October city break with 9 and 1 year old

[Rubixcubecheat]

Hello looking for ideas for a European city break for myself and 2 children (OH isnt sure if he can come). Must be easy to get around with a buggy and NOT hot. The below are following things that tend to go down well on holiday for us:

Hop on and off buses
Tram rides
Castles
Theme parks
Beaches (for a short while so not essential)
Easy in terms of food/eating out (not opposed to visiting the odd chain restaurant found in the UK for an easy life)
ICE CREAM
Boat/ferry rides
Zoos
Child-friendly museums
Interesting parks/gardens
Fountains (9 year old obsessed!)
Fly from east midlands/Birmingham

Things that don't go down well:
Shopping
Heat
Too much walking (hence hop on and off buses been top of the list)

Any ideas much appreciated. Thank you in advance

Amsterdam

Copenhagen is a very child-friendly city with a lot of the items on your list. It's has a good zoo, a theme park (Tivoli), an outstanding aquarium, science museum (Experimentarium), boat tours, botanic garden, and you can take the metro to the beach. The beach park consists of a two km long artificial island forming a lagoon with toddlers' pools on the one side, and a big sandy beach with dunes on the other. The southern part of the park has a broad promenade and areas for different ball play and picknicking. Spend some time in the Kongens Have, a beautifully landscaped park in the heart of the city. The playground in the middle of the park is perfect for kids. There's a friendly dragon they can ride and a fairy-tale world of golden eggs and wooden figures to explore. Close to the playgrounds you will find a café serving ice-creams, sandwiches and drinks. There are also toilets at the site. The park is in the grounds of Rosenberg Castle, where you can see the Crown Jewels.

YY to Copenhagen. I can recommend a lovely, central, well priced hotel if you are interested. 5 mins walk from the main station.

Copenhagen. All details as above. Denmark has is own ice cream with fancy cream on top.

Or the Netherlands. Amsterdam with a side trip to Efteling for the theme park bit and as many fountains as you could possibly want. If you have time Utrecht as well - also good for the Spielklok Museum. Everywhere v easy to get to by train except annoyingly Efteling which is best done by car.

Copenhagen looks good, any hotel recommendations would be much appreciated

We stayed here and it was super www.scandichotels.com/hotels/denmark/copenhagen/scandic-copenhagen

Ah OP I'm jumping on your thread as I'm looking for the same. Copenhagen sounds amazing !! I'm starting my research right now!

Lisbon has tram rides and beaches.

Geneva: boat trips, small 'beach', cable car, massive fountain jet thingy in the middle of the lake.

Amsterdam it’s such a cool city.

www.iamsterdam.com/en/see-and-do/things-to-do/families-and-children

Cologne (just avoid the cobbles)

Brilliant little hotel tucked away in a back street in Central Copenhagen Hotel Ansgar

We've literally just left Copenhagen today (now in malmo) and I'd say for a city break I preferred Lisbon and Seville. Copenhagen is really expensive. And I mean REALLY expensive! It was about £5 for a hot choc in a cafe and a drink and cake stop often set us back £20-30 quid we were there with dc aged 4 and 7 and regretted not bringing the pushchair as it's quite a big city and there was lots of walking. If you do go though I'd recommend the Copenhagen card as it includes transport and is free for kids under 9. We went to Tivoli gardens (included in the card cost) but all the rides are extra and we spent about £60 on a few tame ones as the kids won't do anything scary! It's worth buying the unlimited rides tickets although you'd struggle with two little ones on your own I think.

Otoh, we loved Lisbon. The trams are fab and mean you don't have to do loads of walking (And the cobbles are doable with a pushchair as we managed), great beach 20min train ride away in cascais, lots of attractions including a brilliant science museum (though the experimentarium in Copenhagen wins the best science museum title so far for our family) and aquarium. Loads of parks, would recommend the English park opposite the basilica especially. Actually, I think we'll book a return trip next year!

Seville was also fab and a good size for small kids. I'd also recommend Valencia as it'll be a nice temp in October and it has a brilliant science park and aquarium, beach, good transport and isn't too big to navigate.

Oh And Seville had an amazing fountain in the main park bit

Thank you for the advice, looks like Copenhagen will be stretching the budget too much! I do like the look of seville tho. Also been considering Palma if anyone has any experience visiting here with kids?

@misty9 your post has been really helpful (apologies for jumping on OP) could you recommend any accommodation in Lisbon, Seville and Valencia? Do you book separate or through an agent? Thanks.

Barcelona

I didn't find Copenhagen any more expensive than London, but we did have a couple of picnic type meals from Netto.

We booked airbnb in all three cities but I'll look for the link for our Lisbon one as I would recommend for location and as a family place

@allbut21 we booked this place in Lisbon and it was a fab location. Would really recommend the local covered market in campo d'ourique - the time out one near the main station is the famous one but the local one was much better value we found - you can order at one of the stalls and sit in the middle communal seating area.

Love Lisbon

@rubixcubecheat (great nn by the way!) We went to Seville in Feb half term this year and really liked the city. It was 24 in the afternoons but quite cold first thing. We never did quite figure out the public transport tickets so walked everywhere and that was with a 3 and 6 year old and no pushchair! There is a great metro and tram network though. There's an amazing sculpture called the mushroom (metropol parasol) which you can pay to climb up and let the kids run around a bit. Amazing views too. There's a lovely park with a huge fountain, boating bit and a play area. We also climbed up a tall tower (we like doing that ) and visited the famous Alcazar palace and gardens - the latter is great for kids to run around. We stayed in the Triana area which is very pretty with lots of little shops along the river. You sound like us in that we mainly do parks and museums on holiday!

@misty9 thank you for your link it looks amazing!!

I assume you are thinking of the October half term so end of Oct will be cold in Copenhagen.

Geneva has the jet d'eau if your ds likes fountains. There are ferries, museums, lots of chocolate and you can get a bus to France for a ride on a cable car (or just to cross off another country). There's even a little pebble beach where they serve amazing fondue. The parks usually have fountains you can play in too. There's a great one near a little zoo.

Lisbon is great for trams, brilliant children's museums and they have these volcano fountains that erupt every ten minutes. The children's science museum in expo park and the oceanarium would keep both kids entertained.

We went to Copenhagen in October and loved in! Our 2yo enjoyed it as well. It's as expensive as you want to make it - we picked up stuff in the Spar type shops for lunch & room picnics. Also managed to find a cellar pizza place in a side street just off Nyhaven that did amazing pizza at half the price of the main restaurants! We stayed at the Hotel Tivoli www.tivolihotel.com which was fab for kids. It had a swimming pool and a playroom and DD was given a little bag when we checked in with a colouring book and crayons which she loved.

Looks like you've ruled Copenhagen out on price - it is lovely but very pricey. I'd rule Stockholm out for the very same reasons. Lisbon I've not been to since I was a teenager - maybe as an adult I'd like it but while it was pretty, it wouldn't make my top 10 European cities! I'd go for one of the following:

Bruges - very pretty, small and easy to get around and very child friendly. Would be a train from London but London/Birmingham is an easy enough route! My DD loved the Chip Museum, Chocolote Museum, carriage ride and canal trip

Nice - likely to be warm still then without being really hot. There's a water fountain park in Place Massena, its very pretty, doesn't cost the earth to rent an apartment and if it's warm enough, Villefranche 10 minutes away by train has a really child friendly beach.

Seville/Barcelona - both are great cities and very easy to get around. Barcelona in particular has great parks and museums

Prague - probably the prettiest city you'll ever visit in Europe and won't break the bank either. Likely to be parky in October though

Verona - lovely city with a pretty chilled out vibe. My DD liked the hop on hop off (but she's very keen on them anyway!). There's an airport there. Venice is 1hr 20 away by train and Lake Garda is a 50 minute cheap bus ride away.

Carcasonne - again, there is an airport there. The old walled city is very beautiful and as a whole, it's an easy city to get around.

Hope some of this helps!!