December European Break - help?

[FreezingJane]

I'm on the hunt for a December break destination. Ive watched a few YT vids and scoured Skyscanner, but nothing is jumping out.
Needs to fullfil the following-

Flight from south west airport.
3 nights
Not Prague or Budapest (recently been)
Christmas markets.
Somewhere cold/wintery/snowy...
Pretty architecture and good food/wine

Any suggestions? I'm hoping this break will instill a bit of Christmas spirit that has been lacking for several years!

Innsbruck is gorgeous and ticks all those boxes, but no idea if you can fly from SW. Maybe Vienna if the SW flights is an absolute must?

We stayed in Lausanne one winter and it was lovely. You can fly to Geneva (probably from south west) and it’s a v short and easy train ride.

Copenhagen

Berlin

Vienna

start with your local airport(s) website and look at their route map, then check which airlines fly the routes and when (not all do days that are condusive to a short break or the nights you can travel), and then you'll at least have a short list!

Brugge or Ghent

Cologne is beautiful
Gdansk is also beautiful and will be cheaper than a lot of European cities

Freiburg, Munich and Nuremberg are all great but you can only get flights to Munich from a lot of airports

Krakow

We went to Budapest in the summer and it is a beautiful city., very clean and easy to travel around. There are Xmas markets I believe.

Prague

Ryanair it just started flying to Lübeck in north Germany.

Because it's a new route, the flights are dirt, cheap.

It's also a beautiful city. It is the home of that amazing marzipan. It will have an amazing christmas market.

We don‘t really do snowy and wintery Decembers in Berlin any more, not cold enough thanks to climate change - statistically speaking if there’s snow at all it will be Jan/Feb. Sure, this might be the exceptional year that proves the rule, but I‘d be surprised.

Krakow if you want the city . For snow Zakopane just a little bit further.

But you do have Christmas markets!

It says in the OP not Budapest or Prague.

I woukd recommend Copenhagen and Gdansk. I went to lithuania recently and really liked it there too.

DH and I have just returned from Vienna. It was lovely. They were just setting up for the Christmas markets and it certainly had more than it's fair share of beautiful buildings. We made sure to sample cakes in as many of the well known cafés a possible.

Rome. Definitely hits the architecture and good food criteria!

If you want to fly from the south west, your starting point is what flights are available locally because a lot of the suggestions will be London/Manchester only options.

Just looked at the websites for Exeter and Bristol airports, looks like nothing from Exeter but seems to be a few flights from Bristol.

www.bristolairport.co.uk/where-can-i-fly/travel-blog/christmas-markets/

Tivoli in Copenhagen is magical in December. And if anyone knows how to do cosy, the Danish do!

I’m just back from Gdansk and it is beautiful, very chocolate box and cosy. Krakow is absolutely stunning and you can do a day trip up the Tatras to Zakopane which also has a traditional market. I went in January and there was thick snow.

Salzburg - flying into Innsbruck or Munich

You can fly to Salzburg
Once when Lufthanza had a meltdown we flew to Salzburg and got a train to Munich (where we had a hotel booked)

Bristol to Basel via Easyjet.

Then you have a choice of Christmas markets:

Strasbourg, Colmar, Ribeauville etc look them up on the Alsace tourism website.

Or Basel itself, but you could cut down costs (if theres a budget factor) by staying in hotels on the German border (e.g. Weil Am Rhein on the tram line into Basel).