Planning a December 4 day Eurobreak

[Tim R-T-C]

So I'm using up my remaining holiday allowance with a four day mini-break from 10th December. A few years ago we did a short tour, entirely by train from the UK, down to Zurich, Vienna and Bratislava, returning via Salzburg and Munich, which was really good fun including two sleeper trains.

So I'm thinking similar for this year, although maybe flying because I have slightly less time. Two ideas at present:

Fly Manchester to Hamburg (nice early flight, but it is with Ryanair). Sunday in Hamburg to see the city and the markets. Monday, take late morning train up to Copenhagen via the ferry, rest of the day there. All day Tuesday and Wednesday in Copenhagen, flying home that evening.

Or. Fly Liverpool to Krakow (nice early flight, with Easyjet), spend Sunday and Monday there, then the sleeper train to Prague, got Tuesday and Wednesday there, flying back to Manchester in the evening.

Both bag two new cities with good Christmas markets and other points of interest, plus a new country (not been to Denmark or Czech Republic) and have an interesting train journey (sleeper or boat train).

I would be interested to hear if anyone has done these routes recently, or been to these cities at Christmas and has any suggestions. I'm also open to other itineraries - can't vary the days, but can get the train Saturday evening to any accessible UK airport for the outbound flights, so plenty of options there.

 

[Techniquest]

Vienna's Christmas markets are worth seeing, I did them last year and really enjoyed the experience.

Not done the other cities I'm afraid, I'm going to Prague in a couple of weeks which isn't much help to you.

 

[30907]

You say you can travel Saturday evening to an airport. How early do you finish, because IIRC there arent many Saturday evening flights to mainland Europe from anywhere relevant (I assume NW England).

 

[Tim R-T-C]

You say you can travel Saturday evening to an airport. How early do you finish, because IIRC there arent many Saturday evening flights to mainland Europe from anywhere relevant (I assume NW England).

I know, I have been looking, although problem is you get a 10pm UK departure, you end up arriving about 2am and unless the airport has a handy hotel, you then have to travel into town which takes even longer, then try and get a few hours sleep in a hotel.

I meant I can travel to any UK airport on the Saturday night to fly early on the Sunday. Last year we travelled to Heathrow after work on the Saturday so we could catch the 8am Kiev flight.

 

[shredder1]

We did Hamburg to Copenhagen in February as part of our running around, the ferry is a bit bland and its a Danish Worm that does the trip, Still plenty of the ME 1500 class Diesels in and out of Copenhagen in both liveries, we found Nohabs on the return journey but via the kiel canal route, Hamburg is a busy station.