Interesting, non obvious, places in Europe

[KronkeyCroc]

So my family always pay for parents to go away on trip for important anniversaries and this year is their 50th. Previous trips for 40th was Iceland.

We might plan to all go as a family socan’t be anywhere too exotic as would be too expensive, hence looking at Europe.

Any ideas of not the usual tourist traps with interesting places to visit/ adventures to be had in Europe?

We had a fabulous holiday in Montenegro a few years ago. Not very tourist-y (although I suspect it's getting more so), not very expensive, felt like a really safe place to travel around by yourself. The people were fantastic - we had people in the towns we visited suggesting places we should see and walking down the street to point them out, purely out of kindness.

We flew into Dubrovnik, so you could do a holiday between the two

Copenhagen is very underrated IMO. As is Ghent (as beautiful as Bruges but with a 10th of the tourists). Seville/Granada. Bilbao

Both Utrecht and Ljubljana are well worth a visit. Utrecht is only about 35 mins by train from Schipol, so pretty accessible. Both towns have loads of history and gorgeous, pedestrian-friendly centres.

Bologna
Porto
Seville
Granada
Channel islands
Lake Garda/Verona
Gibraltar
Bilbao

Agree with Clymene, Ghent is a wonderful place to visit. Gorgeous architecture, fantastic beers and great food. It’s a lovely place to just wander around for a few days and relax.

There's not a lot to do in Porto and we found the locals a bit unfriendly as tourism is causing them quite a lot of problems and so they don't tend to welcome visitors with open arms. We went with a local friend and its not somewhere I would rush back to

Colmar or Annecy in France

Slovenia is very nice. Ljubljana is a fairly typical central European place - castle, old towns, nice wee picturesque streets etc. Also Lake Bled is very pretty. You could probably rent a lodge or two for all of you there and there's activities for those as want them.

Northern Spain
Tallinn, Estonia
Gdansk, Warsaw or Wroclaw in Poland

Vienna

Antwerp is a beauty city and an easy train ride to explore Brussels
Lyon is also very lovely

what do they like to do and see when away

Lake Garda is beautiful but the very epitome of touristy. Como is less touristy (a bit) and more old-worldy.

A day in Bologna is enough- my DD went for 3 last week and even going to Florence for one of them said that once you've seen the tourist monuments you're done.

Recently I've bloody loved Belgium. I was last there in the 80s and hated it- but we found Brussels great (the EU buildings are really interesting, no matter how you feel about the EU/Brexit etc) and of course you can get to Bruges/Ghent/Antwerp/Paris etc from the same place.

Madrid-Salamanca-Porto would be on a nice direct line. Salamanca is my favourite place in the whole world except for August when it makes Venice look empty.

I'd agree with Scandinavian too. Oslo-Bergen. Copenhagen. Finland. I'm hoping to go to at least one of them this year.

Cordoba is lovely for a few days and has lots of great restaurants and a beautiful mosque/cathedral and is easy to get to from Malaga airport. San Sebastián is more expensive for hotels etc but the food there is AMAZING!

I also really liked Sofia and did a couple of nice day trips including one to Rila monastery (where they happen to have amazing donuts!).

Puglia in the south of Italy has lots of good options and much less busy/expensive than the northern tourist hotspots. Another Italian option is the Noto Valley/Syracuse area in Sicily. You’d probably want to rent a car for either of those.

Czech Republic is lovely: Karlovy Vary, Czesky Krumlov, Pilsen, Prague.....

@Feliana

Slovenia is very nice. Ljubljana is a fairly typical central European place - castle, old towns, nice wee picturesque streets etc. Also Lake Bled is very pretty. You could probably rent a lodge or two for all of you there and there's activities for those as want them.

I was going to say this but @Feliana beat me to it 😊

I was also going to suggest Belgium which I think is a really under rated destination in general. I agree Ghent is beautiful but my personal favourite is Oudenaarde (though you probably have to be interested in cycling to filly appreciate it)
Spain is full of fabulous places that are less touristy than the popular resorts. Valencia is a beautiful city, and places like Segovia, Avila and Burgos are packed with history. The north coast is is also very beautiful though you don't get the guaranteed weather of course. But the whole area from Bilbao to Santiago de Compestela has a lot to offer.
My DH travels to Stockholm on business regularly and that looks very interesting too. In fact there's a lot of places I'd like to see in Scandanavia. I enjoyed Strasbourg and southern Germany is beautiful (Freiburg, Konstanz etc)

We enjoyed Rotterdam. A more chilled vibe than Amsterdam and less tourists.

Extremadura region of Spain.
Tatra mountains in Slovakia/Poland. Denmark - some of the Islands like Aero are lovely and you could combine with Copenhagen.
A summer cottage in Sweden or Finland.

Slovenia is gorgeous.

I say Slovenia too.
Russia too - fantastic really interesting (it seems to count as Europe these days).
Someone else said Northern Spain - I love the Picos (the mountains) - you could have a mini cruise on Brittany Ferries to get there.
What about Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - I have been to Estonia and loved it.

@RedMozzieYellowMozzie

There's not a lot to do in Porto and we found the locals a bit unfriendly as tourism is causing them quite a lot of problems and so they don't tend to welcome visitors with open arms. We went with a local friend and its not somewhere I would rush back to

We found the exact opposite. Had a wonderful few days during the festival of san joao. Found everyone really friendly and would definitely go back.

Gothenburg. 90 minute flight and absolutely gorgeous. Very expensive to eat out is the only thing.

I've always wanted to go to Lucca, it looks so beautiful and I adore Italy.

I had a magical holiday in Finland when I was a child. We went at midsummer which would probably be quite special anywhere in Scandinavia tbh.
Saunas, boats trips round islands, city museums, and great playgrounds (prob not relevant for your parents )

Probably not cheap though!

Santiago, Munich, Brussels, Peleponnese