Me&2 teens next summer - where to go?

[balzamico]

Dh has a separate trip and usually has a strong influence, loves sun and not too much to do, good restaurants and alcohol.
Kids and I not so much sun worshippers and don't want to do a villa and plop type holiday.
We're thinking maybe Switzerland/ Italy/Copenhagen, we're not massively active, enjoy a good walk, but not a 10mile bike.
I love to be outdoors and to have views, we've enjoyed city breaks so are thinking maybe we'll do a weekend in a city followed by a few days somewhere more (but not too) restful.
Does anyone have any fantastic ideas please?
I'm thinking we'll stay within Europe

I’m keen on Italy at the moment - DH has been to Rome and Florence with work but I haven’t. Considering a split stay with a city and some beach time.
Having said that, I won’t be booking anything until Jan at the earliest as we just don’t know what’s going to happen.

If you’re not sun worshipers, Italy gets very hot in the summer! How about a few days in Verona in the North which will be cooler than the South (a day trip by train to Venice is easy) then take a bus (they go regularly from outside the train station in Verona) to Lake Garda and stay at one of the towns on the Lake? Verona is very pretty, historic and gets less tourists than Venice which can be a bit of a mare in summer!

Switzerland and Copenhagen will both be more expensive. I’ve not been to Copenhagen so can’t comment on that but I have been to Switzerland. For Switzerland, how about flying into Zurich, have a day or two there then take a train to pretty Lucerne which is on a large lake.

Austria or the French Alps?

I spent a few days in Munich last year and it was so fab I want to go back. A trip there followed by time in the Bavarian alps?

Or as a cheaper but very pretty alternative, how about flying in Ljubljana in Slovenia. It’s very pretty and doesn’t get the volume of tourists you get elsewhere. From there you can get a bus to Lake Bled. The scenery is alpine - mountains, pine trees and blue lakes. Lake Bled is a town with a lake with a small island - take a google, it’s quite ridiculously pretty! You can swim/boat in the Lake and hire bikes to ride around. An AirBnB there wouldn’t set you back a fortune.

We did Hintertux in Austria, fly into Innsbruck then care hire there and would recommend there for a few days combined with Innsbruck. The mountains in Hintertux have snow all year as there's a glacier and there's an ice palace under the top of the mountain. In the summer there's things like white water rafting.

I do love Italy though very hot in the summer. Copenhagen was really nice for a few days, we combined it with Sweden when we went. had a lovely holiday in Finland where we saw bears in the wild at Arola Bear, went by Ruka and did summer tobogan, saw lots of reindeer, did white water rafting etc but you do need to research locations there as things can be far apart - we saw more reindeer than cars on the road and was miles of nothing but forest. For there you fly into Helsinki then another flight up. Not been to Helsinki, we tend to avoid cities.

The Italian Alps aren't any hotter in summer than any other part of the Alps! South Tyrol (aka The Dolomites) is really beautiful. You could fly to Verona and jump on a train to Bolzano and then spend some time in the mountains www.suedtirol.info/en

DD (16) and I travel on our own in summer as dp has only a short holiday, doesn't like flying and is a beach bunny (I'm in Italy and live 500metres from the beach) DD definitely is a visiting cities girl and I'll go anywhere as long as I go!

Next year we will do what I had to cancel this year, which is a round trip Copenhagen Berlin, Oslo (I think- my original trip was Copenhagen-Berlin- Vienna) 3 days in each.

I love sitting and playing on Skyscanner and getting the cheapest flights - my Copenhagen to Berlin won with £4.50 each

Last year we did Madrid-Toledo-Brussels (just because it was the cheapest place you could get to from Madrid, and we bloomin loved it! I studied in Brussels for 6 months when at university and hated every second but we had a really interesting 3 days)

Iceland and Finland also on our list but Denmark and Norway will probably bankrupt me enough next year! Hoping for a cheap(ish) Greek or Portuguese R&R at some point too to make up for this year.