Looking to take the missus somewhere in europ for a long weekend in early July (travelling from London).

My holidays almost always consist of Asia/China or cycling in Vercor in France so I’m not the most well travelled chap as far as europe is concerned.

Does anyone have any ideas for possible destinations?

Looking for somewhere with a bit of variety – somewhere mountainous with lots of good scenery and hiking interspersed with quaint/picturesque towns would really hit the spot. Would help if it didn’t cost an arm and a leg either!

Dolomites?

Just outside Madrid: http://www.toprural.com/Casas-rurales_Cercedilla_0_67096_m.html

The E7 (GR10) long-distance footpath runs through it, great for hiking.

(Not used any of them, but live fairly close and cycle round there reguarly.)

Slovenia.

somewhere mountainous with lots of good scenery and hiking interspersed with quaint/picturesque towns

sums it up nicely. Easyjet flights as well. Fly in , pic up a car, head for the mountains

Pics from my trip there

I can suggest something that fits most of those but isn’t that cheap, unless you fancy camping, though there are a few cheap hotels.

Easyjet flight to Geneva, train from Geneva airport to Lauterbrunnen via Interlaken. Campsite in Lauterbrunnen or some reasonable hotels, but not mega cheap.

From there you can use the mountain railway and ski lift network to access awesome scenic hikes around the Eiger and villages like Murren, Wengen and Gridewald. Hard to top that scenery and very accessible straight from the airport by train.

Eazy-jet to Geneva, train or hire car to Annecy for one night and then Chamonix or similar for a couple of nights – some ski resorts that open for summer are brilliant value as they are competing to get people in.

Lauterbrunnen +1, youll be hard pressed to find anywhere more spectacular.

Gerona / Girona in Spain: a lovely romantic walled city with flights from London.
There is some great walking about 30 miles away with decent bus services so you don’t need to hire a car. We bussed to Olot then taxied to Santa Pau, a small medieval village with extinct volcanoes all around.

Thanks guys, will check some of these places out tonight, but it sounds like there’s a couple of winners at least out of those suggestions!

Try Google images for Lauterbrunnen, Wengen, Eiger, Kleine Scheidegg to get a feel for the place. Here’s a starter for 10 – had a wonderful walking holiday round there. Also found one of Nick Beer’s (Swiss WC DH rider) DH tracks!

Lauterbrunnen:

Looking down from Wengen:

Bit of a leftfield suggestion but what about a weekends canoeing somewhere?

Slight Hi-jack (sorry) gravity-slave – where abouts were these downhill tracks? Would they be rideable for the not so hardcore like myself (as in no massive drops and massive gaps etc)?

Canoe down the river Wye, Wales.

I did it first time over the may day week end and the missus and I had an amazing time – can’t believe I hadn’t done it before. Rebooked for July!

The canoe thing sounded lovely, but I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that it woulnd’t fly…then I remembered that the missus doesn’t swim!

The DH tracks were under the cable car from Lauterbrunnen to Murren. We walked the track from Murren down and half way along, there was a train station and restaurant with some north shore play stuff in the garden.

We dropped down from here and got on some really steep technical singletrack that I kept spotting lines on – at the bottom there was a small A4 laminated sign about DH so it looked like a semi-official track.

Great holiday – and if anyone goes, I would recommend the ‘Eiger Trail’ from Alpiglen to Kleine Scheidegg – amazing walk right under the North Face!

tatras mountains in slovakia were nice and cheap for us a few years ago

slovenia/croatia would be good too – fancied going for a while some good biking there as well