6 Day Trip on short notice! Where to go??

I’m not sure about flights but for a slightly Barcelona-type vibe but usually a lot cheaper, look at Lisbon. It’s a fantastic city for wandering.

Alternatively to fit with the cooler climes and your Central European tastes, and also relatively cheap, how about Berlin or Krakow? Or a bit smaller, maybe Ljubljana or Tallinn.

I should stress I’m just throwing out names of cities to look at with no knowledge of flights from Dublin, but trying to think what might be relatively low-cost for hotels etc.

I may be a bit biased, but if your heart is set on Barcelona and you have never been, I would say go! :)

I think early October is a perfectly fine time of year to go (much better than late July/August in my opinion). With 6 nights I think that you will be able to see a good bit of the city as well as the many unique day trips in the surrounding area.

Barcelona is definitely a walking city with many neighborhoods, each with their own flavor. If I was a visitor Gràcia would be my top pick for the area to stay in. It is the "hip" place to be now in Barcelona with its co-working spaces and artist studios but also feels very cozy and welcoming, something that is becoming hard to find in a big city like Barcelona.

I assume you've been to London? What about Edinburgh? And even if you've been to London, there are so many day trips or short visits-3 nights in York and 3 nights In London?

I second Lisbon. Some nice day trips from there by rail.

But you might also consider Lyon, which is an air hub. It's a fabulous city.

Go to skyscanner.net and enter Dublin as your from airport and Everywhere as your to airport. Enter your dates and check the box for Direct Flights. You’ll see some nice prospects including reasonable flights on Ryanair to Barcelona. Have fun planning!

EDIT: After searching skyscanner for possibilities, book directly with the airline and if it’s a budget airline read all the Rules for luggage size, etc.

I love Barcelona, but the hotel situation for the second week of October does look quite tight, judging from booking.com.

Berlin, though pretty much lacking in calendar-photo architecture (not speaking of Potsdam), has enough sights to keep you busy for a week and is quite inexpensive compared to other western European capitals. I haven't been to Lisbon recently and am not up on the costs there, but I agree that it would be a good one-week destination.

I had a great time in Warsaw, but I am uncommonly interested in WW II and Cold War history. For the typical tourist, it's probably not a one-week destination.

You could fly to Milan and stay in Padua, visiting Vicenza, Verona, Ferrara and even Venice by train. Padua itself is probably good for two full days. Don't know whether you're up for spending that much time on trains. For your big-city activities, you'd need to spend a few nights in Milan, I guess.

Except for the weather mismatch, Nice could work. There are lots of lovely small towns accessible by train or bus. The city itself has many art museums, enough for more than two days if art happens to be of interest. Again, this would mean a lot of time venturing outside your base city, and it wouldn't have the same level of evening cultural activities as a city like Berlin.

Rome?

To check for budget flights, go to skyscanner.com, and set your origin as Dublin and your destination as Everywhere.

Thanks for the ideas Jane. Barcelona - I just can't quit you yet.

Carlos - I'm going to keep trying Barcelona to find accommodations, starting with the Gracia neighborhood. Thank you!

Hi,

For a week I would pick one city for the first time or revisiting, choosing from Berlin, Paris, London, Budapest, Vienna, any of which I could easily spend a week just being there with or without a day trip to somewhere else.

For Paris think of all the sights and museums, visiting or revisiting Versailles or Fontainbleau. For Berlin aside from Mitte, there is Spandau, Wannsee, Moabit, Pankow, Charlottenburg, Köpenick, Karlshorst, say, the entire stretch from Spandau to Karlshorst.

A year ago in Oct because of the dirt cheap flight from OAK to London, LHR and Gatwick, r/t. I spent 11 nights in London, with two day trips thrown in.

@ corrine

No problem! I would be happy to answer further questions you have about Barcelona, once you have nailed down accommodations.

Best of luck! :)

Barcelona would be great.

If that doesn't work out, think about Madrid. It's cheaper than Barcelona, may be cooler (not sure), and also a great museum, walking, shopping and food city. If you like art museums, it is has some of the best in the world. It's also only a few hours by train from Barcelona - maybe you can swing 3 nights in Barcelona at a higher price then find something cheaper for 3 nights in Madrid to offset it. That said, both cities are worth more than 3 nights, but then at least you'd get a taste of Barcelona!

Wow - thanks everyone for great advice and tips! I was up way past my bedtime the last couple nights looking at the options, yet nothing else was thrilling me. I finally found an airbnb in the L'Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixampl neighborhood of Barcelona, between the hospital and university metro stops. Looks like about 5 blocks from the university stop, Quite a bit over budget but I'll be in Barcelona!

I read the fine print and then booked an airfare on RyanAir for $389. Yes, that was the lowest price with luggage and a seat. Never have flown them before but they've been in the news quite a bit and not for good reasons!

I'm so so excited to be going to Barcelona and welcome any must-see recommendations and...wait for it....vegan restaurant recommendations! According to the Happy Cow website it's possible to eat vegan well in Barcelona and there look like a few yummy options. I'm not strict when traveling though so will eat whatever and plan to partake in the local cuisine a bit as well.

I'll be planning my Spring 2019 trip well in advance -- Madrid, Toledo, Granada and Seville!!! Maybe do the Spain My Way tour.

Alegres!

Awesome! Glad it worked out in the end :)
May I suggest creating another discussion topic in the Spain section for specific recommendations regarding Barcelona and the surrounding area for your trip?

In your shoes I'd definitely do some research on local vegan restaurants. I have no dietary restrictions, but I was pretty shocked at the extent to which ham shows up in the local food. Side-dish vegetables, for example, may be flavored with little bits of ham. Although printed menus will probably make inclusion of ham clear, lunch specials are sometimes listed on chalkboards without detailed explanation.

Thanks acraven. I have heard of ham sneaking into many dishes. Happy Cow listed about a dozen centrally located vegan restaurants, many in the area south of Eixample near the University! I mapped and saved them on Google so I can use them offline if needed. I'll move this conversation to the Restaurant & Hotels section.

We were in Barcelona in late October and early November last year. We are both vegan. We generally prefer to cook our own foods, but we did go out a few times.

Maoz falafel has a store in Barcelona, which is as busy as any other Maoz location. http://www.maozusa.com/restaurants/locations/barcelona

This is an excerpt from my journal.........
We have noticed that there are a lot of places called Cafeteria in Spain. For us, the association is school, ugh. But there must be something more to it than that. Denis found an interesting Cafeteria called Sopa for lunch. It is a vegetarian specials of the day type place, with a choice of three entrees from which to choose. Additionally, you get three choices of either soup or salad, and water, all for the princely sum of 10.50 Euros. Desserts are available for an additional cost. We enjoyed our meal there, in fact, we went back another day. http://sopa.vg/provenza/es/

There was an Indian restaurant that we tried to get into for lunch, but it required reservations, which we did not have. It smelled really good. I'm sorry, even looking at Happy Cow, I can't remember the name of it.

When we couldn't get into that restaurant, we just wandered the streets and chose from the Middle Eastern options, which were plentiful.

Our AirBnB was off of the Plaza Catalunya, not far from Las Ramblas. There was a gelateria nearby, again, can't remember the name, that had some very nice sorbetto selections.

Donna

Thank you Donna! I've added those restaurants to my Google maps so I can find them when I get to Barcelona. I'm staying at an AirBnb not far from the Soupa Provenca. Like you I prefer to prepare my own meals, hence the apartment and not a hotel, but doesn't always work out when I spend long days wandering a city. Appreciate the recommendations!

You're welcome! And when the time comes, I'd appreciate comments about vegan in Dublin, as much of what we read would seem to indicate a love affair with dairy.

Why not tour Ireland, it is a beautiful country with great people.