Interesting city break recommendations

[jakeandelwood]

I am looking for recommendations for European city breaks. We have visited quite a few cities over the last few years and have particularly enjoyed the cities with an interesting history but also with a beautiful nature type location close by to visit for a day.

Places where we have been able to do this include, Porto (Douro Valley), Zagreb (Plitvice Lakes) , Ljubljana (Lake Bled), Gothenburg (Islands) and Munich (Salzburg).

Berlin is a splendid place.

Valletta?

Belgrade

Florence is an exquisite city with the beautiful Tuscan countryside around it, which you could visit on a wine tasting tour for example

Bern is an amazing city, picturesque, walkable and close to the mountains.

Not sure I’d call it splendid, Berlin doesn’t want to be splendid, it’s conscientiously and self-consciously anti-splendid. But it’s certainly interesting.
And it’s got surprising amounts of green stuff all around, Loads of lakes and rivers. My tip would be a day in the Spreewald, which is pretty unique. Get a train to Lübbenau, walk into town, and then walk to the village of Lehde. It has its own little open-air museum. It gets really crowded on nice weekends though. Take a ride in a Kahn (punt), not sure if the boatpeople can speak English. Not entirely sure they can speak German very well <sarcasm>.

I highly recommend Marseille, and the Calanques National Park which starts right on the city's edge.

I prefer smaller cities with a bigger city not too far away. There's plenty in between both!

Padua -Venice. Take the Brenta river cruise to see all the magnificent (15th -18th century) Venetian villas on the banks, and much more, and see Padua (gorgeous) and Venice while you're at it! Hidden gem. Train is 30 minutes back from Venice to Padua.

The Tarragona/Reus/Barcelona triangle.

San Sebastian/Bayonne/Biarritz

Rome/Ostia/Tivoli/Villa Adriane

Cordoba/Granada

So many more but that's enough for now. 😊Next up for me is Udine/Trieste/coast. Then Salerno/Paestum/Caserta. Better get saving!

Went to Toulouse last week- lovely city. Bologna also good- we did day trips by train to Moderna & Ferrara.

Innsbruck has a lot to offer and is very close to some lovely lakes

Santiago de Compostela is beautiful.

Thanks for the suggestions so far. There are lots of ideas here for us to look at.

Malaga has brilliant hiking and rock climbing in the mountains in the natural park very close by, only 5km from the city.

Lisbon, with Sintra a shortish train ride away.

Faro and Ria Formosa?

Vilnius is lovely and i am not long back from Bratislava which i enjoyed.

Came on here to say Vilnius too. Stunning, walkable, historic and gorgeous food

Bergen is lovely. Fjords, mountains and history.

Vilnius , Bratislava, Ljubljana, Tallin
Tirana.

Budapest is my favourite ever city break

Sarajevo for history

Malaga and do the Caminito del Rey

Lucerne, mountains lake and historical centre. It's also very close to Zurich and Titlis Glacier a bit further along. Both are worth a visit. Especially the glacier, while it is still there.

Vallencia has a lovey park in the centre and you can take a bus out to Albufera which is a wild life conservation area.

I haven’t seen Vienna mentioned. It’s so beautiful, the museums are out of this world, the food is fantastic, and there is beautiful nature.