Here’s my European travel bucket list. I’ve put this together because James and I have agreed to focus on Europe for the next few years.
Over the last 10 years, we’ve focussed on long-haul trips. You can read about some of our trips, including Las Vegas with a toddler, San Francisco with a baby, Southern Sri Lanka and Thailand. We’ve loved these trips but we’re also acutely aware that there’s a lot to do on our doorstep.
With Isaac in tow, it makes sense to explore places a little nearer to home. As my aunt and uncle have a villa in Spain, we often end up going there as our European destination. We won’t stop doing that trip, because it’s great to spend time with my family, but we will try to do some day trips to other places we’d like to see in Spain.
Here’s my travel bucket list. Hopefully we can tick some places off in the next few years.
Italy Multi-City
We’ve been to Lake Como and Rome, but there are many other places in Italy I’d like to visit. Our visit to Lake Como in 2019 was my favourite holiday to date and I know the country has so much more to offer.
Let’s start with Tuscany. Florence is very high on my list, and its lesser known surrounding areas are just as beautiful. I’ve seen smaller surrounding towns like Montecatini Val di Cecina near Pisa (in the photo shown below) and Cinque Terre (also shown below), which would also form part of the same holiday.
I love the idea of visiting some Tuscan wineries while we’re there. I’m hoping that if the vineyards in Napa Valley were welcoming of a toddler, that these will be too!
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Flights from London to Florence are about £100 each with the journey taking 2 hours 15 minutes, making it the perfect short-haul place to explore with a toddler. I struggle a bit to find decent hotels in Italy, so if you have any recommendations, please send them my way.
From there, we would likely drive the 3 hours to Venice and spend a few days there before flying home. Venice has been on my list for a long time. Although it isn’t your typical toddler-friendly trip, I’ve read a lot of reviews to say it’s actually great for toddlers if you know what to do. Since Isaac’s favourite activity is eating, I’m sure we’d be just fine.
Staying in Italy, another trip we’d like to do is to the Amalfi Coast, particularly Positano, although I imagine we’d end up staying somewhere outside of it because I bet it gets very busy.
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Loire Valley
Loire Valley is 424 miles from our house, so I think this could potentially be a train or car trip with a stop in Paris, as James has never been to Paris.
The only thing about the train is that we take so much stuff for Isaac. At airports, we have to have a trolley otherwise we can’t carry it alone. Once in LAX (the worst airport in history) we had to put all of our bags on a bus and then get them off and drag them all to the car rental place because there were no trolleys. It was enough to make me dubious of any trip that didn’t allow for a trolley so it may have to be a car trip.
A few days in Paris followed by a few days in Loire Valley sounds like a lovely way to spend a week/ten days. Although staying in a chateaux for my first time there would be great, I also love the look of Loire Valley Lodges, but they’re adult only lodges.
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Portugal Multi-City
I went to Portugal a lot growing up, but we’ve only stayed around Vilamoura in the South. I’d really like to explore it a lot more with a multi-city trip including Lisbon and Porto with a side-step to the Douro Valley.
I’d love to stay in Six Senses Douro Valley for a couple of nights, too. It has been on my hotel bucket list for a long time.
I think we would fly into Lisbon, stay for a few days and then do the three hour journey up the coast to Porto. There are some lovely Airbnbs in both places. It’s then an hour drive to Douro Valley. We’d stay there and then fly out from Porto.
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Seville
There are so many places in Spain I’d like to visit but Seville seems like a good place to start. It’s 2 and a half hours away from the villa we go to in Spain, so with Isaac in tow I think we’d want to stay there for a night or two. It might be a bit much to do in one day.
As well as Seville, I’d like to visit Ronda, which is also not too far away from Benahavis. If you’re interested in Benahavis I have written a post about it here. Ronda has the famous Puente Romano bridge which is a must-see if you’re in the area.
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Seville does a great job of capturing everything I love about Spain. From the food to the architecture, it’s not to be missed. I’ve been to Barcelona once before and I’m going back next month and I’d highly recommend that too if you haven’t been.
Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark, has been top of my city break bucket list for a while. If I could pin-point why, it’d have to be the cafes. It has Amsterdam food vibes about it (and if you don’t know, Amsterdam is my food capital of Europe – so far). The flight time is just 1 hour and 50 minutes from London, making it a quick and convenient option for a long weekend.
Considering it is seen as an expensive place to visit, I think the hotel and Airbnb prices are relatively reasonable. It’s about £750 for a long weekend (Thursday – Monday) on Airbnb and that’s staying in some really cool places. For us, it’s probably slightly easier to stay in an Airbnb with Isaac because it means we can still have something resembling an evening when he goes to sleep.
If you’re looking for something cheaper, staying outside of the cities in these countries can be incredible. When we stayed in Iceland, we stayed in a rustic farm stay and it was incredibly cheap. All the details for that Airbnb are in the Iceland post.
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I’ll stick to five places to start with otherwise I’ll get carried away. If I was going to mention more places, I’d say that Norway and the fjords were high on my list. I think we’re going to keep that until Isaac is a bit older, though, because right now he wouldn’t enjoy a hike. I think we missed the hiking sweet spot because we were in lockdown. Now, he would have a three hour tantrum at the mere suggestion of it.
What do you think?
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