Bucharest, Tirana, Riga and seven more: what a weekend for two costs once you're there, from the hotel to a coffee, a beer and dinner, and the cheapest return flights from UK airports.
Written By Rick Blyth
Happiest at 36,000ft as the sun rises above the clouds
16 min read
Published on 10/11/2026
Two nights in Bucharest for two people, with a 3-star hotel, dinner with wine, a coffee, a beer and the sights, comes to £258. The same weekend costs £528 in London and £668 in Edinburgh.
Those figures are from the Post Office's 2026 survey of what the same things cost in 50 cities. Add return flights to Bucharest from £46 from Bristol, and that's a cheap city break abroad.
Here are ten of the cheapest cities in Europe to visit once you're there, that you can also fly to cheaply from the UK. For each one: what the hotel, a coffee, a beer and dinner cost, the cheapest flight, and what to do.
Every year the Post Office prices the same things in each city: two nights in a 3-star hotel for two, dinner for two with wine, a coffee, a beer, a soft drink, a glass of wine, the airport transfer, a 48-hour travel card and four sights. It leaves the flights out.
We took its 15 cheapest cities outside the UK and Ireland, and kept the ones at least three of our airports fly to. Then we found the cheapest return flight from a UK airport to each.
Five of the 15 didn't make it. For Sarajevo, the cheapest of all, Belgrade and Podgorica, we found flights only from London, so they have their own section. We found no flights from our airports to Trenčín in Slovakia or to Lille.
The ten are in order of what a weekend for two costs once you're there, cheapest first.
Bucharest£46 from Bristol
Tirana£30 from Liverpool
Riga£39 from Leeds Bradford
Vilnius£45 from London Luton
Strasbourg£50 from Manchester
Tallinn£62 from London Stansted
Warsaw£30 from LiverpoolKraków£33 from Newcastle
Bratislava£30 from ManchesterGdansk£30 from London StanstedBucharest £46 from BristolTirana £30 from LiverpoolRiga £39 from Leeds BradfordVilnius £45 from London LutonStrasbourg £50 from ManchesterTallinn £62 from London StanstedWarsaw £30 from LiverpoolKraków £33 from NewcastleBratislava £30 from ManchesterGdansk £30 from London StanstedSort the table by whatever matters most to you: the hotel, the flight, a coffee, a beer or dinner. Pick a city to jump to its card.
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#1Bucharest, Romania: The Cheapest City on Our ShortlistWhy go: it's a big capital at small prices. In the whole survey, only Sarajevo costs less for a weekend, and the airport transfer there and back is £1.76.
🏨 Two nights for two: £148 · ☕ Coffee: £2.20 · 🍺 Beer: £2.86 · 🍽️ Dinner for two: £66
🚌 Getting about: £1.76 for the airport transfer there and back, and £3.52 for a 48-hour travel card, the cheapest of the ten.
📍 Do: stand dwarfed by the vast Palace of the Parliament, lose yourself in the old town lanes of Lipscani after dark, and raise a beer beneath the stained glass of Caru' cu Bere.
#2Tirana, Albania: Cheap Hotels and Flights from £30Why go: it has the cheapest hotels of all 50 cities in the survey: two nights for two for £128. And nine of our airports fly there.
🏨 Two nights for two: £128 · ☕ Coffee: £2.15 · 🍺 Beer: £3.86 · 🍽️ Dinner for two: £64
🚌 Getting about: £8.05 for the airport transfer there and back, and £20.29 for a 48-hour travel card. The centre is small enough to walk.
📍 Do: stroll Skanderbeg Square and the colourful Blloku district, ride the Dajti Ekspres above the forest for views across Tirana, and go down into the Cold War tunnels of Bunk'Art.
#3Riga, Latvia: A Cheap Baltic City Break with Art Nouveau StreetsWhy go: its hotels are the joint second cheapest in the survey, £140 for two nights for two, and its old town is on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
🏨 Two nights for two: £140 · ☕ Coffee: £2.81 · 🍺 Beer: £3.52 · 🍽️ Dinner for two: £70
🚌 Getting about: £3.52 for the airport transfer there and back, and £7.03 for a 48-hour travel card.
📍 Do: gaze up at the Art Nouveau faces of Alberta iela, wander the cobbled Old Town to the House of the Blackheads, and roam the Central Market under roofs made from old Zeppelin hangars.
#4Vilnius, Lithuania: A Baroque Old Town on a BudgetWhy go: a coffee is £2.12, and its Baroque Old Town, on UNESCO's list, is one of the biggest in northern Europe.
🏨 Two nights for two: £162 · ☕ Coffee: £2.12 · 🍺 Beer: £3.79 · 🍽️ Dinner for two: £69
🚌 Getting about: £1.76 for the airport transfer there and back, and £11.87 for a 48-hour travel card.
📍 Do: wander the Old Town beneath its many church spires, slip into Užupis and read its playful constitution on the wall, and watch the sun set over the rooftops from the Hill of Three Crosses.
#5Strasbourg, France: A Cheap City to Visit in Western EuropeWhy go: it's the cheapest city in western Europe in the survey that our airports fly to. Only Lille costs less, and we found no flights there.
🏨 Two nights for two: £171 · ☕ Coffee: £2.46 · 🍺 Beer: £4.40 · 🍽️ Dinner for two: £89
🚌 Getting about: £8.09 for the airport transfer there and back, and £8.09 for a 48-hour travel card.
📍 Do: gaze up at the pink sandstone spire of the cathedral, wander the canals and half-timbered houses of Petite France, and share a tarte flambée and a cool Riesling in a wood-panelled winstub.
#6Tallinn, Estonia: A Cheap Weekend in a Walled Medieval Old TownWhy go: hotels are £145 for two nights for two, and its walled Old Town, on UNESCO's list, is one of the best kept in Europe. Dinner is dearer than most here, at £104 for two.
🏨 Two nights for two: £145 · ☕ Coffee: £3.08 · 🍺 Beer: £4.40 · 🍽️ Dinner for two: £104
🚌 Getting about: £1.76 for the airport transfer there and back, and £7.91 for a 48-hour travel card.
📍 Do: wander the medieval lanes to Town Hall Square, look over red rooftops and spires from the Kohtuotsa viewing platform, and browse the studios and street food of Telliskivi Creative City.
#7Warsaw, Poland: Flights from £30 and a £3.23 BeerWhy go: flights start at £30, a beer is cheaper than in Kraków or Gdańsk, and its Old Town, rebuilt brick by brick after the war, is on UNESCO's list.
🏨 Two nights for two: £164 · ☕ Coffee: £3.88 · 🍺 Beer: £3.23 · 🍽️ Dinner for two: £93
🚌 Getting about: £1.89 for the airport transfer there and back, and £11.20 for a 48-hour travel card.
📍 Do: wander the rebuilt Old Town and its market square, stroll through Łazienki Park to the Palace on the Isle, and hear the voices of the 1944 uprising at the Warsaw Rising Museum.
#8Kraków, Poland: The Easiest Cheap City Break to Reach from the UKWhy go: 16 of our airports fly there, more than any other city on this list, and its market square is one of the grandest in Europe.
🏨 Two nights for two: £181 · ☕ Coffee: £3.88 · 🍺 Beer: £4.31 · 🍽️ Dinner for two: £93
🚌 Getting about: £2.58 for the airport transfer there and back, and £8.61 for a 48-hour travel card.
📍 Do: wander the medieval market square, eat pierogi in the candlelit cellar bars of Kazimierz, explore Wawel Castle above the Vistula, and go down to the chapel carved from salt in the Wieliczka mine.
#9Bratislava, Slovakia: A Cheap Danube City Break an Hour from ViennaWhy go: it's a small Old Town on the Danube with a castle above it, flights start at £30, and Vienna is about an hour away by train or bus.
🏨 Two nights for two: £203 · ☕ Coffee: £2.90 · 🍺 Beer: £3.43 · 🍽️ Dinner for two: £78
🚌 Getting about: £2.11 for the airport transfer there and back, and £9.41 for a 48-hour travel card.
📍 Do: watch the Danube at sunset from the castle terraces, spot Čumil, the bronze workman peeping out of a manhole in the Old Town, and ride up to the UFO, the flying saucer on top of the bridge.
#10Gdańsk, Poland: Cheap Baltic Sightseeing and Flights from £30Why go: flights start at £30 for three nights, dinner for two is £66, the cheapest of the three Polish cities, and its old town sits on the water.
🏨 Two nights for two: £235 · ☕ Coffee: £3.44 · 🍺 Beer: £4.31 · 🍽️ Dinner for two: £66
🚌 Getting about: £3.01 for the airport transfer there and back, and £4.74 for a 48-hour travel card.
📍 Do: stroll the colourful Long Market past Neptune's Fountain, watch dusk settle on the Motława and its medieval crane, and walk out over the Baltic on Sopot's pier, Europe's longest wooden pier.
For three of the Post Office's ten cheapest cities, we found flights only from London.
It's the easiest saving on the list. In Bucharest, Vilnius and Tallinn, the Post Office found the airport transfer for £1.76 there and back. In Tirana and Strasbourg, it was about £8.
The cheapest flights here are for stays of three to seven nights, and the price moves with the length. Bucharest is £46 from Bristol for five nights. From Birmingham, the cheapest we found was £70, for three.
Every flight price here is the basic fare, with the small bag that fits under the seat. Check the airline's baggage allowance before you book: cabin cases and hold bags may cost extra.
Check your travel insurance covers a missed flight on separate tickets; not every policy does.
📌 Key points
- Bucharest is the cheapest of the ten once you're there: £258 for a weekend for two, against £528 in London.
- Tirana has the cheapest hotels of all 50 cities in the survey, at £128 for two nights for two.
- Flights start at £30, to Tirana, Warsaw, Bratislava and Gdańsk.
- Kraków is the easiest to reach: 16 of our airports fly there.
- Sarajevo is cheaper still, at £248, but we found flights there only from London.
In the Post Office's 2026 survey of 50 cities, Sarajevo was the cheapest: £248 for two nights in a 3-star hotel for two, dinner, drinks, the sights and getting about. Flights weren't included.
From the UK, we found flights there only from London. Of the cities we found flights to from airports across the UK, Bucharest (£258) and Tirana (£263) were the cheapest.
The survey compares cities, not whole countries, so it can't say which country is cheapest overall. Its cheapest cities were in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Albania, Serbia and Slovakia, then Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Estonia and Poland.
The cheapest city in western Europe was Lille, then Strasbourg, both in France.
For two people, the Post Office's weekend came to £351 in Kraków. Two nights in a 3-star hotel were £181 of that.
The other £170 covered dinner for two with wine, a coffee, a beer, a soft drink and a glass of wine, the airport transfer, a 48-hour travel card and four sights.
No. The Post Office's costs leave the flights out. Our flight prices are the cheapest return we found from a UK airport this winter, per person, and you book each flight directly with the airline.
Tell the search your airport, when and for how long. It shows every trip that fits, cheapest first, including two cities in one trip with a night or more in each.
Or see the cheapest city breaks in Europe from the UK right now, cheapest flight first.
The costs once you're there are from the Post Office Travel Money City Costs Barometer 2026, published on the 22nd of May 2026, with hotels priced for the 5th to the 7th of June 2026 and early-May exchange rates. Flight prices were found on the 1st of November 2026: return, per person, flights only, rounded up to the next pound. Prices are correct at the time we found them, but prices change quickly, so search for today's.
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