Cricova is a small town 15 kilometres north of Chișinău and formally part of the city municipality, which makes it the easiest trip out of the capital — about twenty minutes by car. Its fame lies underground: limestone was quarried here for the buildings of Chișinău, and from the 1950s the empty mines were turned into one of the largest wine cellars in the world. Tens of kilometres of galleries run beneath the town, arranged like streets and named after the wines stored along them, with tasting halls and a historic collection kept at a constant cellar temperature all year round. Above ground Cricova is quiet and green, with a couple of restaurants, a small park and the smaller Casa Vinicolă Luca for anyone who prefers an intimate tasting to the big complex.

Ialoveni lies about 12 kilometres south of Chișinău and gives its name to the district that surrounds it. This is wine country: the town itself built its reputation on fortified, sherry-style wines, and a few kilometres away is Mileștii Mici, whose underground galleries hold what the Guinness records list as the largest wine collection in the world. Further south, in Puhoi, the Asconi estate combines a working winery with a restaurant, gardens and rooms for the night, which makes the southern direction an easy half-day or full-day trip. In between there are quiet parks in Ialoveni itself and the Suruceni monastery, set in a calm green valley just outside the town.

Orheiul Vechi — Old Orhei — is about 60 kilometres north-east of Chișinău and should not be confused with the modern town of Orhei some 15 kilometres further on. It is a limestone canyon carved by the Răut river, and people have been living in it for thousands of years: Geto-Dacian fortifications, a medieval settlement and, above all, a monastery cut into the cliff face, where monks dug their cells straight into the rock. The village of Butuceni sits on the ridge above with its traditional white houses, guest houses and eco-resorts serving Moldovan food, and Trebujeni lies on the other side of the valley. Between the two run the walking paths and the viewpoints that make this the strongest day trip from the capital — best in the late afternoon, when the light falls along the valley.

Stăuceni and Grătiești are the first villages north of Chișinău, ten to fifteen minutes from the centre and part of the city municipality. There is no sightseeing here, and that is rather the point: this is where the capital goes for a long lunch. Large garden restaurants and resort complexes line the roads, built for family celebrations, weddings and weekends away from the apartment blocks, and a couple of small hotels make a convenient base for anyone heading on towards Cricova and Orhei the next morning.

Codru is the wooded south-western edge of Chișinău — a residential town inside the municipality with a few good neighbourhood cafés rather than attractions. The name points further out, to the Codrii: the hilly oak and hornbeam forest that covers the centre of the country. The Codrii nature reserve near Lozova is the oldest in Moldova and keeps some of its last old-growth woodland, with marked paths, picnic spots and easy hiking. On the far side of the same forest stands Căpriana, one of the oldest monasteries in the country, and a scattering of small wineries such as Vinăria Poiana at Ulmu — enough to fill a slow day in the woods.

About an hour and a half north-east of Chișinău the land drops towards the Dniester in a series of cliffs and wooded ravines, and this is where Moldova keeps its most dramatic scenery. Țipova holds one of the largest rock-cut monastery complexes in Eastern Europe, its chapels and cells hollowed into the cliff above the river, reached by a path that runs past a chain of small waterfalls. Saharna, a little further north, pairs a busy pilgrimage monastery with a gorge, waterfalls and trails through the forest. Both are full-day trips and both are worth proper shoes and an early start; the villages of Molovata and the riverbank nearby also make a good base for kayaking on the Dniester.