We’re looking for a 3 or 4 night break in some European city early in January, any suggestions? We live in the UK so want something ‘foreign’. We’ll probably fly from Manchester. We’ve had a quick look at Lisbon and Valencia, neither really stood out for me.
A related question - I’ve been doing searches using http://www.lowcostholidays.com/ does anyone have experience with this site? Are they reliable? Any other sites I should be using?
What kind of thing are you looking for? You mention city so I assume you’re not particularly worried about whether the place is hilly or flat, but “city” by itself doesn’t tell us if you want architecture, museums, performing arts, party time…
We’re not into art galleries or performing arts but like a nice science or natural history museum. We usually start a visit to a new place by just wandering mostly aimlessly looking at the buildings and getting a feel for the place. A nice place to walk is a plus. An example would be the Thames path in London. Markets are interesting too. Beer is pretty much always on the menu with us. Places we’ve been and liked include Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Munich. I speak only English but my gf can get by in French and a bit of Spanish.
OK, so the problem with Valencia would be that the Stuff to See is too disperse, plus their fixation with selling Fallas, Fallas, Fallas and the occasional paella.
Madrid could be a good choice, check out El Retiro (and surrounding museums) and the Rastro street market; not much in the way of really old buildings except around the area known as el Madrid de los Austrias, for which there are all kinds of guides both written and walking, but lots of areas that are nice to walk. Not a beer person so even if there are a thousand beer bars now in Madrid I wouldn’t know. You may want to bring down jackets, in January - it can be dang cold, specially if the wind is blowing from the Sierra, which it does most of the time anyway but in other dates it’s a bit of a welcome refreshment.
Bilbao, Asturias (Oviedo or Gijón) or Vigo also have nice offers. Not so much on the museums side (but that’s like saying the rest of the UK has less museums than London), but very nice on the “walk around” part and there are many things to do and see both in and around. Climate is similar to the UK, it will be less cold but more likely to drizzle than Madrid. And if you choose Vigo, it’s a month with R in the name: try the shellfish.
Is Paris out? I mean, it seems like an almost cliched choice, but the sights seem notable enough, you can get by with the language, and there are plenty of museums. And a Disneyland.
If you want to go more off the beaten path and avoid Paris, apparently you can get a tour of a French nuclear plant, if you make reservations in advance. And there are always museum/historical sights like the La Coupole V-2 base and the V-3 cannon site. (C’mon, where else are you going to get to see the ruins of a space cannon? Aside from Barbados?)
St Petersburg? Take a vest.
Barcelona?
Not the best timing for Barcelona. If the weather is good, great - but if it’s bad, the amount of places that still don’t have decent heating is absurd and means going to bed in a “cooooooold!” bed. You need to get in bed ahead of time just to warm it up - admittedly this can be a lot nicer as a couple than by yourself. It’s one of those places where “since it’s never cold” (never mind that it is winter once a year) they tend to be badly prepared for when it gets anywhere near cold. Since they’re looking at cheap places, they’d be likely to get one of those.
Madrid oozes culture and has very good walking opportunities and public transport, not sure if Barcelona would have enough to do in the winter? It seems more of a summer holiday place, to me.
kferr, have you considered Morocco? It’s doable for a weekend and 18°c might make a nice change in January. You can fly direct from Manchester with easyJet for £110 (not inc. luggage), 7th to 12th of January (booking on easyJet’s website).
If “sun” is not an issue, why not try Berlin? Plenty to see and certainly plenty of beer. Also, Prague is lovely and still affordable, although I don’t remember any science museums (and definitely good beer). We went in 2000 and did one of those holiday flat rent deals that was stupidly cheap (something like £8 per night pp).
I’m ambivalent on Budapest - it’s very touristy in places and very untouristy in others, neither of which are attractive to me - but there’s also Vienna.
And finally - how about a bit further out and going to Istanbul? It’s off-season so there might be a deal to be had.
ETA: That said, don’t go to Istanbul for the beer.
Only if you like roasting 
Spring, early summer and lateish fall are the best times, weather-wise (most of the rain falls during a period of 4-5 weeks in early fall, being there in September or October can be quite drippy). There’s stuff to do year-round.
How about Venice? Granted it’s cold, but there’s plenty to see inside.
Dubrovnik! There is the old, and the new. Plenty of walking opportunities. The eastern Adriatic is beautiful.
Rome and Florence are pretty good in the winter; it’s not actually cold in either one, and there aren’t huge crowds either.
Not so sure on science/technology/war museums; most of what you find in those cities is fine art and antiquities.
Budapest is pretty cold in January- much colder than the UK anyway. Budapest was interesting though - the Hungarian National Museum was pretty cool, as was the Statue Park filled with old Communist statues out on the outskirts of town. We saw a bunch of arts type stuff in the old palace and the cathedrals, but there’s lots of other stuff as well like the big covered Market across the river from the Gellert Hill, and all the hot spring fed baths and stuff around the city.
And if you’re a fan of Porsche cars, on the Pest side of the river is the local Porsche dealer. Pick up a free souvenir, a license plate frame that reads PORSCHE PEST.
Mine hangs in my garage. 
I was there for five weeks in June/July 2008 and it didn’t seem that hot.
Istanbul
Just stopping by to express my jealousy of those of you in locations from which a long weekend in any of the places mentioned so far is actually realistic.
Thanks for the suggestions. We’d looked at Budapest a couple months ago but then the migrant stuff kicked off with riots at the train station, so we figured we’d avoid the migrant travel routes until that calms down. Berlin sounds interesting, but would best be left for a warmer time of year. I’ve been looking at sunrise/set times for various places and even as far south as Lisbon the sun sets at 5:30 at that time of year. I find that even perfectly lovely cities tend to look a bit dodgy after dark. So I think we’ll leave traveling to a nice place until the days are a bit longer. We know England is shit so mucking around here is the dark doesn’t bother us. 
Just being nosy, but would “early January” include the 5th/6th? Many places have Christmas markets which are still up that late and Epiphany traditions which can be pretty neat… and which rarely get mentioned in travel guides. I loved the Christmas market in Basel, it was a lot more varied than the ones in Barcelona (neither of my hometowns has one).