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!)

Warsaw and Vilnius

One tip is to avoid capitals and better known cities

I think Rome has got really busy recently. I last went in October half term 2019 and it was fine (obviously busy but not oppressively so). My Dd went October just gone and it was very crowded.

It’s the same for lots of places, social media has possibly exacerbated it. Eg there is an area in London that used to have late opening for the shops and carol singing, coming up to Christmas, mainly attended by local residents in the past. It became more widely known about through social media & they’ve had to stop doing it due to overcrowding.

Nice & surrounding area was fine when I went in the late autumn. Maybe target areas in winter that may usually be thought of as summer destinations?

Lucca in Italy is beautiful and I couldn't believe how quiet it is (I've been twice)

Another vote for Goteburg. Gorgeous city.

Go out of season. We went to Rome in early March one year and it was brilliant.

We found Vilnius to be good. Its not reached the popularity with stag and hen parties like some other Eastern European cities have. Riga was similar to that extent too but its been a lot longer ago that I visited there so it may have caught up now.

And Belfast was definitely worth a visit. We need to go back as there were definitely things I still want to do there.

We were in Copenhagen in January last year and it wasn’t busy at all.
Barcelona in November was busy around the main tourist attractions but as a whole it wasn’t bad wondering around, we spent a day in Tarrogona (about an hr from Barcelona on train) and it was lovely, quiet relaxed and had a lovely feel to it.

Verona!

Fly into Pula (Croatia), hire a car. 2x nights in Pula, then drive up to Rovinj for a night, then drive upto Ljubljana (Slovenia) for 2x nights and return the car to that airport to fly home.

Love Ghent

Helsinki. Absolutely wonderful

Thanks for all the recommendations.

I am going to Belgium in July so will add a couple of days in Ghent.

I also fancy going away for a few days by myself this year so will pick something from one of your recommendations.

Helsinki definitely.
Budapest
Vilnius
Lisbon also a definite.

Glasgow
Rotterdam
Hamburg

Bilbao as several people have suggested.
Istanbul was a busy city but not silly amounts of tourists.

Madrid anytime except December (also, in August stuff is closed and it's very hot...but not crowded.)

Warsaw is nice
Liverpool?
http://www.donthibernate.co.uk/liverpool/