Where should our family take a European trip?
September 15, 2017 2:48 PM   Subscribe

If you were looking to spend a month in a European city, you had kids, and you were an inexperienced American traveler, where would you go?

Some more considerations:
- our kids will be 7 and 4.5 when we travel
- we're looking to spend about a month, in March or April
- linguistically, we have limited Spanish, French and German

We've been considering Florence, Barcelona or someplace in France. I would like to go to Berlin, but my spouse is uninterested. We like art & history, exploring on foot, eating and eating and eating, and just hanging out. We don't shop recreationally.

We expect to stay in a vacation rental apartment. My spouse will be working, so wifi is important; my kids are homeschooled, and we'll be doing some school while we're there.

My spouse has done a fair amount of traveling, of the hostel-and-backpack variety, but not for about 15 years. As an adult, my only trip outside the US has been to the Yucatan, where I had a week-long anxiety attack. I'm looking for someplace approachable and easy for a novice traveler. (My travel anxiety is social -- largely about not understanding how to behave and fears about cultural miscommunication. I'm making plans with my therapist for how to cope, but an Easy Mode city would be nice.)
posted by linettasky to Travel & Transportation (38 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Are you coming from a large city? Personally, I think Amsterdam, Copenhagen, or Stockholm would be very easy for a novice traveler and maybe a little more culturally similar to the U.S. than Florence or Barcelona (though there's no reason to be afraid of those either).
posted by pinochiette at 2:54 PM on September 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


Well, as far as approachable and easy goes I would choose somewhere English-speaking. London is the obvious choice, but maybe Dublin or Edinburgh as well.
posted by crazy with stars at 2:54 PM on September 15, 2017 [4 favorites]


Response by poster: We're in Portland, so not a large city, but we're both familiar with and comfortable in places like NY and San Francisco. We're not interested in anyplace where a car rental would be necessary, for this trip.
posted by linettasky at 2:56 PM on September 15, 2017


Was going to suggest Amsterdam as well. I have the same travel social anxiety as you and people were SO nice there and it was definitely where I felt most comfortable on our multi-city trip. On that note I would *not* suggest Prague...there is a lot to like but the language is difficult, I encountered plenty of people that did not speak English at all, and despite doing my best to be a Not-Annoying-Stereotypical-American-Tourist, I found that a lot of locals were unfriendly (downright rude at times) and I ended up feeling like one anyway.
posted by lovableiago at 2:57 PM on September 15, 2017


A month in Amsterdam seems a bit much. Also, Dutch manners are so abrupt--for an American, it will take getting used to.

I agree, London seems like an obvious choice. You won't exhaust it in a month, you can do pretty much everything you feel like doing, there are other interesting lesser sites you can visit easily on day trips (e.g., Oxford), and of course the language situation will be easier. London is a very cosmopolitan city and you will be hard-pressed to commit faux pas noteworthy in that context.
posted by praemunire at 3:10 PM on September 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


You might also want to consider Brussels.
posted by evoque at 3:11 PM on September 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


I would recommend London, for linguistic ease and relatively limited culture-shock. (Although if your kids are anything like me and my friends, they'll get a kick out of the fact that the city-bound train from Heathrow is labeled "Cockfosters.") The London Underground is relatively easy to navigate, and pretty extensive. Lots of art and history (could spend a week in the British Museum alone!) and it's an easy base for daytrips or weekend trips to Bath, Oxford, even as far as York, if you want to get out of London proper. I don't know how friendly the weather will be in March/April, though.
posted by basalganglia at 3:12 PM on September 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I would have said Florence. We went there on our honeymoon and I would love to take my kids there. And almost everyone spoke English - unlike some of the countryside we visited where people did not.
posted by dpx.mfx at 3:20 PM on September 15, 2017


Wouldn't recommend Amsterdam; it's on the small side for a month. What about Vienna? It's lovely in March-April. Excellent public transportation, great history as the capital of the Hapsburg Empire, centrally located (good day or weekend trips to Budapest, Prague, Venice), a strong cafe culture, can hang around and go hiking just when the Heurige are starting to open. Many people speak English.
posted by gemutlichkeit at 3:31 PM on September 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'd like to second lovableiago's non-recommendation of Prague. It is (or was, on my honeymoon four years ago) full of drunk twenty-somethings from Western Europe for bachelor parties. Czech is a Slavic language, so your existing Spanish, French, and German will be unhelpful.

I've been to London a couple times (once as a tourist, once for work) and it hardly feels foreign, except for the driving on the left and the fact that they have different words for everything.
posted by madcaptenor at 3:41 PM on September 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Seconding Vienna. We only got to spend 24 hours there, but the city is spectacular, public transportation is excellent and the parks were wonderful. As was the food!
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 3:53 PM on September 15, 2017


I have traveled but not in many years. In my experience, London was rather hectic and chaotic, and the people were somewhat rude. Paris was much nicer and much more pleasant, despite the French reputation for rudeness.

The fairy tale city I would go to is Venice. There are no cars at all, and every corner is picturesque. For a month-long stay it's a bit small though. You might run out of things to do if you get tired of strolling. In March or April it will not be overrun by tourists, which is nice. Florence is great too.

I'm not sure how many Italians speak English these days, but they are unconcerned about and accustomed to the faux pas of foreigners. (It's different if you are Italian yourself, different standards apply.)
posted by Vispa Teresa at 3:57 PM on September 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


London and Copenhagen would both be great (though both are pretty expensive). Everyone speaks English, they're both wonderful cities, and I think Copenhagen in particular would be pretty magical for kids.
posted by snaw at 4:16 PM on September 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I feel like Venice would get old for the kids after a few days (but the last time I was there was before I had kids, so... maybe?).

Croatia is on my wish list; beautiful Med coastline, beautiful gardens, lots of historical sites. Spring is a much better time to be anywhere near the Med as opposed to summer, which can be oppressive (at least in late summer).

Another vote for Vienna too.
posted by vignettist at 4:50 PM on September 15, 2017


We just visited Florence on our first trip overseas (no kids). It was lovely, everyone in the city core spoke English well enough, there was gelato everywhere, and there were tons of museums. What I remembered of my high-school Spanish got me through the basics of an Italian menu, but there were English menus available nearly everywhere. We visited in the height of tourist season, so this might be different in spring, but there were so many tourists that road traffic laws were effectively nonexistent in the center of town; people were always walking in the middle of the street and crossing every which way since the sidewalks were so narrow. We had to be much more ambiently aware of cars sneaking up on us, which might be stressful with little ones who bolt or are slow to follow directions to get off to the side. But boy, would the kids love eating gelato every day, and Florence could be a good base to jump to other quick trips around Italy.
posted by lilac girl at 5:17 PM on September 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I spent a month in Amsterdam and made several day trips by train to other dutch cities.
posted by brujita at 5:32 PM on September 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


Vienna is a beautiful city but very traditional in a lot of respects. Might not be the ideal place for just "hanging out".

I second the advice of Amsterdam - If you're someone with social anxiety it's right up your street. Amsterdammers are an incredibly nice bunch who make excellent hosts. Even the bus drivers there are happy-go-lucky. Yes, it is small but it is served by excellent public transport and there are loads of places to visit within 1hr train ride of Centraal Station. Moreover, Dutch culture is very child friendly.
posted by jacobean at 5:44 PM on September 15, 2017


Anywhere in in Europe: try to get out of the big cities once you've seen the epic tourist sights. For every country we've visited, we've had more fun in various random small towns.
posted by ovvl at 7:57 PM on September 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


That's true - Vienna is pretty traditional and also does have a lot of secondhand smoke that might not be great for developing lungs. But it also does have a lot of art, open space to hang out / wander around (Donauinsel, Museumsquartier in the summer, Prater, Stadtpark, Volksgarten).
posted by gemutlichkeit at 7:57 PM on September 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


We live in Amsterdam 3 months every year. It's easy and wonderful. There's really nothing else like it. I'm happy to talk more about it with you. We'll be in town at the same time.
posted by humboldt32 at 9:32 PM on September 15, 2017


Munich - plenty of culture as well as outdoor spaces. Local trains cover a massive area well into the surrounding towns and allows you to leave the city with ease. Plenty of options for day trips to other cities. Most younger people will have some to good English.

You don't say what your budget is but renting a family sized place for a month anywhere central is going to be quite expensive. So it may be worth working out what your budget is and running some numbers for that, transit for you all for a month and cost of food and such. There will be huge variations for each of these for a lot of the places people are recommending.
posted by koahiatamadl at 10:55 PM on September 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'll put in a strong plug for Munich. It's a beautiful old medieval city, it's close to everywhere by train, and of course the majority of people you'll run into on a daily basis will speak English or be able to assist you even with rudimentary German.

Dachau? Check. Czechia? Czech. Austria? Check. Switzerland? Check. Stuttgart is worth a visit and Strasbourg is just beyond.

I would NOT spend a month in one city, but using it as a base of operations? Hell to the yes.

On a personal note, we thought Garmisch/Partenkirchen was lovely and charming - mountains and meadows and lovely cycle rental shops to drag the littles behind on. And of course, you can take a solo trip to Berlin (magnificent, especially during the holidays) and leave the offspring with dad.

FWIW, Prague is worth a visit. It is a beautiful city, and Vienna as well. If you can get over to Budapest, the sight of the parliament lit up at night is one you'll never forget.

Seriously, memail me if I can further tempt you with Bavaria.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 12:04 AM on September 16, 2017


A month is a long time to spend in one place, so it might be helpful to know why you've fixed on that time period & decided not to move around?

That said, I'll throw in something from left-field: Brussels.
I know people shit on Brussels, and it's not as aesthetically pleasing as some cutsey Belgian towns, but it has the food, public transport, museums, parks and quirky things to do that you'd expect of any capital city; it is then super-easy to visit cuter towns like Bruge or Ghent, and you can take the train for a weekend (or a week) away in Paris, London, even Berlin if you can talk your partner round!

For your purposes it has the advantage of: widely spoken English and commonly multilingual residents, airB&Bs in the city centre for rents cheaper than London or Paris (IME), and of course a massive international community surrounding the parliament, which I imagine might mean finding daycare or schooling for your kids a bit easier than in many other countries, and it's also a city geared up for long-term and business as well as leisure visitors.

March & April are likey to be chilly and damp, but that's unavoidable with Northern Europe. Bonus for late April is that you're likely to coincide with the only fortnight in a year when the Royal Greenhouses in laeken are open.
posted by AFII at 1:11 AM on September 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'd argue that Utrecht (or any other european medium sized city) would be nicer than Amsterdam - you could get more into a groove of living there - especially with kids it will be easier to have some structure.
posted by mathiu at 1:51 AM on September 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


London is great, but I think you might not feel you'd really had a fully European experience. Tuscany is a good choice, but in a month you could easily do a selection of Italian cities/regions, which is probably what I'd go for. From a base near Florence you could do Siena, Pisa (almost unavoidable) and maybe others; then move to Rome, then on to maybe Sorrento from where you could do Pompei and walk up Vesuvius. Often I think Americans plan too much travel in Europe, but I reckon something like that would be quite doable in a month.

I think Italy will give you that Grand Tour feeling of Renaissance and ancient ruins that you want out of a European trip. You'll be able to eat really good food easily (or just pizza and gelati) in a way you probably couldn't in Germany, but Italian waiters will not give you any attitude the way Parisian ones might. YMMV about all that, of course.
posted by Segundus at 2:41 AM on September 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Traveling with kids is great! It's a whole other experience because people treat you very differently. I traveled with my parents as a child and I've brought my girls many places.
Because of the time of year, I would go for Italy. Spring can be beautiful in the North, but it can also be days and days of rain and cold and IME, heating is not very efficient in Great Britain, The Netherlands or Belgium. Also, Italians are really nice and really tolerant of foreigners and accepting of families. I stayed with my eldest daughter for 3 weeks in Venice when she was 4, and it was lovely, the quiet and the slow beat of the town is so good for ones soul and there is easily enough to see for a month or more. The downside of Venice is that it is quite secretive — I know several people who go there regularly and who still can't figure out how to find the good restaurants, how to shop for everyday stuff etc (but I can send you tips if you go). And Venice is hard to get out of for a day trip, unless it's on the lagoon (but that is wonderful in itself).
Personally, I don't like Florence much. The sights are worth seeing, absolutely, and there are tons of them, but there are really far too many tourists. If I were going to Tuscany, I would choose a smaller town and make day trips to Florence from there (public transportation is fine in Italy). It could be as close as Fiesole, or further away but bigger like Siena or Lucca.

If I asked my children, who are adult now, they would say you should go to Rome. Rome has millions of tourists as well, but can absorb them comfortably, there have been tourists in Rome since antiquity, and the city was literally designed for tourists, well pilgrims. Rome is extremely child friendly, and compared to Venice or Florence it's much easier to find good food at a reasonable price, it's easy to shop and to get around, and it is a good base for day trips to interesting places like Ostia Antica, Tivoli, Frascati and others. The fascinating thing about Rome are the layers and layers of history, even up to our time. Sometimes I've heard my girls explaining it to other kids, and it's clear they have really enjoyed and absorbed their "history lessons" in the city.

Now why Italy rather than France or Spain? I like both countries, but France does seem to have a slightly lower tolerance for children who are not perfectly mannered in the way they define it. It's not a big thing but it's there, and maybe you don't need that. Anyway Paris is so far to the north and west that you risk the very wet and cold spring and as soon as you get out of Paris, language becomes an issue. Spain is wonderful and also great with small children but their mealtimes are really off in comparison with the ones I'm used to, and every time I was there with children, that was a problem. My girls would be asleep by the time restaurants were even open. That might not be an issue for you? Maybe you could make lunch the big meal of the day and just have a snack at night? If you go to Spain, I'd recommend Granada or another smallish town rather than a big city. I feel the big Spanish cities have a very hectic pace which is a bit rough with small children but I remember a trip to Granada when the girls were 8 and 3 which was really lovely. It's a university town, so there is a nice international vibe and there is a lot to see, not least the amazing Alhambra. We read Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving, probably a bit over their heads, but they remember something about princesses and gardens that they may revisit one day.

(I guess one can tell that I teach for a living — it's funny because my siblings always hated when our dad would take us to "cultural" sites when were traveling, I didn't, but we have all continued the tradition and luckily our kids all enjoy it)
posted by mumimor at 2:46 AM on September 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


I propose Bologna. Honestly, Italy has the best of everything Americans look for in Europe.

Bologna in itself it is a very pretty city with plenty to occupy you. Very livable. Not overly touristy. Lots of students. Very welcoming.

Plus, you also get: Florence, Ravenna, Ferrara, Modena, Parma, even Venice as easy day trips.
posted by vacapinta at 2:49 AM on September 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


Vienna is cheaper than most other cities listed and has lots of playgrounds (almost every block has several in the inner courtyards, many of them publicly accessible though not signposted, just walk through open arcs or gates), museums, and cafes. Lots to do with the kids during the day!

Italian cities will most likely have a nice temperature in spring and people are quite child friendly.
posted by meijusa at 3:09 AM on September 16, 2017


As an experienced Europe traveller, my first thought is Italy, and specifically cities like Florence and Rome, because the weather will be nicer in March or April than other options.

The Piazza Venezia in Rome is sooo impressive. The kind of culture here is more of a walking around thing, which sometimes suits me better than big museums, and might be better for your kids as well.

In italy, not everyone speaks English that well, so this might not help with your anxiety about travelling. But I think things are improving and lots of young people will know perfect English.

If you do decide to go for beautiful Itally, you could treat Florence as a hub to take a trip out to places like Cinqueterre/La spezia (look it up, it's amazing); Turin (with a cool car and cinema museum) and Milan are also not far away, so you could possibly add in some variation in the trip by changing locations after 2 week if that's ok with your spouse who's working.

It mostly depends on how much you want to travel out of your main destination. If you don't want to do that at all, I would choose a major city like Paris, Berlin, Rome or London, so you have all the options in the world in the city itself to do whatever you feel like doing that day.

They're a bit like NY in a sense that you can basically go do anything and you just take the subway. Maybe Barcelona can be added to this list as well.

If you are willing to take trips that have 2,5h travelling times (to reach) Brussels is mentioned as a central hub; but this seems like the thing that's harder to do with kids and a working spouse.

The advantage here is that for a weekend trip you can easily visit London, Amsterdam or Paris - or even all of them. Keep in mind that this will cost you about €100 per person one way if not more for train tickets. Not sure about the rates for younger children.

I'd give an upvote to Belgium as a hub but I would not choose Brussels as a home base but a city like Antwerp or Ghent. They are much more cosy and inviting to be in.

In Italy I wouldn't know how to find a reliable coworking space or place to work if that's important. I have the feeling that kind of working is more popular in countries like Holland, Germany etc. For example in Berlin there are tons.

For food, nothing beats Italy to me.

Art & history-wise I would like to either be in Rome, London or Paris. London and Paris have some of the best museums in the world.
posted by wolfr at 4:58 AM on September 16, 2017


If by "easy mode," you mean "designed to accommodate foreign visitors," then I found both Budapest and Thessaloniki to be highly tourist-oriented. London, where I live, attracts huge numbers of tourists, but doesn't particularly go out of its way to acknowledge or assist them (and anyone who tells you London is just like an American city clearly hasn't spent much time there. )

Barcelona and Venice have recently seen large anti-tourism protests.
posted by Perodicticus potto at 5:04 AM on September 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm going to push back a bit against London suggestion, for two reasons:

1. It is *very* expensive.

2. While it's a great city and probably won't entail much culture shock, it is very much not like what Americans think of when they think of Europe. It's not even really like what Americans think of when they think of Britain. I wouldn't say that London is like the US, but it's kind of it's own thing.

Copenhagen is a great suggestion, although also very expensive. Scandinavia definitely felt traveling in easy mode, to me. I'd also consider a non-London UK city, such as Edinburgh, but only if you're planning to do side trips.

I am going to throw a new suggestion out there: Lisbon.

There is enough in and around Lisbon - Sintra, Caiscais, Belem - to fill a month, and you could do side trips to Porto or Coimbra or somewhere along the coast. It's beautiful, cheap, and very friendly. People seemed to like kids. English isn't spoken as widely or fluently as in Scandinavia or Germany, but most people had a working knowledge of it and were happy to piece things together. The weather should be good in spring. There aren't as many touts or scammers as in, say, Rome (though there's more than in Copenhagen), so you don't have be on your guard to quite the same degree. Meal times are closer to American norms than they are in Spain.

One word of caution, however: Your Spanish skills would be helpful for reading Portuguese, but not for speaking Portuguese. Portuguese pronunciation is...difficult.
posted by breakin' the law at 8:48 AM on September 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm going to also recommend Vienna, for a few reasons:
  • Great transit within the city (like, it's the one thing that everyone agrees is good)
  • 3 other countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary) within day-trip range, plus the ÖBB is a cheap rail service compared to many others.
  • You'll be able to get by with English in most visitor circumstances, but will still have opportunies to practice your German
  • Cost of living comparatively cheap, ESPECIALLY for things to do with kids (museums, theatres, playgrounds)
  • There's music, art, history (back to Neandertals, through Rome and a whole lot of Holy Roman Empire stuff.)
Downsides:
  • The wind. It's alive and it hates you.
  • Day-to-day things are cheap, but things aimed at visitors/tourists can be overpriced.
  • You will hear the Blue Danube Waltz often enough that you'll be sick of it (then later kind of miss it.)
  • The wind. Really.

posted by frimble at 10:32 AM on September 16, 2017


I vote for Rome. Maybe it's because Italy is the first country in Europe I ever visited, but I think the history is simply amazing. You could take your kids to see the ancient sites and the Renaissance artwork and tell them stories about all of it.

I've traveled all over Europe since and if I was looking for an urban area to spend a month, I would pick Rome in a second. Getting around the city is easy and when I visited in April a few years ago, it wasn't too crowded. Yes. There were crowds, but I could still get around easily and get into museums without much of a wait.

The people are generally friendly. You'll encounter some rude people I'm sure and you do have to watch out for pick pockets, but that's just part of city life to me. In general, I don't think the average Italian really cares if Americans do dumb American things. I have never felt like people treated me badly because I can't speak Italian. I have mostly encountered people who wanted to help lost tourists.
posted by parakeetdog at 10:58 AM on September 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Another thought - if your trip straddles Easter Rome may not be the best choice as it'll be packed and inflate prices.
posted by koahiatamadl at 5:03 PM on September 16, 2017


Another thought - if your trip straddles Easter Rome may not be the best choice as it'll be packed and inflate prices.

This is a myth I often hear, but it isn't true. As mentioned above, Rome is built to house and feed and distribute millions of pilgrims. There will be more tourists in Rome during Easter than in February, but it will be fine. I know because I was there last Easter.

Everywhere in Europe, there are long lines for the most important sites. You pre-order tickets to avoid them.
posted by mumimor at 11:47 PM on September 16, 2017


I'm staying in Berlin for a month right now and would be delighted to try to get your partner more interested. One thing I'm liking is how international the city is. Where I am in Prenzlauer Berg right now I go to a cleaners run by an Englishman, a New York bagel shop, a Vietnamese restaurant, a Russian restaurant, and a coffee shop with a Spanish barista. It's very easy to get by in English. That might sound like exactly the wrong thing for a month in Europe but honestly it's pretty nice to be able to get a stain out of your trousers without trying to remember the words in a language you don't speak very well. And it's still Germany of course, with many many things that make it feel like you're not in the United States.

My American impression is that Germany and particularly Berlin is dominated by 20th century history, particularly the Nazi and Soviet eras. And that history is here and important and interesting! But it doesn't oppress you in daily life, it's still a normal city with lots of typical European things to do. Berlin skews young, it's got a lot of art, it's relatively cheap. Lots of good food. Lots of kids and parks too. It would feel comfortable and a little familiar coming from Portland.

I've also spent months in Zürich and Paris. Zürich itself is a fairly dull city, but Switzerland is great; we really enjoyed taking lots of overnight trips. Paris is of course fantastic, being Paris, and it greatly rewards having a bit of time to take it slow and explore the place. It's also a bit stuffy and expensive. You can get by OK in English with just a tiny bit of French although it's not as easy as Berlin and German.
posted by Nelson at 12:36 AM on September 17, 2017


I'm going a little off the big city beaten track and putting in a vote for one of the most beautiful, easy to get around, welcoming and unusual cities in Europe San Sebastián. It's a very health-conscious city with lots of cycling tracks and it's mostly flat and easy to get around.

That's really good intercity train connections to all of the other big Spanish cities so you could use it as a base to discover a lot of northern Spain.

Even the northern Costa Esmeralda gets a good bit of English speaking tourism so the majority of menus will all be available in English, and San Sebastian is considered to be the gourmet capital of Spain, with the largest number of Michelin starred restaurants per capita.

If you can afford it I highly recommend these luxury apartments, you could probably negotiate a rate for a month as it is low season.
While they're more expensive then a hotel room, having a fully equipped kitchen, dining room, living room with good Wi-Fi really does make a huge difference to being able to stretch out, and each person could even have their own space.

You have just enough time to get a peek behind a very ancient culture, with a very strong modern identity, Basque. Ignore or you may have known previously about the Basque country San Sebastian is an incredibly safe city which is a really good introduction to this alternative culture in Spain.

When we booked the apartment I recommended above the owner/manager acted as a kind of a concierge and arranged an amazing amount of opportunities for us including bespoke cookery course in one of these Michelin starred restaurant, a visit to A sidreria , childminding ( she is the owner of one of the most trusted businessesin the basque country sending thousands of children abroad to learn English every year so we were in safe hands!) so we could have some couple time and she personally knew the leading chefs and managed to get us a table for our wedding anniversary at Artzak at very short notice, having somebody hooked in like that to all of the key players in what is a small and beautiful city really made a big difference to the quality of our stay.

It honestly felt like we fell into such a fantastic combination of circumstances!

At that age the kids will also go wild for the quaint old Parque de Attracciones, I could not get my son off the trampolines, (because when you're bouncing on them you're looking down a 2000 foot drop over at the beautiful concha Beach view, okay it may only be a few hundred metres but it felt like 2000 feet to me, gulp) and the Parque acuatico.

Seriously, do yourselves a favour, if you do decide this memail me for all of the key tips about bars and restaurants day trips et cetera
posted by Wilder at 2:15 AM on September 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


What exactly are you looking for? A base of operations to travel around Europe? A very livable city on a scale where a month is enough to explore and get a good sense of things? Touristy? Non-touristy? If touristic is what you want do you want to stay in a central area? How important is weather to you? How comfortable are you with figuring things out on the fly? How important is cost? You say you want to eat - what exactly are you looking for? Do your kids eat most things?

I'd suggest that one of the previously mentioned cities is perfect for you but I have no idea which one.
posted by JPD at 1:32 PM on September 17, 2017


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