Good places to visit on the continent with kids

Hello all -- Looking ahead to the Easter holidays, I'm on the lookout for recommendations of places you might have been with your kids in mainland Europe. Could be a city break, or something a bit more beachy -- either way, I'd like to hear about good ideas for places you've been that you'd advise others to try. Feel free to share 'places to avoid' as well! 

We went to Paris with our toddler and had a fantastic time. We made sure to balance out adult and kid activities so she wouldn't get bored and we did a lot of outside stuff (picnics in parks, etc). Not sure how big your kids are, but the two main issues we found were restaurants did not have high chairs (looking back, we may have carried around one of those folding travel boosters, as it was REALLY hard to keep her in a regular seat) and changing tables were not as plentiful as they are in the UK. Parks and museums were our go-to places to change her and we went to dinner super early (between 5 and 7) in order to avoid crowds since we weren't sure how she would behave. The restaurants were all super accommodating and welcoming but I am not sure they would have been as welcoming had we sauntered in any later.

Thanks! Paris is actually the one place we HAVE managed to get to so far, and I really love Paris -- would happily just keep going back there over and over again, but I guess we should venture a little further. The kids are 5 and 8 now (were 3 and 6 when we went to Paris) so the high chair issue isn't really of great importance.

We found Paris a bit of a disaster. My son would eat only at MacDonalds! 

We had two lovely holidays with them (first time about 11 and 7) in Switzerland in a small hotel on Lake Luzern. Part of the success was there was another British family there with kids about the same age. But ours loved traveling on the trains, the boats and the funiculas. The hotel was half way up a mountain and looked out on cow pastures with the sound of cow bells constantly. There was a tiny church nearby and a wedding party celebrated at the hotel with what seemed to me authentic festivities and music (not put on for tourists). We made side trips to a transport museum, other small towns around the lake (via boat) and Luzern itself. Very relaxing and interesting for all parties. 

I don't have kids yet but I heard the "Italian Lakes" and "Northern Spain" regions are perfect for families.

Italian Lakes (Lake Como, Lake Lugano, Lake Maggiore) - http://www.italianlakes.com/

Northern Spain (León, San Sebastián, Bilbao) - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/spain/north/

We have driven from uk to eastern europe several times with small children.  This last year we stopped in nuremburg.  We stayed at a hotel that was fab for them- they were given playmobil gifts on arrival, a playroom, swimming pool, sand area to play in.  There is a playmobil fun park in the area, and nuremburg has an amazing toy museum as well as being a lovely but not too big place to visit.

We've loved Austria, particularly Vienna, Mondsee, Salzburg.

One of our faves is Budapest, as it is relatively cheap, but enjoyable with most of the baths and museums being fairly child friendly. 

There are so many nice places off the beaten path and places we have stayed when got lost because they were too nice ......

Have a lovely time wherever you land....

Thanks! Those all sound great. Keep 'em coming!

Spain is nice!

I loved being in Italy with my little one.  Italy is very family focused, and it is expected that if you are going out, you take the children with you.  I found waiters would often bring little bits of food out to keep the kids occupied, and the little old ladies in the shops would often give my girls treats.  I got comments everywhere about how cute my little girl was and had full on conversations with so many strangers about her.  I don't speak Italian, but somehow mother talk is kind of universal   I just found it to be very child friendly.

Mine was too small to really be bothered about if we had tons of kids activities, so I can't comment on that, but we stayed at a villa with a pool, so she was in hog heaven just for that--all she needed, really.