Interesting and different places to visit in Europe

[Ozgirl75]

So, my family is coming back to the U.K. for a year, and one of the main things we want to do is travel and explore Europe.
We've already pulled together some places that we want to go, but I’d love to get some different ideas of interesting places that I might not necessarily have thought of. So, eg, I’d like to go to Barcelona but are there other places in Spain that are also lovely but less well visited?
Not necessary off the beaten track but more just, different places. And also, your must sees?

So we’ll be living in the U.K. and just doing holidays and weekends in Europe, no proper long trips, although we might go for longer in the school holidays. It won’t tip over the 90 days though.

I'm going to go a bit off the beaten track and suggest the Transylvania region in Romania. We stayed in Brasov but Sibiu is probably more accessible.

I feel like I’m going to need a second year 😄

An easy but lovely holiday for you is to fly Easyjet to Nice and then go three trains stops up the road to Villefranche Sur Mer. It’s a very beautiful village with a long history and beach to use as a base.
The train line runs the length of the coast ( station is ideally placed in Villefranche ) and in 40 minutes you can be in Monaco and 1 hour the end of the line is Ventimiglia in Italy! Such a great trip with stunning scenery all the way . In the other direction you have Nice, Antibes, St Tropez and Cannes.
Best done slightly out of season so even works in autumn half term

Azores - heaven in earth
Luberon region of Provence.

*on

Rome is obviously a must-see but I loved Florence too. Stunning place! If you're into architecture then Siena and Lucca are gorgeous too. The whole of Tuscany is beautiful to be fair.
We also enjoyed the north, Lake Como, Lake Garda etc.

Croatia is also gorgeous. Been a few times to different bits and never disappointed. People are so friendly, amazing food and scenery.

Lots of friends recommend Copenhagen especially for tween age kids, lots to do.

Lisbon is another beautiful city. Great food too.

Edinburgh is a fantastic city. History on every corner. Loads to do and quite compact so a lot of the main sights are walkable in the centre. The standard of restaurant food is also excellent, lots of diversity. And of course the Harry Potter link if your kids are into that.

West coast of Scotland is absolutely stunning and breath taking. Try to get off the beaten track a bit and find your own little piece of magic.

Have fun!

Will you please update this thread with where you go and what you think of it? So we can all travel with you by proxy!

Toledo, Valencia, Córdoba, Seville in Spain.
Valletta in Malta.
Naples and Pompeii/Herculaneum in Italy.

I will @Wheredoallthepensgo !
I definitely want to go to Italy too. I’ve been to Rome before and Milan but there are loads of other bits I want to go to.

Recently went to Riga in Latvia unexpectedly, was so surprised how beautiful it was, very medieval with lots of history

Yes, I really enjoyed travelling around Transylvania. We stayed at the ice Hotel on Balea lake. Much cheaper than the scandi ice hotels.

Lucca has a great summer music festival with a wide range of bands playing in the outdoor piazzas.

This.

It can be a pain to get to cheaply though.

We went over land via Bulgaria and Serbia. Which in itself was AMAZING. Serbia is utterly beautiful (Belgrade is a bit of a dump but very interesting none the less)

I'd also recommend independent travel around eastern Europe generally.

We've also done Dubrovnik into Bosnia going to Mostar and that's fabulous and a little easier (you can then go on to Sarajevo that way).

Pula (Croatia) and then travelling down the islands along the coast and going inland to Plitvice National Park is wonderful.

Tallinn is a fab little city break. Riga is small but pretty - we hired a car and went down into Lithuania to a gorgeous castle.

Fly into Malaga, hire car and head north into the hills - if you leave the coast it's brilliant. we headed up to Seville via a bunch of beautiful unplanned stop offs .

Also fly into Barcelona and go up to Zaragoza and Montserrat.

Finland. We loved Helsinki. We went in winter and went out to islands through the frozen sea but travelling north doing a Finnish castle (fab) and seeing a friend in Tampere (also a pretty little town).

I have down Copenhagen and Stockholm again great cities but I'd love to fly into Copenhagen and get the train over to Malmö and explore around that area.

The Netherlands is just great for independent travel. Its easy and I'm very fond of it. Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Utrecht and The Hague and all good cities and if travelling by car there are plenty of places in between worth stopping off at. You can head south into Belgium - Antwerp is pretty.

Tenerife. Yes really. But don't go to the more touristy places. Hire a car and go to the north of the island.

We did a Wroclaw city break and I enjoyed that.

We like to fly to cheap places and then explore if we can. It takes planning - wikitravel is a really easy and cheap place to start to get ideas for places outside the city or you think about getting the train / driving to another nearby town or city.

Oh and Iceland. Just all of it.

The nicest holidays I remember were driving with my parents to Munich via Strasbourg, and visiting Freiburg, Salzburg, Mittenwald, Neuschwanstein; and Northern Italy e.g. Florence, Assisi, Sienna.

Also had some lovely holidays in South East France, driving down via Burgundy and Lyon.

Also, Scotland?

If you go to Edinburgh you can get a direct flight with Atlantic Airways to the Faroe Islands visitfaroeislands.com/en.

Carcassonne and surrounding area. Boat trip up the canal, all the Cathar castles, white water rafting on the Aude.

Turkey isn't far and it's got some much to see, do and eat plus the GBP goes much further.

Am joining to steal some suggestions!

Fly into one place. Fly out another. It forces you to 'do something'.

Two places in the Netherlands to consider- Leiden and Haarlem.

Bosnia is incredible - I try to visit Sarajevo at least once a year I love it so much
Spent our honeymoon in Slovenia - Lake Bohinj is much nicer than Bled and Piran is gorgous
Santander and San Sebastian and then down into wine country in Cantabria, Spain - lovely

Lisbon, Split, Rovinj, Montpellier, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Prague

Alsace and the Black Forest are well worth investigating. If you are in the area, Lake Constance (Bodensee) is also close.