Recs for a city break for myself and my daughter for April

[Princessoflitchenstein]

I try to take my young adult daughter on a, me and her break, every Easter usually 3-4 days. Got to be short flight (she has hyper mobility) and no car hire needed. Despite her hyper mobility she is ok for walking pretty much as we try to rest in the evenings and put our feet up but like in Dublin great public transport to get everywhere was really good.

We can get to Bristol airport easily.

She likes animals, reading, nice scenery, swimming, music and the arts. She is not big on drinking or loud noise.

Big fans of cabin pressure (radio sitcom), cosy mysteries, she loves Latin, languages and ruins and castles.

Last Easter we went to Dublin and had a brilliant time, short flight, Dead Zoo, Guinness factory etc 3 magical days.

any ideas? Thanks

Rome

You can't fly there direct from Bristol but how about Stockholm? It's got an amazing open-air zoo (www.skansen.se), very walkable but with clean and reliable public transport, lots of museums (modern art, photographic, Liljevalchs etc.). The Vasa museum is great too if she's into ship wrecks/history. There are castles and ruins, and I would recommend a boat trip to Birka (Sweden's first town). It's about the same price point as London now, but the main thing people complain about is the price of alcohol, so if she isn't a big drinker it won't be too bad.

Zaragoza in Spain. Not too big, and all on the flat. We flew with Ryanair, but not sure if they have stopped direct flights to Z.

Paris, Amsterdam (or fly here and get a train to some of the other beautiful cities), Berlin, Barcelona, Rome, Venice, Porto, Lisbon, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Nice, Malaga, Palma, Munich, Florence (via Pisa) are all lovely locations that have flights from Bristol.

Agree, but not at Easter ... all Catholic cities will be chaos

Edinburgh

Copenhagen

Good point. I went to Lisbon one easter, wasn't great as a lot of shops and museums were closed.

Jumping on this - would Sicily be warmish first week of April?

Budapest, and go to the thermal baths.

Vienna is lovely at Easter because there are loads of traditional Easter markets. It’s a good destination for art and music, and the zoo has giant pandas! I’d also recommend seeing one of the shows at the Spanish Riding School.

Does anyone have recent experience of Vienna? Someone I know went there in December and said the markets were barricaded, heavy police presence and the markets depleted. Would this be true of all the markets? I would love to go but fear being very disappointed.

Vienna is lovely but imo it’s better to go to watch the practises rather than a show at the riding school. They have the equivalent of the post office tower with a restaurant that revolves so great for seeing fantastic views.
Public transport is great.
Would also recommend Madrid- beautiful city with lots to see and do. Copenhagen is also fabulous.
I imagine you will be spoilt for choice as some amazing cities in Europe.

Florence?

Amsterdam is great, as is Riga. Valencia, Madrid and Barcelona good too, totally depends what you want to do. I loved Riga because it's a beautiful but compact city, with lots of history.

Yes I agree! Good call though.

We did Amsterdam last May - but that was myself an DH.

others you mentioned at going on the list!

That sounds like an idea but maybe might combine Rome and Florence and do a longer holiday

Omg what a brilliant idea. Thank you

Agree. Went to Sevilla last Easter. Carnage! Wonderful but so so busy.

Lille, on Eurostar? Nice compact city with lots of history.

Great suggestions @Lemondrizzle4A @Forgottenmyphone

I think we have a firm favourite!! Vienna is now under serious investigations - pandas and Spanish riding school - daughter was like Hell yes 🐼 🐎 its like umm what would a horse mad vet med university student like ?? Yep pandas !! Thanks @everyone on this thread though we have started a book of ideas and all suggestions have gone in!! We missed the pandas when they were Edinburgh!

Dubrovnik, Seville, Budapest or Lisbon would be my picks for April (haven’t done much of Spain so other Spanish cities might be great). Vienna was cold and wet when we went in April, though the statistics suggest we were particularly unlucky. Incidently, my hypermobile, animal-mad student survived a flight to South Africa last summer and would say it was worth it. Doing as much as we can before she gets any worse.

We aim to do a big family safari next year or the year after

I took my DD to Seville for her 30th birthday and we had a great time. Her birthday is February and the weather was pleasant - will be fine and warm in April. If you want to go outside the city it’s a short train ride to Cordoba, which is also very interesting.