Stevo985 Posted November 1, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted November 1, 2018 (edited) Always reliable VT. Looking for some recommendations for stag destinations in Europe. I'm organising a stag in March or April of next year and the stag wants a European city, for 2 nights. We don't want anything too "staggy" (magaluf, malia etc etc) but also want somewhere with plenty to do and enough bars to keep up entertained. He also didn't sound too keen on anything beachy, so city break style destination more than a beach one. I mooted Budapest, for no particular reason, and having done some research it looks decent enough. Any other good recommendations? I guess I don't want anything too cliched but I also don't want somewhere where I'm going to have to be a **** explorer to find stuff to do Edited November 1, 2018 by Stevo985 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PieFacE Posted November 1, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted November 1, 2018 I've been on two stag do's in Europe, one was in Madrid, the other in Lisbon. Lisbon is a very cool city if you stay away from the main touristy areas. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted November 1, 2018 Author VT Supporter Share Posted November 1, 2018 2 minutes ago, PieFacE said: I've been on two stag do's in Europe, one was in Madrid, the other in Lisbon. Lisbon is a very cool city if you stay away from the main touristy areas. I've been to both, not on stag dos, and they would both be decent. I love a spanish city (speak a little) so I'd be up for that. Could also include a footy game as part of it. Hmmmmm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 (edited) March / April might not quite work but I'd have a look at Sopot (Poland) , Small town but it had a great little street area with bars and clubs ( and a micro brewery) .. it does have a beach front which whilst not on your list allowed for some great bikini spotting in the sunshine we were out to gone 5 am every night , one club even (re)opened just for the 8 of us and we had an hour dancing on the bar and tables with all the staff ..followed by a 6 am skinny dip in the sea ( seemed a good idea at the time !!) you can jump a train to Gdansk for the day as well and that has some great waterfront bars and an interesting museum on the Solidarity movement ( yeah I know it's a stag do but its very interesting and you'll be glad for the break from the drinking ) and it was dirt cheap , most lads do's I get €250 out at the airport and I'm usually repeating it the following day ..Sopot , I just didn't seem able to spend it , think the 250 lasted the whole trip mainly full of Poles so not ruined by too many other lads do's either Krakow is another option for Poland , more touristy and a few sobering things to do (Salt mines , Auschwitz etc) , most of the bars are close together but the airport transfer seems to go on for ever if you fly on the budget airlines Budapest will be livelier but also more crowded , might still be quite cold in April , much better to go in the summer to Budapest , it looks a totally different city in the sunshine Prague is good but will be full of similar stag types to yourself so that might put you off .. I was in Madrid in July for a festival .. we went into Madrid Town for the day and I wasn't overly impressed , lots of bars and cafe type scene but not a lot happening , but that could have been down to us rather than Madrid itself .. did get to visit Botins , claimed as the oldest restaurant in Europe and home of great suckling pig ( you'll be drinking so you know your gonna eat meat ) .. Valencia might be a better option Germany would be worth considering .... Went to Düsseldorf in Aug , its got hundreds of bars in the old town but its crowded and imo it lacked the wow factor , not enough live bands for my liking and a bit crowded being a tourist attraction , some peole just seem to go there to walk up and down the streets , wtf !! .. we took a day trip by train to Cologne and that was quite decent , lots of bars in amongst the old town , had a friendly vibe with people getting up a dancing with the buskers , Hamburg will be a bit too clichéd but at least you'll have plenty of bars , Munich would offer you potential to visit the Alliance stadium do some beer gardens , Berlin is ace but tbh I was with my 13 year old son so didn't get a chance to check out the night life Mrs H went to Lisbon with her friends , they enjoyed it but their night outs are more like a good meal and a little dancing rather than one of wall to wall vomiting , but the street atmosphere sounded great (again maybe not in March /April) or fly to Chisinau and then have a day trip to Transnistria .. something different to remember the Stag weekend by , visiting a country that kinda doesn't formally exist ... nightlife wasn't great in Moldova , heck of a lot of 24 hour bars but for the locals a night out seems to involve a quiet drink and a chat but dirt cheap .. we took in a game at Zimbru FC Bus ticket to stadium 10p (think that was for all 6 of us) Football ticket £ 1.10 Stein of beer £1.50 Our group are all 40 + (actually I'm the youngest at 48 !!) and you'll have a better idea of what your mates like , but all of the above have allowed us to enjoy ourselves without feeling like we are 20 years too old Edited November 2, 2018 by tonyh29 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 Tallinn and Vilnius are both good - I loved the former although we were only there on a Monday and Tuesday night, we had cracking nights. Plus we avoided the weekend tourists so it was just locals, which I think helped. Hamburg was a laugh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 said in the other weekend thread 8 of us are going to bucharest 1st weekend in december, return flights from Luton, 8 man airbnb £100 each for 3 nights literally just booked flights to gdansk with wizzair for mid feb (it'll be bastard cold!) but going from cologne £30 each i spend a lot of time in cologne, its great city, from brum you have to fly in to dusseldorf and then get a 45 minute train in, their beer is like pop, its a bit like brum in that it has its own kind of broad street and obvious day tripper bar/club area but if you research it there are several pockets of drinking areas across the city, the only thing i would say is the german night time scene is really late, its a young mans game, if you can do a football match then thats incredible, i've travelled from cologne to frankfurt for a match on the ICE train and it was great but a fair bit of effort to organise the lads weekend i had in barcelona i found to be horrifically expensive so i wouldnt recommend that even if it is a great city Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 4 minutes ago, villa4europe said: i spend a lot of time in cologne, its great city, from brum you have to fly in to dusseldorf and then get a 45 minute train in, their beer is like pop, its a bit like brum in that it has its own kind of broad street and obvious day tripper bar/club area but if you research it there are several pockets of drinking areas across the city, the only thing i would say is the german night time scene is really late, its a young mans game, if you can do a football match then thats incredible, i've travelled from cologne to frankfurt for a match on the ICE train and it was great but a fair bit of effort to organise Is about 6 Bundesliga teams within close distance plus Fc Koln(apparently its difficult get tickets for Koln even though team is shit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 Actually Alex just reminded me ... Tallinn has options for a hydrofoil over to Helsinki so you get a 2 country for the price of one option for novelty value I found a bar in tallinn that sold hundreds of different beers , can’t rem the name of it though ... maybe I should go and check it out cracking looking women in Tallinn as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 yeah in 1 -2 hours on the train you can do frankfurt, dusseldorf, schalke, dortmund, monchengladbach, i think maybe mainz and darmstadt too, then cologne, duisburg, bochum, maybe even bielefeld and paderborn happy weekender tickets if you buy 4+ is £20 to anywhere in germany at the weekend the problem when i went was koln played in the EL so their game was moved to sunday, dortmund were away, i think schalke played monchengladbach so that got moved to the friday night and getting back to cologne wasnt easy, dusseldorf were in bundesliga 2 and played duisburg in the derby so you couldnt get near it, so i went to frankfurt, tickets were really easy you just have to register a couple of accounts, this happened in the 94th minute for frankfurt to win 2-1 despite being down to 10 men - it properly went off the train back from frankfurt to cologne on a saturday night with us on a stag do and a university girls hockey team on the train... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 2 hours ago, tonyh29 said: Actually Alex just reminded me ... Tallinn has options for a hydrofoil over to Helsinki so you get a 2 country for the price of one option for novelty value I found a bar in tallinn that sold hundreds of different beers , can’t rem the name of it though ... maybe I should go and check it out cracking looking women in Tallinn as well Hell Hunt in Tallinn is a great bar. Probably not the one you are thinking of but sells a load of different beers. Although it was 2008, I remember I had the Youngs chocolate stout. Quite a heavy drink! http://www.hellhunt.ee/eng/drinks Helsinki I found a bit meh, but at least it ticked off Finland. Not likely to go there ever again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted November 2, 2018 Author VT Supporter Share Posted November 2, 2018 Lots of great suggestions, thanks guys. I don't want anything too complicated, if that makes sense. Preferably one flight (don't mind it being from London, might organise a minibus down from Brum) and a cab ride rather than a flight here, train there, boat there etc. Noted that Budapest might be too cold I'll look into that. A big part of me wants to go back to Barcelona as I love that city and one of the best stag dos I ever went on was there. I'm a bit reluctant though as would be better to do somewhere new. Some of Tony's' suggestions sound very interesting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 i can tell you ryanair and wizz air have both already changed their cabin bag policy, they've made the free one basically a backpack, if you want the traditional 50x45x25cm hand luggage bag you have to buy their priority pass for about an extra £8 per person per flight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milfner Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 1 hour ago, Stevo985 said: Lots of great suggestions, thanks guys. I don't want anything too complicated, if that makes sense. Preferably one flight (don't mind it being from London, might organise a minibus down from Brum) and a cab ride rather than a flight here, train there, boat there etc. Noted that Budapest might be too cold I'll look into that. A big part of me wants to go back to Barcelona as I love that city and one of the best stag dos I ever went on was there. I'm a bit reluctant though as would be better to do somewhere new. Some of Tony's' suggestions sound very interesting I went to Budapest late March last year and was in shorts the whole time! I think Budapest is probably the best shout or Lisbon. Lisbon surprised me at how inexpensive it was and more than enough to do there. Hamburg another solid idea, but there's not much to do there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 12 minutes ago, Milfner said: I went to Budapest late March last year and was in shorts the whole time! I think Budapest is probably the best shout or Lisbon. Lisbon surprised me at how inexpensive it was and more than enough to do there. Hamburg another solid idea, but there's not much to do there. It's a weird one Budapest as I go there every March / April to visit the in-laws ... some years I get sunburnt , last year was cold and miserable , I had to go and buy a coat as i hadn't packed one ( I'm one of those people that rarely wear a coat ) ... even had snow one year , took the hire car out to a huge car park and spent the morning do donuts and skidding on the ice I agree it is a good shout ..just better in Summer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 12 hours ago, Xela said: Hell Hunt in Tallinn is a great bar. Probably not the one you are thinking of but sells a load of different beers. Although it was 2008, I remember I had the Youngs chocolate stout. Quite a heavy drink! http://www.hellhunt.ee/eng/drinks Helsinki I found a bit meh, but at least it ticked off Finland. Not likely to go there ever again! yeah Helsinki lacked the wow factor , but I did get to eat Reindeer so wasn't all bad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KHV Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 I like Valencia, loads to do in the city and loads of attractions. Great restaurants and bars there too and there is also the beach as an option as well. Doesn't take long to get there either 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NurembergVillan Posted November 2, 2018 Moderator Share Posted November 2, 2018 6 hours ago, tonyh29 said: yeah Helsinki lacked the wow factor , but I did get to eat Reindeer so wasn't all bad 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 Bratislava is decent enough and not too big or too jammed but still has good few bars. Weather was perfect when i was there in spring 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KHV Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 On 02/11/2018 at 17:24, Zatman said: Bratislava is decent enough and not too big or too jammed but still has good few bars. Weather was perfect when i was there in spring I haven't been there since we played them in the UEFA cup! Can't remember much although I'm fairly certain the game was crap! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted November 5, 2018 Author VT Supporter Share Posted November 5, 2018 On 02/11/2018 at 09:29, villa4europe said: i can tell you ryanair and wizz air have both already changed their cabin bag policy, they've made the free one basically a backpack, if you want the traditional 50x45x25cm hand luggage bag you have to buy their priority pass for about an extra £8 per person per flight I'm actually totally on board with this policy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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