Over the last few years, it seems we’ve got into a pattern of exploring a different city in Europe every Easter. The holiday season is the perfect opportunity for a long weekend break to one of the many gorgeous cities and stunning landscapes that so much of Europe has to offer that aren’t too far from home.

Our first European Easter trip took us to Venice, somewhere I’d wanted to visit for a long time. With gondolas floating down the winding canals, colourful buildings with their open shuttered windows, and narrow alleys to get lost down, it was everything I expected it to be and more.

Paris isn’t the City of Love. Venice is.

Even though the city is far from being a wallet-friendly one and a gondola ride for two will cost you a small fortune, you can’t fail to get caught up in the picture perfect beauty of the place.  Every new corner we turned and every canal we crossed, everything looked like it would fit perfectly on the front of a postcard.

And the food. Oh the food!

We were already both Italian foodie fans before our trip to Venice – pasta being my dish of choice and Alex’s favourite dish in the entire world being pizza (so much so that we even had a fancy pizza buffet at our wedding!); but eating it in Italy was just indescribably better. Alex had so many slices of pizza over our 5 day trip I’m surprised he didn’t start resembling a cheesy tomatoey crispy crust himself!

The gelato came in so many flavours it was impossible to try them all, and when we stumbled upon the chocolate kebab man, we realised we were in fact in heaven.

Yum!

Our next European destination was Poland with a trip exploring the popular city of Krakow, along with a visit to Auschwitz, and the beautiful mountain town of Zakopane. We hadn’t expected there to be quite so much snow over Easter but everywhere was coated in a cold white blanket. Despite being freezing cold, the snow covered mountains and village of Zakopane looked like something straight out of the pages of a fairytale.

Although we have a whole load of Polish restaurants and shops popping up all over London, I had never really thought about trying Polish food at home.  But the food in Poland was simply amazing. Pierogi, Oscypek, potato pancakes, sweet cakes…it was all so scrumptious that I had to dedicate a whole blog post to the foodie’s paradise that we found in Poland. I dare you not to drool!

Double yum!!

This Easter we took a trip to Belgium on the Eurostar where we spent a couple of days wandering the pretty cobblestone streets of Bruges and then a couple of days in the bustling city of Brussels. It’s hard to believe the cities are only an hour apart as both had a completely different feel and atmosphere but I fell in love with both almost as soon as I stepped foot off the train – the quiet and romantic feel of Bruges with its peaceful canals and old fashioned shops, and the hip and quirky Brussels with its street art and loud city atmosphere.

Everyone knows that Belgium is famous for its chocolate, waffles, frites and beer so of course we ate and drank to our hearts’ content.  Not only did we eat way more than our fair share of Belgian chocolate (because it’s pretty much the law to eat chocolate in Belgium over Easter, right??) but we tried all the strangest flavours of beer as well.

Yumminess overload!!!

While it might seem like it, we didn’t travel to each of these places for the food, honestly! It just happened that every place we visited has extremely irresistible local dishes! Saying that, trying the local delicacies in different countries is definitely a huge part of travelling for me, so who am I to turn down delicious food in all these beautiful locations?!

So…now to decide where to go next year 🙂

Where did you spend your Easter? Have you been to any European cities that you’d recommend for us next year?