I need to be in London for a few days before Christmas and want to spend about 10 days in southern Europe. Looking for somewhere relatively warm and, hopefully, sunny over Christmas and New Year. Can you suggest two or three locations? J.
Mills, Saigon, Vietnam One possibility is Malta. According to weatherspark you can expect average daily temperatures between 13-18C and almost 10 hours of daylight but some rain. Another good choice could be Sicily, temperatures could be just a couple of degrees cooler than Malta, although slightly drier as well.
The island’s cultural assets, including churches, galleries and museums, would work in your favour if the weather turns sour. You can fly from London to Catania non-stop in just over three hours, although you might want to base yourselves a little further south, at Syracuse or better still, the tiny island of Ortigia. From here you could make day trips to explore nearby cities including Noto, Ragusa and Modica to the south-west and Taormina and the area around Mount Etna to the north.
With 10 days to spare you could also stay for a few nights in Taormina, even the top hotels such as Villa Carlotta and the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace, where much of The White Lotus was filmed, drop their prices in December. From Taormina you could take a ferry from Milazzo to explore the Aeolian Islands. We are visiting my son in Dubai in October.
Which country would you recommend where we could travel together for a week? He has suggested eith.