Lille

Lille is the French city break you can do without an airport. The Eurostar from St Pancras takes about 1 hour 20 minutes and stops at Lille-Europe before it ever reaches Paris, so you step off the train and walk to your hotel in under ten minutes — no transfer, no hold-bag queue, no taxi haggling. That alone makes it the easiest weekend on this list, and it is the main reason a Lille trip ends up cheaper than the same two nights in Paris: you save on the airport, and you save again on hotels and dinner once you arrive.

What you get for the short hop is a Flemish city that does not feel especially French. Vieux-Lille is red-brick and gabled, with arcaded courtyards like the Vieille Bourse, independent boutiques and the smell of waffles from Meert. The food is its own argument for coming: carbonnade flamande (beef slow-cooked in beer), potjevleesch and proper local beer in an estaminet, rather than a generic bistro menu. The Palais des Beaux-Arts, France’s largest fine-art museum outside Paris, anchors a rainy afternoon for about €7.

Two nights is the honest amount of time. The centre is small and flat enough to walk end to end, so the structured planning below — where to stay, what a weekend really costs in pounds, and whether to time it for the September Braderie or the December Christmas market — is about flexing your dates and your base rather than cramming a long itinerary.