‘Extreme’ day trips from any London airport?

[WeJustWantYouToBeHappy]

Compiling ideas for interesting destinations within a few hours (by plane) of London. I’d like to leave early and be home by midnight ish, looking for museums, sculpture parks and architectural wonders!

Prob 90 mins from Heathrow. Anywhere 2 hours flight time opens a lot of destinations. Palma, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan. Germany/Austria etc

I think pisa itself is a bit grim but I keep thinking about doing a day trip with a mate - easy to get to the tower, could do all the tourist stuff, grab food and go home again.

There are a lot of european airports that are very close to the city centre. Geneva and Cologne are 10 and 15 mins respectively by train. Countless others are also very accessible by public transport. There are endless possibilities. I am considering Gothenburg and Eindhoven too for later in the year

Pisa would make a perfect day trip
You can actually walk to the city centre from the airport in about 20 mins...

With fuel shortages coming if this war keeps on I doubt these will be an option

Pisa is very grim. Our flights were to Florence and return from Pisa. The tower is nice though it’s just leaning tower (structural issues?!). The actual town/city is so grotty.

All very well to do this in a day but hopefully no delays, I’d rather spend a night.

For those comparing travel with work often businesses/organisations will offset their emissions and have a policy around net zero. I am assuming you don’t.

I know it feels mean spirited to even mention it to some but there really is no moral justification for not giving a shit about the impact of frequent flights and for a day trip it’s truly ridiculous.

Faro?
Its a lovely historic city which the Portuguese themselves visit on holiday so it hasn’t been Britishified. Bus into town from the airport is cheap too.

I am not perfect - we have a car and I turn on the heat more often than I should. These extreme day trips though really make me despair. so much better to fly fewer places for longer if you’re going to fly at all.

Florence is gorgeous isn’t it? I used to live there. I couldn’t do a day trip only, I’d be too sad to go home so quickly!

daytrips by plane used to be my thing but I loved some more than others.

1. New York was my favourite but you need a flight that lets you arrive in the morning NYC time. I did this back in the days when there were many more flights to nyc than there are now. This would realistically, now, need to be a 48 hour trip.
2. Paris - but you need to arrive early enough to be able to hit the bakeries to make this worthwhile.
3. Belgium. I used to go to specifically buy chocolates lol.
4. Edinburgh. Not as worthwhile as it used to be — flights to Europe can be a lot cheaper.
5. Lisbon’s a good day trip - I go frequently when I’m craving specific food.
6. Dublin

New York was my favourite but you need a flight that lets you arrive in the morning NYC time. I did this back in the day

I wouldn't recommend it but since extreme was the request, yep....

You can maybe get an afternoon in Manhatten if you catch the first AM outbound from LHR and then the last return (the trip would probably span a shade over 24 hours but is just over a calendar day.)

Now that everything is subsonic It's pretty much impossible to contain a round trip LHR-JFK-LHR within a calendar day.

Don't think I've seen Basel mentioned yet. Small airport so quick to get in and out. Bus stops right outside, every 10 minutes into the city, takes about 10 minutes to get there. Lovely little town.

When I was smoking (given up now) I used to go there for the day and buy a load of duty free cigs! I'd have a nice lunch and amble round the city.

Florence is stunning but crowded. I preferred Siena.

I forgot, with work I I did a Christmas party in Dublin in a day, lashing rain at Dublin airport. Then there was a Christmas party in Amsterdam which some did in a day but the rest of us stayed an extra day or so.

Belgium I’d probably consider. Stepdad used to work as ship model conservator for National Maritime Museum Greenwich and me and my mum would always ask for chocolates on his frequent Belgian trips. Chocs with cream I recall 😋

If not mentioned you could go anywhere in Germany or Luxembourg or Austria in a day or Copenhagen. Plus much of France, Spain, Portugal. Maybe not that exciting though. I’m off to Trier in Germany in May (not in a day) as have German cousins there. They can barely speak English and my German is limited!

Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool are my closest airports which don't have such a huge choice, especially as I'd rather avoid 3 am starts.

But I have noticed that I can get to Geneva, which means you can visit CERN as it has a visitors centre. I'm looking to go in the summer so I can also swim in Lake Geneva. Both are reasonably close to the airport and obviously public transport is really good.

I'm not bothered about Dublin because I've been a few times for work, but Cork is another possibility plus some of the other airports in the west of Ireland. I'm happy to just rent a car and drive around seeing the countryside. I forget where exactly it is but you can drive past Father Ted's house.

We went to Pisa from Stansted- it’s very compact and ideal for a EDT

Has Pisa changed in past few years? When I was there for a day the tower and gardens near it were nice but the city centre near airport/station was dire, lots of beggars and filthy. We had to go there to get a return flight, had gone to Florence.