Weekend city break in Europe: good airport links in to destinatiom

[boatyardblues]

We are thinking of a short city break and are agnostic on destination so long as the flights and dates work. We want to keep costs down so want easy links from airport to the named city location. Which European airports are well-located or have good public transport into their city/named destination? Are there any we should avoid because they’re only tenuously located near their city or have awful links?

Amsterdam, Belfast, Dublin, Rome.... bus from outside airport terminal to the City Centre.
Berlin ... train from outside airport terminal to city centre.

Personally, I'd pick the city first and then checkout the cost of public transport. I have not come across any as expensive as Heathrow or Gatwick trains.

Amsterdam has fantastic regular, clean, reasonably priced train services from Schiphol to the city.

Barcelona and Valencia, done both a few times, very easy to get from the airport to city

Thanks all. Will check out flights form our nearest airports.

Hamburg and Copenhagen are dead easy too, in case anyone else sees this & is looking for similar ideas.

We just had our first visit to Barcelona and the public transport is amazing. Straight from the airport, onto the train, into the city. Loved it!

Florence is very easy from London City airport, you fly into Florence and then a 20 min bus ride into the centre.

Budapest airport is only about 20 minutes from the city, we got a cab which wasn't expensive

Nice airport now has a tram connection via Ave. de la Californie into the city and beyond, with connections to the main train station, the old town etc. So easy.

Copenhagen is fab for this but I see you've already been. It's a great city though and I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone for a city break!

Palma de Mallorca.
20/30 mins airport to city centre, bus drives along the waterfront into the city.

Or train from Pisa straight to the centre of Florence (airport and train station sort of linked).

Are there nice beaches for swimming around Palma, Santana?

Barcelona

Plenty of beaches on Mallorca! It's quite a small island really, you can see a lot within a short distance in a weekend trip.

Take the little tourist train to Port de Soller, the beach there is stunning (my pic here!).

Are there city beaches in Palma, ie without needing to travel? I know Barcelona has city beaches but not sure of Palma.

Dubrovnik! Short taxi to the city and lovely beaches to the north of the city. Plus the city is lovely to visit

Lisbon is very easy.

Nice and Lisbon

I went to Vienna and we bought tram/tube passes in advance and then only had to pay a few euros (like, less than 2 I think) to extend their range for the train from the airport. It didn't take long and was very easy to manage. Small airport as well which helps. Make sure you are not flying to Bratislava tho.

Lots to see in Vienna if you like beautiful old buildings and 20th century art as well.

Lisbon is so close to the airport. And as someone else said Malaga but I'd choose Lisbon over Malaga.

Brilliant stuff. This is helping with drawing up our shortlist.

Bologna, cheap bus not far from airport. Food to die for!

Dubrovnik is looking promising for our budget and dates. There are some nice beach hotels in Lapad coming up on the search. Does anyone know how easy it is to get into Dubrovnik old town from Lapad and whether Lapad is a nice place to be in its own right?

Madrid also looks like it would fall within our budget. What are prices like once you are there? Is there a capital city premium, like London?

To answer your latest question, public transport and food in Madrid are dirt cheap. You can buy a Metro and bus pass which makes each journey only €1.20. Really easy to reach the city from the airport as well, it’s on main Metro and Cercanías (train) lines.

What‘s a bit more expensive in Madrid is accommodation, but there are lots of apartments on booking or Airbnb that help reduce the price, if you don’t mind not staying in a hotel. There is an element of capital city premium but not as much as in eg Paris or Rome, in my opinion.

I travel there a lot for work and once you’re in Madrid, it’s very cheap compared to other European cities.