Which European cities are ok to cover for 2 days? Its hasty but apart from Brussels cant think of others as want to surprise my girlfriend for her birthday but I know that she wont be able to get more than 2 days off.
it depends what you actually want to do - sightsee, relax in a nice hotel, enjoy good eating, visit art galleries etc? Two days isn't enough to cover any big city in depth, so either go to a small one (Bruges, for instance) or go to a big one and concentrate on just a few things (eg Paris - you could fit in the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre, a Metro ride, some nice restaurants...)
prague is nice - short flight from UK and you could fit a fair amount in in two days. Just depends if you could get an early morning flight one day then a late one home the next. What about Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast or Dublin? Again just thinking on short flights - all nice places and good fun!
Some brilliant replies guys. Dublin we already covered previously and I should have been more specific in saying that I would prefer to fly out rather than cover scotland (although also has beautiful cities). Barcelona and Madrid I fancy, and prague is a good idea too. I will skip paris as I have been to a few times (I think it is overrated as romantic city) and venice is on the backburner until we can get more time off to see it, perhaps 4 days would be better there.
I worked on cruiseships for 15 years, and Venice is the most beautiful place I've ever been to and one of the very few places that exceeded my expectations. Good deals available flying there and you can get fantastic accomodation right on the Grand Canal if you look hard enough.
Prague would be very good for 2 days. It's not as big as Paris or Madrid and you can easily walk around the centre. Krakow is a beautiful city too and smaller than Prague so 2 days would be enough to visit the most interesting places. Other cities easily accesible from the UK: Milan, Amsterdam, Stockholm. Personally I think you would need more than 2 days for Rome, Barcelona, Berlin which are definetely worth visiting. There is a website with links to the official websites of European cities http://www.fromtoinfo.com if you are looking for more detailed information about any of the cities mentioned above.