European holiday destination where you get 'two city breaks in one'
With May here and minds turning to summer you might be looking to the southern parts of Europe for your holiday destination.
We're always banging on about places where the weather is scorching hot and the pints are surprisingly cheap, but variety is the spice of life and there's all sorts of places to discover on this continent.
Instead of casting your eyes southwards it might be time to look north towards a city where the vibes are immaculate and you can have two city breaks in one.
I had the chance to visit this lovely spot myself recently and pretty much everyone in the city was in agreement that it 'gets good' starting from May, so you might as well book your holidays now.
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This is the Danish capital of Copenhagen, and if you end up going there it's only a brief train ride to Malmo, which is getting ready to host Eurovision.
My own journey to Copenhagen began with a toastie at 35,000 feet.
Well, not exactly, it really started as the travellator at Gatwick took me through what I can only really describe as the 'tunnel of easyJet', which is basically a big orange tube with posters for all the holiday destinations you can go to.
Skipping the remaining tedium of actually boarding a flight and returning to the high note of an airborne toastie, scoffing that mighty combination of ham, cheese and bread while hurtling through the sky at great speed set a high bar for the rest of the trip to Copenhagen.
Luckily, the city itself absolutely did not disappoint in the slightest.
It's an absolutely gorgeous place but the best thing about it is the vibe, the experienced travellers among you will be able to get a good feeling for a place pretty much from the moment you arrive and Copenhagen has an utterly joyous one.
easyJet Holidays picked out a lovely hotel down at the end of the Nyhavn waterfront, 71 Nyhavn if you're interested in trying it for yourself though there's plenty of other options in their packages, just a couple of doors down from where Hans Christian Andersen used to live.
From there Copenhagen is your oyster as pretty much everything in the city is little more than a reasonable walk away, and given the lovely architecture of the city it's likely to be a very pleasant journey.
You might not think of Denmark as a summer destination but pretty much everyone we met told us that the city 'gets good' from May onwards, and even during a visit in the midst of March there were people taking the chance to go open water swimming.
You can visit Tivoli Gardens which, and I say this with all due respect to our own attempts at this sort of thing, absolutely puts pretty much anything we've got in the UK to shame.
I mean, where are you going to get a massive park with a food court, live entertainment and peacocks just kind of strolling around over here?
On offer are a plethora of sights (including The Little Mermaid statue), shopping (they have Ganni, which I am given to understand is popular) and smørrebrød, which is Denmark's open sandwich dish.
All in all it's a lovely city break, and the 23kg baggage allowance on your holiday flights will be enough to fill your suitcase with as many magnets as you can buy from the tourist shops.
Because of course when you have friends round to look at your fridge door it's important they know where in the world you've been.
But wait, there's more!
This is one city break where your passport doesn't need to sit at the bottom of your bag until it's time to go home, as you can hop on a train that is shockingly inexpensive to my British sensibilities from Copenhagen, and in a matter of minutes be in the Swedish city of Malmo.
Right now they're gearing up for Eurovision but there's plenty to do all year round.
In Malmo you'll find a collection of vintage shops, historical buildings, and even more lovely food so you can try actual Swedish meatballs and see if they're like the ones from IKEA (sort of, but also much better) along with plenty more.
I did also swerve off the holiday's itinerary to drop into Malmo's Disgusting Food Museum, but that's another story.
Two cities and naught but a train ride between them really does mean you'll be getting two city breaks in one with this particular holiday.
If even all of this hasn't made it sound like somewhere you'd like to visit then you can always look up one of easyJet Holidays other packages.
easyJet holidays offers three nights at the 5* Certified Sustainable 71 Nyhavn Hotel on a Bed & Breakfast basis for £633 per person including 23kg of luggage per person and flights from London Gatwick on 2 July 2024.
Joe Harker