Best European trips with teens (we are running out of places!)

[Traveltart]

Big birthday coming up next month. It’s me, DH and two early teens. Wanted to book something exciting and long haul but events have spiked prices everywhere. We are now thinking short haul. Trip will be one to two weeks. The problem is we have done a lot of European travel…

What has been your best European trip ever? We loved Sardinia but it was peak summer and we need to take leave in April.

We have been to: Italian lakes, most of the big Italian cities, Paris and many places in France, Greece and many islands, major cities Rome, Milan, Berlin, Florence, Pisa, Lucca, Budapest, Copenhagen, Sofia, Stockholm, Geneva, Zurich, Basel, Warsaw, Prague, Salzburg, Venice, basically anywhere beautiful! We have also had plenty of Croatia holidays and have driven a lot through Europe.

I have looked at inter-railing but DH thinks DC would hate it as it would be a lot of travel and bouncing from hotel to hotel. I must have overlooked some gems or fab holidays you’ve experienced in spring?

Bilbao and San Sebastian. Visit the prehistoric caves, but you'll need to book well in advance. I haven't checked the weather though.

Prizren (Kosovo's second city) is absolutely beautiful and I really recommend it. BUT the FCO advise against travel northward from North Macedonia to Kosovo (notably travel southbound isn't under the same advice - you can cross the border there just do it in the right direction). So dont do the above. Sorry to be a killjoy.

This is to do with migration issues and people smuggling - it's northward problem not southbound hence the difference. We saw a massive problem on the border with Albania north into Montenegro and this doesn't have FCO warnings so I suspect the issues must be significantly worse for the FCO to make the distinction for the North Macedonia/Kosovo border. I would not attempt it - and we are fairly adventurous.

You need to be careful with the borders around Albania, Serbia, Kosovo and Northern Macedonia in general and to pay close attention to the FCO advice. I believe there's at least one cheap airline that flies to Pristina now though. Otherwise you should enter Kosovo from Albania not North Macedonia. (And definitely not from Serbia - again FCO warnings about northern Kosovo). This makes it all sound really scary. It's not. It feels really safe. (Unlike Albania at times. The roads are something else). But no hiking near the borders cos landmines! Kosovo has had a huge amount of money put into it by the EU. I absolutely loved it and would recommend but it's somewhere that a lot of people would get nervous about because of the FCO stuff. And yes I would take a child there - I did.

Theorectically you could fly into Pristina (Kosovo) and out of Skopje (North Macedonia) but you'd have to coach between the two as one way car hire between countries is generally difficult. We did a circular trip from Albania to Albania which was a huge amount of driving and I would say is a minimum two week trip for most normal people. Tbh unless you have a massive desire to do Kosovo it's probably step too far for most. North Macedonia alone is worth a trip on its own anyway.

Thank you. I’m looking at Corfu and can’t decide where to stay. I’ve heard those 2 areas are lovely.

How long do you want to be away for? I can thoroughly recommend Bosnia. Fly to Sarajevo, spend a few days there then get the scenic train route down to Mostar, spend a few days there and do the beautiful trip out of Mostar to into the Herzigovina region, the mountains, the waterfalls, Počitelj etc. Absolutely glorious. If you have more time you could explore other parts of Bosnia too. I will definitely go back and see the bits I missed last time. Spring is a gorgeous time to go, wild flowers everywhere in the mountain areas.

It's not in the EU so it's cheap and doesn't eat into your Schengen Days. The people are so friendly, much more so than in Croatia and Montenegro, we found. It's possible to drive through a bit of Croatia and then into Montenegro if you have time, but but personally I was disappointed and underwhelmed by Montenegro. It's cheap to get there and accommodation is relatively cheap but everything else seems to be Dubrovnik / Croatia prices and I know which of the two countries I'd rather be ripped off in!

There was something quite depressing about Montenegro for me. The difference in the standard of infrastructure was stark almost immediately we crossed the border from Croatia. Everything felt a bit dirty, tired and run down. The looming black mountains might look lovely on a bright sunny day but they can feel ugly and forboding on days when the weather is grey and cloudy. The water looks dark and murky as well because the black mountains around it absorb all the might on a dull day. Driving was hairy, trying to find anywhere safe to stop and pull in to look at sites as a nightmare, signposting terrible, safe parking in short supply. It just felt like really hard work. Others rave over the place though, so I must be missing something, but I am not in a hurry to go back and find out what.

Also if it rains everywhere floods because the rain just comes straight off the rocks and into the towns below. Kotor Old Town could and should have been beautiful, but wasn't. It was quite charming in some ways but felt unloved and a bit desperate.

Iceland? A slightly longer flight but still more short than long haul.

Would you mind sharing your route please? We are interested in doing this. we are in two minds whether to get a car or not. I've heard it's a PITA to have a car in Seville but wasn't sure how easy it would be getting to all of those places just by train.

Totally agree. Fantastic please. Cheap, friendly, cool, interesting, great street art, lovely food, feels foreign enough to be completely different but also something comfortingly culturally familiar about it. Tbilisi is stunning and there is loads to see outside of the city as well. You could spend a very happy and full week there in April/May and it should be quite warm as well. Beaches, mountains, wine tasting, countryside, lovely architecture. If you can stretch to it with needing two rooms look at www.roomshotels.com

Everyone I know who has been to Brussels in recent years says it's a hole. filthy, full of dogshit, menacing and dodgy with a bad homelessness problem. Even without any of that to content with I'm not sure it's a particularly exciting or appealing place compared to so many other cities?

I've not been but I hear increasingly great things about Poland. I think you could spend a good week or ten days there and have an amazing, varied experience.

Very interesting
I have just returned from North Macedonia after having travelled to Kosovo .
We hired a driver and he mentioned that there had been issues with people smuggling and we did show our passports at the border .
Fortunately, we didn’t have any issues but of course one should be careful

I agree about Montenegro, it was awful. During communism it was where people got sent for their week long holiday, hence why a lot of the hotels look so brutal. I went to Herceg Novi which was interesting for about 10 minutes until you realised that the deafening music was never going to stop wherever you were.The exception was a little village called Rose which was gorgeous.

On the same holiday I went home Cavtat which was pretty but SO expensive.

Definitely think about Romania! Bucharest and Brasov are very interesting if you like history, and the Carpathian Mountains aee
great to explore.

Not Europe but how about Morocco?

We went to Cavtat too, just for lunch when we left Dubrovnik and were on route to MN. It was lovely. I am definitely going to go back to Croatia and Bosnia, they were both just stunning. Imagine arriving in MN after having just been in the paradises that are Mostar and Dubrovnik and feeling like you've stumbled into some post-apocolyptic dystopian movie set. 😂I am probably being vastly unfair, but I really didn't like it. Also we had to drive through some really long roadworks and honestly, they were a death trap. I've seen safer roadworks in the Middle East and Sri Lanka and that's saying something.

San Sebastian is fabulous.

Whatabout Scandinavia? Stockholm is lovely, and Oslo..or Helsinki? Or go to Lapland, you might still catch snow there in April.

Hire a boat on the Canal du Midi. The part going through the Camargue is particularly lovely. Aigues Mortes, flamingos, wild horses and then the Etang de Thau and the oyster farms.

Luxembourg. So many beautiful things to see and do. Stunning country.

Bosnia is beautiful - both natural beauty and historic towns. You can fly to Split in Croatia and then get a bus across the border to Mostar. Spending time exploring Herzegovina is worthwhile. It's just so beautiful. Waterfalls, mountains, green rivers. I've been there a few times.

Then bus up to Sarajevo or hire a car in Mostar for the rest of your trip. Time in Sarajevo then explore the northwest.

If you have time and funds to do Serbia as well in the same trip then that is interesting. They're so different. Buildings are on a much larger scale in Serbia. Bosnia has dainty minarets, Serbia has gigantic orthodox domes.

North Macedonia and Lake Ohrid I can also second them being beautiful. I found Skopje a bit disconcerting - lots of money spent on lavish monuments and perhaps less money than ideal spent on basic infrastructure. Not sure I could fill more than a week there.

Albania is also great - you can fly to Corfu and then get a ferry across to southern Albania and travel northwards and fly home from Tirana (or continue further north...). Beautiful landscapes and lovely historic towns. The roads/driving is very scary though and navigating public transport much more challenging as it is very ad hoc. I enjoyed my time there but found it stressful.

Pristina in Kosovo is nice. I flew into Pristina and then travelled overland by bus to Montenegro. It's worth a visit as part of a journeying type holiday as long as you get the sequence right (e.g. I think arriving in Serbia with a Kosovo stamp in your passport used to risk you being refused entry). I liked the bay of Kotor in Montenegro, although I wouldn't especially hurry to return.

Moving geographical location... Iceland is great at different times of year. I've been in summer and winter. It just depends what you want from the trip. In winter the days are very short and the cold, snow and ice was like nothing I'd experienced before. Frozen waterfalls were quite cool. In summer you can probably do more so if I went again that would be my preference (unless I was going there to try and see the northern lights).

If I had to pick a destination out of the ones I've discussed, my first choice would be Bosnia and second choice Iceland in summer.

Bosnia and Iceland remain two of my favourite destinations.

Re Albania - In answer to the question 'which side of the road do they drive in Albania?' the answer is yes.

They drive at you from all directions including the wrong side of the road. Not for the faint hearted. They have an exceptionally high road fatality rate. However this is also because about a third of the cars on the road are stolen Mercs from Europe and thus don't necessarily meet safety standards and no one wears a seat belt...

Not Europe but Morocco would be great in April

Porto - our teens loved it. Tour of the stadium, lots of food halls, food amazing, old tram to beach, great vibe, boat trip, cable car.

Aha yes. I had a bus driver who drove off the road and along the edge of a field to overtake (undertake?) a slow-moving vehicle when there was traffic on the other side of the road preventing him from following a more traditional overtake procedure.

I had forgotten about all the 90s Mercs.

We had a fantastic family holiday at Easter in Barcelona. Loads to do in the city and took a trip to lovely Tarragona as well. Lovely coastline north too.

Go to the North and then Galicia. Well worth the visit.

Or Azores.