January city breaks?

[El Presidente]

Just spent the weekend in Amsterdam. Cool locals, great food and nightlife, and something for everyone.

 

[desprateseagull]

Newcastle was a good laugh (cracking ladies, lively bars, and kebabs!!), when I went there for a tv game show..

Swansea has a friendly vibe- Mumbles area had long beaches to stroll along.. Catherine wasername and muchael douglas have been known to venture out among the great unwashed, too.

if want to go all out, then try Longueville Manor - a posh hotel in St Jelier, Jersey ( channel islands). think a bif house with fab food, and PLENTY wine to choose from. most veg is grown in the garden, though the pool was empty / meeding repaid when I visited (works freebie!)

 

[Questions]

Yes Budapest I say. Crossing the Old Chain Bridge into the Castle district of Buda, stopping off for a couple of Zwack Unicums to keep the cold out.
Lovely city.

 

[chimneys]

Would put most of those suggestions on your spring-autumn list as too cold/dark to do most justice in January. Not going to be warm anywhere in Europe but you would be better off with one of the southern cities- Barcelona and Rome (as already mentioned), or Seville, Granada. Or for better weather and an interesting weekend -Marrakesh.

Problem with all these is the pound is down the drain at present so none going to be cheap.

Let us know what you decide.

 

[defrocked priest]

South of France

 

[turienzo's lovechild]

Newcastle was a good laugh (cracking ladies, lively bars, and kebabs!!), when I went there for a tv game show..

it's cracking, but i wouldn't recommend it for a romantic get-away!

that said a nice stroll along the tyne or along the promenade at tynemouth with a nice young lass cannot be beaten


ps- the kebabs in newcastle are awful! much better in brighton

 

[Carrot Cruncher]

I have been to Barcelona LOADS so not too sure! Will bare in mind, is anywhere on the Eurostar network any good? Brussels etc?

Lille is lovely.

It's also worth remembering that you can get free rail travel to anywhere is Belgium from Brussels with your Eurostar ticket.

Although it's not technically on the Eurostar route, there is very often tie-in deals with TGV to get to Avignon, which I would definitely recommend. You can fly with Ryanair to either Avignon or Nimes/Arles/Provence airports.

Other than that, I can't recommend Krakow highly enough.

 

[shingle]

OK

Reykjavik

Great for a weekend, Your pound goes very far now days. Everything has become much cheaper.

Also it has THE BLUE LAGOON. In the world top ten for things to do.

only downside is the 5 hours daylight in January

 

[dougdeep]

What he said.

Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, Las Ramblas, Barri Gotic and of course Camp Nou....what more could you want?

What he said.

 

[Giraffe]

It would be Salzburg for me I think. Lovely city, not too large, easy to get about, and looks fantastic in the snow.

Honourable mention for Krakow and Vienna as well.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

If you want COLD - really cold - Berlin is brilliant.

But do go prepared. It's COLD.

 

[Springal]

I did Berlin for the England game last month - loved it!

Thanks for all the suggestions, the missus has thrown ROME into the hat, thoughts? and recommendations for nice hotels?

 

[Rowdey]

Can vouch for brussels - Lots of Moules, the Atonium has had loads spent on it (top floor restauarant is pretty good too), good design museum, and lots of drinking to be done.

 

[dwayne]

I would probably recommend Berlin or London.

Would stay away from Amsterdam (fast becoming a police state, rubbish food, once you've been there once you've seen it all)

Went to Barcelona recently, was very disappointed, culturally interesting but expensive at the moment and from the cheap tapas right through to the high end eateries I thought the food was pretty poor.

 

[Mendoza]

Can vouch for brussels - Lots of Moules, the Atonium has had loads spent on it (top floor restauarant is pretty good too), good design museum, and lots of drinking to be done.

Im going to Brussels and Bruge Jan 1st - 4th, anything worth seeing, visiting in either place. Never been before

 

[Deleted User X18H]

I have been to Barcelona LOADS so not too sure! Will bare in mind, is anywhere on the Eurostar network any good? Brussels etc?

We are going to Euro Disney 2nd or 3rd week of Jan JPT Area Final permitting!!!

 

[Springal]

Any comments on Rome?

 

[Questions]

Any comments on Rome?

Yeah, it wasn`t built in a day.

 

[surrey jim]

me and the missus lookin at a weekend away for her birthday, was thinking istanbul, £250 for 2 3nights b&b inc flights

 

[chez]

Any comments on Rome?

Lovely City with loads of history. Cant tell you much about specific hotels but in my experience no matter how good a hotel looks, if it is by the train station don't stay there. The area around the station is used by hookers & drug dealers and maybe due to this has the highest mugging figures in Rome (these aren't massive though) if you're taking the missus I imagine you might be doing quite a bit of walking and you can do better than to walk through that part of town. That said, I have stayed in that area twice, due to it being cheaper and have only come into contact with a dealer once.

Give yourself quite a bit of time, there is so much to see and although I have stayed there for 4 days now I still haven't seen it all.

Main things to see are the obvious ones - Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Palatine Hill & The Spanish Steps. Decent boozer at the bottom of the steps where I watched Brighton beat Plymouth a few years back live on Sky!!

One last thing if you do go, taxi's from the airport to Rome centre are/were expensive, we found the train much more economical and more of an experience (only time I've been on a double decker train). Going back to the airport though, get a cab it's only half the price of the other way.