City break ideas with 12 year old DS

[pharmachameleon]

In looking for inspiration for ideas for a probably European city break in April next year with me, DH and DS age 12. We went to London last April and loved it but looking to go somewhere different next time. I was thinking about Amsterdam-would this be a good choice? Don't want to go to Paris (been twice and don't like it) or New York (went a few years ago).
I don't think my son will be massively into any areas of historical significance so I'm a bit stuck. He's not really into sport/football but is really active and loves cars.
Help!

What about Stuttgart if he’s into cars? Porsche and Mercedes museums but also very pretty and lots of other things to do.

Rome , absolutely great with teens and tweens. Lots of history , Colosseum, pantheon , great parks , fountains , and squares , Vatican City. (See the James Bond car chase through the Vatican ) lots of pizza, pasta and ice cream. Short flight as well and nice weather in April

with older teens we enjoyed Berlin but it’s big , everything is far away and long walks . Another alternative would be Barcelona

Monaco I'm not really sure what is there apart from when DH went he was in his element posh car spotting.

Great ideas thanks. We'll check these out. I had fancied Berlin so good to know to maybe avoid as its big and everything is spaced out.

We have enjoyed Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam with our DS and have booked for Rome next year. If you're thinking about Berlin, we had a great time there for a few days when DS was about 8. The U Bahn is easy to use, so we didn't do more walking than we wanted to. We enjoyed going inside the glass dome of the Reichstag, seeing the Easter markets in various parts of the city, visiting the DDR museum, and going on a boat trip. Plus the Rausch chocolate shop which DS is keen to return to one day.

Amsterdam was also great, and we'd like to go back to both now DS is a teen and more interested in some of the historical places.

My older dc loved Munich. Its got the world’s biggest science and technology museum, a BMW Museum, and you can get BMW Factory tours. They loved watching the surfing, the Bavaria Film Studios (which has lots to interest children including the sets from the Asterix films, a stunt show and a 4D cinema) and we took a day trip to Neuschwanstein Castle.

I loved Berlin and didn't think everything was far away. If you stay in the east it's all pretty near (and I'm lazy!)

Fantastic! Thanks everyone.

Salzburg for the Red Bill centre. And it's a lovely city

Reykjavik would be pretty amazing. Lots of activities to do, museums, geysers, volcanoes etc

Reykjavik!! So many amazing things to do and see!!

You could do a south coast tour and a golden circle tour.

It's not cheap but utterly utterly amazing!!

It is quite big but we have the Citymapper and we just used that - we found it really easy to navigate around using bus and train with it.

We went to Berlin when DS was around that age and he loved it and he wants to go back to do the things we ran out of time to do.

Another vote for Berlin - public transport is very easy to use. Rausch chocolate shop is good but we found great chocolate cake in McDonalds too.

DDR museum, the zoo, there’s a spy experience for kids (we didn’t try that) and a great technology museum.

If you stay in the UK then I would Bristol and the South West for motor/engineering things

Concorde museum (Bristol)
SS Great Britain (Bristol)
Helicopter museum (Weston-super-Mare)
Fleet Air Arm Museum (Yeovil area)
Haynes Motor Museum (Yeovil area)

Sorry did want to be down on Berlin we did have a fab time and I would go back in a heartbeat . I just meant that geographically it’s a much bigger city .

Monaco has Prince Rainier's car collection.
Huge aquarium /institute of oceanography
Masses of people watching
Royal palace on the rock
Beautiful and easy train journey along the coast to Italy, Nice, Cannes etc

I did a city break to Nice/Monaco in 2019, with dc aged 8 and 11.

Thanks everyone. We're in Scotland so I'll check out flights to all the suggestions and price them.