I want to take Mrs Matt away for a weekend for our anniversary (of being together, not married, 13 years). Annoyingly it’s on the 15th Feb so would need to be over Valentine’s weekend which adds about 20% onto the price for just about anything.

I need suggestions of where to go, preferably a city break as she likes that sort of thing. Edinburgh is out of the equation as we’ve been there 3 times in the last 12 months. Only other place in the UK I’d consider is London (I hate it, she loves it) and we can get there easily on the train.

I can also look at short european city breaks as long as they aren’t way too expensive. We’d be flying from Newcastle so it’s a bit more expensive to get anywhere compared to a London airport.

(5 points for the first person to mention Oxo Tower)

How about Manchester? It’s a great city with loads of things to do, excellent restaurants and fantastic nightlife. You could save money by driving down and spend the lolly on a decent hotel.

York and Chester are pretty nice.

Both have a certain olde world charm.

DFDS do short breaks via ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam
or KLM fly regularly from NCL for about £100 rtn

Manchester is a good call.

York is only an hour and a half away, was thinking somewhere a bit further afield.

Jota, not sure the DFDS ferry is the romantic setting I was looking for! I’ll look into flights though as we’ve never been to Amsterdam.

Here is an idea (not saying if it’s good or bad but gf fancies a York trip)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Short-Break-in-York-Centre-Beautiful-Georgian-apartment-/191459456212?pt=UK_Tickets_Travel_Package_Holidays_CV&hash=item2c93df74d4

(see message re other dates)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/YORK-Holiday-2-lovely-nights-Park-Inn-by-Radisson-Hotel-Yorkshire-UK-/171623650008?pt=UK_Tickets_Travel_Package_Holidays_CV&hash=item27f59112d8

after your last post – have a clean weekend, go to Bath

We’ve just had a weekend break in Tallinn. Beautiful and quiet place with great food and booze. Combination of AirBnB and Ryanair makes such places very affordable. On the same basis, I’ve just booked up for trips to Gran Canaria (£84pprtn £211 for a flat for 7 nights etc etc) and Bratislava. There’s a lot of places you can get to with a couple of hours flying and you will be a star.

Ps the recent trips I’ve made with Mrs MC to York and Manchester (her job pays for travel and hotels) have been a bit of a disappointment EXCEPT for visiting the heavenly Marble Arch pub in Manchester.

leftfield suggestion: Shrewsbury.
Lovely little medieval town with a lovely river and park walk, loads of little shops n stuff in town, plenty of restaurants and bars and it has several bike shops and one great bike shop with a coffee shop inside, (http://www.stanscycles.co.uk/)
if you want to treat her there’s a lovely mercure hotel just up the road with a spa attached. (http://www.mercure.com/gb/hotel-6629-mercure-shrewsbury-albrighton-hall-hotel-and-spa/index.shtml)

The long mynd isn’t far away if you want a country walk or even a cycle!

BillMC – thanks for the pointer to AirBnB that’s a great site

Carcassonne (old city) is very romantic, very small. Not sure about in Feb tho only ever been in summer. Cologne?

How about brighton, loads of bars and restaurants, shopping in the lanes is eclectic and nice walks byr the sea?

Dublin! Good shopping, great bars and food, plenty of culture, lots of tourist tat too but i really enjoyed my stay, esp the Icon walk and sublime meal at FXB (mutters to self, dreaming of seafood chowder, steak and Guinness)

The Iberian peninsular: Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Oporto, Granada – all good for weekend breaks, and you should be able to get some cheap flights.

Edit: not all of them in the same weekend 🙂

Errrrrm………take her up the Oxo Tower

5 points please. 😯

Already looked at Brighton as we used to live there. Dublin may be a good shout as Ryanair fly direct from Newcastle. All good ideas. Thanks everyone.

Lucien – I’ll PM you them 😉

Glasgow? Great restaurants, nightlife, shopping & hotels, easy to drive (or get the train) out to some proper Scottish scenery for the day too.

Or you could stay somewhere like Cameron House hotel on Loch Lomond and have a day/night out in Glasgow and still get an easy train-ride back to the hotel (even a taxi from the city centre isn’t too expensive).

Glasgow would be my suggestion. Chester is very good as well, especially if you are minted and like zoos! Thought I’d bought a bloody elephant, not paid to see them.

Glasgow for the reasons given above.

York is nice, and not too far from some great riding

If you want not to expensive then avoid Dublin,the whole place is a massive rip off…

I took the missus to Budapest for her birthday a couple of months ago, to be honest I reckon it has everything you need, certainly more than you can get through in a few days.

Plenty of museums, galleries and such, you can get into a few of them for ‘free’ by upgrading to a tourist travel card or get discounts for a lot of other stuff. The opera/ballet is well worth a visit and VERY cheap in comparison to what you get here. We went to a matinee performance of the Nutcracker the other day sitting in seats well off to the side of the stalls, the same money (£30 each) got us premium box seats at an evening performance. I also know of some good apartments right by the Opera house (central Pest): http://www.operaresidence.hu/

It’s a cheap place to visit, if I’m honest the main cost will be the travel, Jet2 certainly like to heap on the extras but once you’re there it’s comically cheap if you avoid the tourist traps. As far as nightlife goes, ruin bars are the way to go. They sound hipster-ish and likely to be pretentious tourist traps but honestly are great. We went to Szimpla-Kert (the original) and all in I don’t think we spent more than £20 over the evening!

I know It’s not that far from you Matt but how about Harrogate? Some nice places to stay, good food to be had, nice shopping, not far from the Dales if you fancy a walk & if there isn’t enough to keep you going you could take the train to Leeds where she could carry on shopping & you could wander round the Armouries!

Budapest is a really cool place, lots of culture and character, and about 80p for a pint of Soproni or Borsodi. 😀 Have just come back from Reykjavik which I’d also strongly recommend.

Hacing trouble finding direct flights to anywhere of interest from Newcastle. Anywhere else adds extra cost so it looks like we’ll be UK bound. Possibly Loch Lomond/Trossachs area.

Budapest is one for the future though.

Bristol. Cheap, easy flights from Newcastle. It’s a great city to explore, loads in the centre and you could easily do it without a car for a couple of days. History, arts, culture, beer, food, Bath just a short train ride away.

You can get to Amsterdam from Teesside Matt. Or Aberdeen. 🙄

Jersey.
About 1hr flight time from Mcr(other aiports may be different) plenty of nice towns/Villages to wander round, various castles and WW2 Bunkers to explore.

Visit Nigel Mansells car dealership and the museum onsite(might not float your wifes boat).

Ferry over to St Malo which is lovely too with loads of cafes and bars.