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.

I wouldn’t touch Pisa with a barge pole. I used to live in the hills above it. I much preferred Lucca.

Bologna is lovely, not sure I’d want four or five days, but it’s easy to move on to other cities that are fairly near, like Ravenna or even Verona.

Montpellier is lovely and if you hired a car it’s easy to visit the south coast, Avignon, Arles and Nimes etc that are very close.

Bratislava is lovely and has lakes all around that we swim in during the lovely warm summers. A lot of people think that it's hard to fill 4 days but I can happily while away my entire summer at the lakes and outdoor pools plus Vienna is an hour away by boat or train, Budapest is under 3 hours on a scenic train route and Prague is 4 hours away.

Alesund

As a pp said Carcassonne is super.

(Or at least it was in 1986.)

Taormina is also lovely.

@ CherryPavlova I like Bucharest but surely it’s not for everyone unless you’re a fan of totalitarian urban planning and weather extremes.

We had a fabulous few days in Bucharest with another couple. We stayed in a lovely hotel in centre - Grand Continental. It certainly wasn’t totalitarian architecture.
We found art gallery incredible as security was so relaxed.
The museum of buildings park had an sort of Romanian with international dancing. Ceaușescu‘s Palace was thought provoking.
The theatre was beautiful and lots of nice coffees around.
We had a trip out to Transylvania which was beautiful.
Jewish history was interesting. We found the Synagogue and were invited to join a Sukkot meal.
Plum brandy was potent but disgusting- best drunk when drunk already.

I second Antwerp, spent a wonderful weekend there a few years ago with friends.
Gréât café culture, lots of interesting street art, arty boutiques and good food.

Also recommend Nice - the city itself is fun to get lost in and you can day trip to Monaco, Menton and Italian border towns, and in the other directions Antibes, Cannes and the islands and can also spend a day wine tasting in La Motte/La Muy.

Thirding Antwerp. We were there in December for the fifth time. Also love Ghent, but it's becoming more crowded. Or I'd head to Spain, to Cadiz, Seville or Bilbao. And if you're concerned about cruise ship visitor numbers, do an online search for a cruise ship port diary. It will tell you which ships are in a particular port on any day.

Dd is on erasmus in Gent, she loves the town, we are going out in March to visit her.

@CherryPavlova I love Romania. Tried to visit the Bucharest synagogue but wasn’t open for visiting in the day I went. There was a Yiddish theatre when I was there last, but that was 2002.

Some places you might not of thought of:
Saarbrücken - the old part of town is nice, interesting castle museum, good base for trips to Trier etc. Go in summer as it’s great to sit out by the river.
Mainz: again a nice Old Town, Guttenburg Museum, cathedral, old Roman ruins, wine by the Rhine, good base for trips to Frankfurt, boat trips also fun!
Innsbruck: another fab old town and river, museum, Alpine zoo reachable by funicular, cable car up the mountain, good base for hikes, Austrian food and wine is lovely!
Bozen: spectacular scenery, good hikes and walks, great base to explore the Dolomites and also the surrounding valleys, great markets, lovely restaurants, super local wine, and the Ötzi Ice man Museum.

I would say these are less obvious, although the first two have become quite popular city break destinations recently:

Loved:

Porto
Seville
Granada
Ljubljana
Sarajevo
Montpellier
Girona
Ghent

Could quite happily spend 4 days in any of them, but I like just wandering aimlessly, exploring food markets and shops, restaurants and cafes etc. If you mostly want to tick off a list of 'sights' or don't want to walk down the same street more than once, then you may find 4 days too much for some of them.

Places I didn't love - I thought Carcassonne (cite) was a disappointing tourist trap, Bucharest a bit of a dump and Dubrovnik, beautiful but spoiled by over tourism and cruise ship crowds.

"Montpellier is lovely and if you hired a car it’s easy to visit the south coast, Avignon, Arles and Nimes etc that are very close."

While a car would be very useful for the coast and most of the small attractive inland villages, Avignon, Arles and Nimes are all very easy to get to by train. Agree, all worth visiting and fairly different from each other. Also liked Aigues-Morte as a day trip, even though it's very touristy (only 1 euro each way by train from Nimes).

Twin Centre Seville and Cadiz - easy on the train between the 2 .
Lisbon / Cascais - again easy train for the day
Porto / Foz do Douro - stay by the water and bus/ tram into the city
Salzburg