Suggestions for less obvious european city breaks

[starfish4]

We've been to a few European capitals, but fancy going somewhere less obvious this year. Any suggestions please.

We'll be staying four nights so needs to be enough to do. I like river/lakes, but a really nice view might work instead. We like pottering, shopping, architecture, history, walks, eating out, so think easy to please.

Salzburg? Lovely compact city, mountains.

Porto is lovely

Zaragoza in northern Spain. OH had a conference there, otherwise its not somewhere I'd even considered. We got a train from Barcelona to Zaragoza, spent 5 days there, then got another train to Madrid, but you could just fly direct there. There is a large river running through the middle, beautiful basilica, lots of Roman history and great food.

I liked Zagreb in the summer - small enough to walk around but enough to keep you busy for a couple of days.

Bologna is lovely.

Gdansk

We really enjoyed Granada.
Compact, excellent food and Alhambra.

Bilbao has a Guggenheim and good food.
San Sebastián has excellent food and is a pretty costal town.

Helsinki.

Vilnius.

Bratislava.

Bordeaux.

Lyon. Plenty to do and see, great food, plus you can also do day trips (by train) to the mountains, Provence, Avignon, etc

Lisbon.

Krakow is lovely and ticks all your boxes I reckon. Plus it's very inexpensive!

Lljubana is beautiful! Bratislava is lovely too in the centre and the history is interesting! It's actually so new!

Budapest is popular but I really enjoyed it!

Another vote for Ljubljana.

Riga?

Zurich

Bologna or Munich.

Munich- loads to do in the city centre with museums, art galleries, Egyptian Museum. Residenz palace right in the centre. But also great public transport so you can easily go out to more palaces with lakes if you want - Nymphemburg or Schleissheim. And if you really want lakes you can take a day trip out to the Alps - Murnau or Kochel are lovely. Also plenty of places with Biergartens to sit and have nice food in.

Bologna - food, food and more food! Be prepared to double in size from how much pasta you eat There are lovely cathedrals and churches and art galleries and wandering about.

Just occured to me - Padua. Frescos by Giotto in the Scrovegni chapel - go late at night so no-ones there. We had the place to ourselves twice. Again stunning churches. Cathedral of St Anthony. And if you want water, what about a boat trip down the canal to Venice, stopping off at some Palladian villas on the way? Also you are no distance from Vicenza.

Trier is fab, lots of roman ruins and good wine, Heidelberg is also lovely.

Ljubljana
Sarajevo
Bilbao

Ljubljana & surrounds and/or Lake Bled

Mostar / Blagaj / Kravica waterfalls (you would have to fly to Dubrovnik or Split and get a bus over the border, but so so worth it).

I agree Zagreb is nice and easily walkable. Not sure if I would have wanted four nights there.

Belgrade is fascinating, and you wouldn't run out of stuff to do.

Combining Bratislava and Vienna can be fun. Really easy.

Love Sarajevo.

Kotor in Montenegro is beautiful and ticks all your boxes. Fly to tivat. Hire a car and drive around - absolutely stunning.

Cologne
Valencia
Belfast

Budapest and Munich were my faves last year. PP mentioned Bratislava which I thought was lovely but not sure I could have got 4 days out of it. You could do a day trip to Vienna though.

Also last Easter we did 5 nights in Stresa on lake Maggiore. Stunning scenery, lots of boat trips, lovely food. We flew to Milan Malpensa and there is a shuttle bus you can book. We had an early flight and were in our hotel in time for breakfast.

Thanks for some great ideas! This is going into my saved threads list.