City breaks that aren’t too crowded

[rainydaysaway]

I went to Rome recently and the crowds were insane!

I even find London difficult at the moment due to the amount of people there (I work there occasionally).

Can anyone recommend lovely city breaks that don’t have hordes of tourists milling around?

(I know that I am a tourist and contributing to the problem!)

Berlin - it’s huge, so easy to get away from the crowds.

Try some of the smaller Italian cities - Bologna or Padua perhaps.

Zurich in Switzerland! Lake Bled is a town but I thoroughly enjoyed it and it wasn't overcrowded!

Following this thread with interest!

Also following with interest

Definitely avoid Naples even in November it was rammed and very dirty/neglected

Prague was good - had some busy areas but lots of space and quiet parts too (September)

Munich

Krakow - even in July there were some quiet areas

Budapest is a good one

Ljubljana- beautiful, friendly, amazing food and an easy day trip away from Lake Bled which another poster mentioned and is well worth a trip

Just back from Warsaw. Lovely and not Crowded at all.

Sofia also worth a visit.

other suggestions from recent trips: Luxembourg, Leiden, Stockholm, Lisbon.

Go in winter/off season! We went to Rome in Nov pre-covid. Didn't need to pre-book tickets to museums, no massive queues and still nice weather.

Stockholm and Copenhagen- been many times -

We did! Went on Boxing Day for three days and it was heaving! The queue for the Pantheon was huge. We’ve been before so were not too worried about the sights, but it was difficult to push through crowds everywhere.

thanks for all the suggestions.

putting one here for anyone else interested - we spent a weekend in Stavanger in September and that was beautiful.

Bilbao. And Stockholm.

Bilbao if you want art / food / history.

Porto for port (obvs), gorgeous buildings, great shopping.

Both are small, easy to walk around and crowd-free (though there are lots of tourists).

Xmas isnt low season anywhere though.

Next week most European cities will be ghost towns.

Budapest
Athens

Basel
Freiburg
Colmar
Riga
Goteborg
Strasbourg
Trieste
Haarlem
Split
Dijon
Bilbao

Fair enough - I usually stay at home and relax so assumed the rest of the world did the same 😂

I've been to Copenhagen in early November and both Berlin and Munich over New Year and stretching into the first few days of January and none were too crowded.

I don't remember major queues to any attractions or issues with things being fully booked. Tivoli in Copenhagen was quite busy but it was their Halloween celebrations so that was to be expected.

I really enjoyed Oslo, and Lyon and Strasbourg are surprisingly lovely.

We went to Berlin in the week before Christmas and it was lovely. Not overcrowded at all. Even the Christmas markets didn't feel busy. Son is autistic so have to be really vigilant to this and he really enjoyed himself as it was much quieter than the U.K.

We were in Gent earlier in December and found it to be just right in terms of numbers of people. Everywhere was lively, but there were no jostling crowds even at the Christmas market. It was easy to get into restaurants and bars and park up for several beers. Beautiful architecture too. A really good city break imo.

I was just going to say Gent as well, was there a few weeks ago and it was lovely. Easy to get to with Eurostar to Lille and then a train to Gent.

Find out when the local country has it's own school holiday and avoid like the plague.
I found London and Paris both very quiet (outside of business rush hour) during February half term, whilst UK children were around there was noticeable less tourists from America and Asian countries presumably as they aren't on school holiday or the weather isn't ideal, lesstour groups too which presumably happen more in the summer months which made a huge difference at tourist destinations

Side in Turkey
Thessaloniki in Greece
Essaouira in Morocco
Padua in Italy
Funchal in Madeira
Ljubljana in Slovenia
Sofia in Bulgaria
Zagreb in Croatia
Douglas in the Isle of Man (very underrated)
Gothenburg in Sweden
Perugia in Italy
Tallinn in Estonia
Yerevan in Armenia
Annecy in France
Cordoba in Spain

Valencia
Trieste
Palermo

Not an answer, but fyi, Oxford is always crowded.