Late December '25/Early January '26 ideas

Posted by jonathanhandrews on 01/24/25 08:17 PM

Hello,
My wife and I went to Prague and Vienna at the end of '22 and start of '23. We have roughly the same window open again for 25/26. We were nervous that the locations would be dead and everything would be closed. We are glad we took the chance because it was an amazing trip.

My first thought was Edinburgh as I have heard great things about NYE there, nd neither of us have been to Scotland. I posted on the Scotland page, and the responses were mostly "NYE will be great, the rest of the time not so much."

So, what locations WOULD be great for around 8 days this time of year. We also did Germany Christmas markets for are honeymoon. We would do that again, but would prefer something we haven't done. Most of our other travels have been shoulder season.
Thanks,

Posted by HowlinMad

Germany

01/27/25 09:23 AM

669 posts

If you like fireworks, Germany shoots off a heck of a lot.

Posted by Cat VH

London

01/27/25 11:35 AM

195 posts

In general, I would be guided by where the best weather is. Nowhere in Europe will be particularly warm but you can find some of the places that are less rainy. I really like this website, which gives monthly averages for temperature and rainfall by city: https://www.holiday-weather.com/

If you have a few places in mind, you can check the averages for December/January. In general I would go for further south. I once had a very nice post-xmas week in Barcelona and have also enjoyed Andalucia in December.

Posted by johnt

Atlanta, GA area (USA)

01/27/25 04:37 PM

241 posts

We were just in Italy for 2 weeks right after Christmas and it was great! We started in Rome and then went to Campania and Tuscany. The public spaces were crowded on New Year’s Day but otherwise crowds ranged from smaller than usual (only an hour wait in the security line at St Peter’s at 11:00 AM on Jan 2) to nonexistent (Naples Archaeological Museum, Herculaneum). Weather was also good with highs in the upper 50s F and lows in the 30s and only a little rain.

The New Year’s Eve fireworks in Rome were also pretty wild. It wasn’t a big public thing like the July 4 fireworks in NYC, it was as though all the good ole boys in Georgia bought out the fireworks stores, came together in every square or piazza, and said “here, hold my drink” at the same time!

Good luck with wherever you decide to go!