Seeking travel suggestions

Portugal, stay in Faro, Lisbon and Porto
Or Spain stay in Barcelona, Madrid and Sevilla
Or Croatia stay in Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik

If by summer you mean July or August, then I would avoid inland Spain including Madrid and Seville, Croatia, Turkey and southern Italy. Parts of Greece will also be very hot.

Portugal would be a possibility, but I would opt for Lisbon and Porto and places in between such as Evora with 2 weeks and add in the Algarve if you have a third week, but I would stay in Lagos, not Faro as has been suggested, as there is more there for holidaymakers. Faro is a regular working city. The breeze on the west coast makes the temperature feel more bearable.

Berlin is a fascinating city with a great vibe and plenty of modern history. I spent a week there and could have stayed longer. The transport system is relatively cheap and it’s flat, so it’s easy to walk around. This combined with Amsterdam would be a great combination and you have enough time to explore each in detail. Budapest could be an alternative to Amsterdam, but it will be hotter.

The Normandy battlefields, the Venise Verte, La Rochelle and l’Isle d’Oleron would make a fantastic 3 week trip, although it would be easier with a car. The Venise Verte (green Venice) is an area of France an hour north east of La Rochelle with a series of inland waterways and chocolate box stone cottages that is great to walk, cycle or take a boat trip from Coulon. La Rochelle is a good base for exploring the coast. Oleron is an island easily explored by hiring a bike for a taste of true France not overrun with too many holidaymakers for some chill time and to sample the local oysters and muscles.

There's tons to do in Berlin as well as in Prague, Budapest, etc., but even Berlin can get at least into the upper 80s in the summer, and that may be hotter than you want to deal with. (Perhaps Hamburg would be relatively safe?)

There are the places I've been over the last 4 summers where temperature spikes have been non-existent or extremely brief:

• Warsaw and Gdansk (big on 20th-century historical museums). Could be combined with places in the Baltic states or Scandinavia. Do check weather records for Warsaw, though, to be sure my time there wasn't an anomaly.

  • Northern Spain between Galicia and the Basque Country (green for a reason). Research historical weather before venturing too far from the coast; I'm not sure where the continental climate kicks in with its miserable summers, but it's not all that far to the south. Leon is on the hot side of the line, as I recall. And beware thinking of Zaragoza in md-summer. Santiago de Compostela is coolish, and Oviedo seemed OK. Not sure about Burgos. You might want to move around a bit more often than every 7 to 10 days, In this area because most of the cities are not large. Other places I used as bases were Bilbao, San Sebastian, A Coruna and Pontevedra. Santander, though not very interesting itself (rebuilt after a 1940s fire), was convenient for visiting Comillas, Picos de Europa and Santillana del Mar without a car. I adore Barcelona, and it's certainly good for 7-10 days, but it can be humid, so even 80F can be pretty unpleasant there. It doesn't necessarily get hotter than that, but it felt as if it was.
  • Normandy and Brittany. coolish and wettish with the odd warm day possible. I based in Bayeux, Caen (with a car you only need one of those two), Rouen, St. Malo and Rennes. I didn't get beyond the very eastern edge of Brittany because of time constraints.
  • The Dolomites. But I'm not sure what temperate nearby area you could add on other than the Alps, and you might not want an all-mountain trip. The best bet might be to plan a budget flight to a completely different area (Warsaw-Gdansk?)

Hi!
I may be a little biased, but if you are looking for "mucho history" ;) I would second the recommendation for Barcelona. It is a town with literal layers of history, great transportation infrastructure, and is a place you can spend 2-3 weeks not only exploring the city itself, but also the surrounding Catalan region. For summer, I would try to head there either June or September, where the average temperature is is around 23 C (73 F). If you don't mind slightly warmer weather July's average is around 25 C (78 F). If you search around on the Spain forum, a fellow Catalan, Enric, has a ton of great information regarding sites in and around Barcelona.

If in 2-3 weeks you do exhaust the sites Catalunya has to offer, one can spend several days in the Languedoc region of southern France, just on the other side of the border. You can easily take the fast train from Barcelona to Toulouse, another town with layers of history, and use it as a base to explore the surrounding area.

For potential sites, Languedoc contains the well preserved medieval cities of Carcassonne and Montpellier, countless Roman ruins (such as the Roman arenas in Nîmes), medieval abbeys, Romanesque churches, and impressive feudal citadels (such as the ruined Cathar castles in the mountains of Corbières).

Hopefully, that gives you a few ideas!

Lately its been over a 100degrees F in Sevilla, Granada and Cordoba. The reported temps for Madrid have been quite high as well. If I went to Spain in the summer, I'd only go to the Basque area or perhaps Barcelona which seems some cooler than the Madrid and Andalusia areas.

We were just in Poland for two weeks in July. Lots of history, easy to get around and extremely affordable. The weather was warm but not hot. I never wore shorts but did wear a dress a few warm days. Any of the Scandinavian countries are good to visit in the summer, as is Ireland and the British Isles, loved Guernsey. After Poland we spent 3 weeks in Croatia and it was almost unbearably hot. After this last trip, we decided we will never travel to the south in the summer again. Look to the northern countries for the summer travel.

Stockholm and Copenhagen.

Take a cruise out of Copenhagen to all the major Scandinavian cities and St. Petersburg. Then fly over to Oslo and take the Norway in a Nutshell trip to Bergen.
Weather mid summer is great, and that is an affordable trip of a lifetime.