldova is a small country with a short list of big days: two cellars you travel through on wheels, a monastery inside a limestone cliff, a capital you can walk in a morning, and the strip east of the river that kept its Soviet furniture.
Moldova’s wine cellars go down, not out.
All wine tours →
Both of the great cellars sit within half an hour of Chisinau, and neither is a room with a counter. You go in by car, van or bicycle and come out a couple of hours later. Pick the one that suits the day you have.
Cricova’s underground streets
Galleries named after the wines stored down them, tasting rooms carved out of the limestone, and a collection that includes bottles nobody is allowed to open.
Mileștii Mici, driven end to end
The largest wine collection in the world sits under a hill south of the capital. You travel the cellar road on wheels, past bottle stacks that run out of sight in both directions.
A village winery and a long lunch
Family cellars where the tasting turns into lunch: placinte, grilled meat, house red poured from a jug, and an afternoon that nobody hurries.
Across the Dniester, the Soviet furniture stayed put.
Tiraspol keeps a Lenin in front of its parliament, a working tank monument and a currency that stops at the checkpoint. Bender has the fortress on the riverbank. Day trips leave Chisinau in the morning and are back for dinner; bring your passport for the crossing.
What visitors to Moldova actually book.
Every review →The days that fill first: cellar runs, the Orheiul Vechi loop, and the trip across the Dniester.
1
Soviet Era Tour of Transnistria from Chisinau Moldova
Private Soviet-era day trip to Transnistria from Chișinău. Hotel pickup, Tiraspol sights, Bender fortress, English guide, $119.77
From · $119
Read our review →
2
Back in the USSR – Tiraspol & Bender City
from $117
3
Best of Moldova: Cricova Winery & Old Orhei Tour including Curchi Monastery
from $160
4
One day tour in Transnistria
from $145
5
Tiraspol and Bender Back in the USSR Tour
from $110
6
Curchi Monastery, Old Orhei and Cricova Winery (Optional)
from $117
7
One day tour in Transnistria
from $141
8
Transnistria Tour from Chisinau Explore Soviet Time Capsule
from $114
At Orheiul Vechi the church is inside the cliff.
Monks cut cells and a chapel into the limestone above the Raut, and the bend of the river below has barely changed since. The village of Butuceni sits at the foot of it, and most days out here take in Curchi monastery on the way back.
All 20 Orheiul Vechi days →
Moldova prices, from a tasting to a chartered day.
Every tour on the site sorted by price. The cheapest ticket here costs less than lunch in most of Europe.
Tastings, city walks, bike hire and the short trips that fill an afternoon rather than a day.
The standard Moldovan day out: cellar plus monastery, or Tiraspol and back, lunch usually included.
Private drivers, two-cellar days and the trips built around one table and one family.
Three things Moldova keeps to itself.
Vineyards are everywhere in Europe. A cellar with road signs, a Turkic-speaking region of its own and a monastery inside a rock face are not.
The Cellar With Roads
Mileștii Mici holds the largest wine collection on earth, and it is stored in a former limestone quarry with around 200 kilometres of galleries beneath it. Traffic runs on wheels down there — vans, and on some tours bicycles — past racks that vanish into the dark. It stays at about twelve degrees all year, which is why every guide mentions a jacket and half the group forgets one.
- 1Wine Tour to Mileștii Mici Cellar with Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 34 reviews
- 2Milestii Mici Underground Winery Tour INCLUDING Wine tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 27 reviews
- 3Cricova & Milestii Mici Wineries★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 22 reviews
Gagauzia, Two Hours South
Gagauzia is autonomous, Turkic-speaking and Orthodox, with its own capital at Comrat and its own flag flying beside the Moldovan one. Days out here run to a winery, a mansion and a table that keeps arriving: soup, then meat, then something sweet, then more wine. Nobody leaves hungry and nobody leaves quickly.
- 1Discover Gagauzia and Manuc Bei Mansion★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 20 reviews
- 2Gagauzia: day tour in Gagauzia and Manuc Bei Mansion★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 18 reviews
- 3All inclusive Gagauzia: Wine-tasting, Cooking & Lunch!★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2 reviews
The Monastery Circuit
Curchi is the one most tours stop at: a huge eighteenth-century complex in Moldovan baroque, painted white and blue, restored after decades as a hospital. Capriana and the cliff cells at Orheiul Vechi round out a circuit that most drivers can do in a day, with a village lunch wedged in the middle.
- 1Best of Moldova: Cricova Winery & Old Orhei Tour including Curchi Monastery★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 176 reviews
- 2Curchi Monastery, Old Orhei and Cricova Winery (Optional)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 117 reviews
- 3Cricova Winery, Curchi Monastery, & Old Orhei Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 51 reviews
Chisinau is small, green, and best done on foot.
The Arc, the cathedral and the park benches are twenty minutes apart. Piata Centrala sells the year in one aisle: barrels of pickles, tables of berries, walnuts by the kilo. Give the city a morning, then head for a cellar in the afternoon.
- 1Best of Chisinau Private City Tourfrom $68
- 2Chisinau Walking Tour with Local Guidefrom $81
- 3Discover City Highlights with a Walking Tourfrom $82
It is twelve degrees under Cricova whatever the sky over Chisinau is doing.
Moldova gets hard summer heat and grey wet winters, and neither reaches the galleries. The cellars hold their temperature all year, the monastery refectories keep serving lunch, and the museums in the capital do not care about rain either. Take a jacket down and a hat up.
Lenin still faces the parliament in Tiraspol.
All Soviet-era tours →
Transnistria Tour from Chisinau Explore Soviet Time Capsule
Read our review →
Sort these out before you get to Chisinau.
Most of Moldova can be arranged the night before from a hotel desk. These cannot: they run on borders, booked slots and a two-hour drive that has to start early.
- 01Discover Soviet Heritage of TransnistriaThe crossing is a document check. Bring your passport, take the migration slip you are handed, and keep it for the way back.
- 02Wine Tour to Mileștii Mici Cellar with TastingYou tour the galleries on wheels rather than on foot, and the cellar takes booked groups only.
- 03Best of Moldova: Cricova Winery & Old Orhei Tour including Curchi MonasteryThe underground streets are seen on set departures with a guide. It is twelve degrees down there, whatever August is doing above.
- 04Discover Gagauzia and Manuc Bei MansionComrat is a two-hour drive south, so these days leave Chisinau early and come back after dark.
The short list, largest first
Wine Tours38 tours
Transnistria32 tours- Cricova25 tours
- Orheiul Vechi20 tours
- Soviet Moldova17 tours
- Monasteries17 tours
Mileștii Mici12 tours- Every tour in Moldova →
By kind of day — cellar, cliff, capital or crossing
Moldova in six days, cellar to cliff to checkpoint.
Chisinau
GagauziaLatest Moldova tour reviews.
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Private Driver to Bucharest from Chisinau – Kishinev (Moldavia)
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Visit Chateau Purcari Winery and Marta & Maria Monastery
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Transnistria – Discover Soviet style and inspiration
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Tour of Capriana Monastery, Honey Mansion & Crama Mircești Winery
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1 Day: Wine tasting tour to Milesti Mici and Cricova cellar from Moldova
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