Early December city breaks: the weekend southern Europe is on holiday

In short

• 4–8 December 2026 is a long holiday weekend in southern Europe: 8 December, a Tuesday, is a public holiday in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria and Malta. In the UK and Ireland it is an ordinary weekend.
• From the countries on holiday, flights cost more than on a normal weekend: +31% from Italy, +39% from Portugal, +51% from Spain. From Germany (+2%) and France (+3%), almost nothing changes.
• Flying in is not the problem: from countries with no holiday, flights into Spain cost 3% more and into Italy the same as a normal weekend. The crowds are the locals travelling around their own country and abroad.
• Routes into the UK rose 19%: that weekend London is one of the places southern Europeans fly to.
• The destination matters more than the days: from countries with no holiday, on the same route, moving the days changed the median fare by only €0–3, while from one destination to another, on the same days, fares ranged from about €45 to over €90.

Fares FlyDown read directly from the airlines between late September and 8 October 2026: return, per person, small cabin bag only, the latest reading of each flight. To measure the rise we compare the same route, with the same airline, on the 4–8 December weekend and on the weekends of 27 November – 1 December and 11–15 December. Our readings from UK and Irish airports for that weekend are still too few for a UK-only figure, so the day-by-day medians cover all departures from countries with no holiday (mostly Germany and France, then Greece, Hungary, Belgium and a handful from the UK, Ireland and Poland).

The 2026 calendar

For Italians it is the "ponte dell'Immacolata", for Spaniards the "puente de diciembre": the first big weekend away of the Christmas season, when Madrid, Lisbon, Rome and the Christmas-market cities fill with domestic travellers. For you it is an ordinary Friday-to-Sunday, which is exactly the advantage.

What the holiday does to prices

We took the same routes and compared the cheapest fare on the holiday weekend with the cheapest on the weekends before and after. The result depends almost entirely on the country you leave from:

The rise follows the public holidays, not Christmas. And it runs in one direction: the locals fly out on Friday or Saturday and back on Monday or Tuesday. If you fly the other way, into Spain or Italy, you are not competing with them for seats:

The samples are small, so read them as a direction rather than a precise figure. The practical point holds: a flight from London or Dublin to Madrid, Seville or Rome that weekend should cost about what it costs on any early-December weekend. What can cost more once you land is the hotel, because the domestic tourists are there too: we do not measure hotel prices, so compare before you book.

Days or destination: what actually saves money

Median return fares for each pair of days, for flights leaving countries where that weekend is an ordinary one. Each row gathers the routes that had a fare on those days, so they are not always the same routes:

• On the same route, the days barely move the price. Comparing the same route with the same airline, Saturday → Monday cost €1.44 more than Friday → Sunday at the median (8 routes), and Thursday → Monday cost the same as Friday → Monday (15 routes) or Saturday → Monday (11 routes). The gaps between the rows come mostly from the routes: each pair of days has a different mix of destinations.
• The destination matters much more. On the same days, return fares from countries with no holiday ranged from about €45 to over €90 depending on the route.
• So pick the days that suit your time off: Friday → Sunday, Saturday → Monday or Friday → Monday cost about the same on the same route, and Thursday → Sunday was no cheaper.

Where we saw fares under €50

Some of the lowest fares we read for that weekend from countries with no holiday. Real readings, but they may already have changed:

• Agadir: around 21 °C on the Moroccan coast while the UK is at its darkest. Three nights for under €36 return from Stansted.
• Barcelona: €38.98 from Dublin, Thursday to Sunday. Flights into Spain that weekend cost about the same as on any other in our data; it is the Spanish heading out who pay more.
• Rome or Milan: in Italy 8 December is traditionally the day the Christmas trees and nativity scenes go up. Flights into Italy that weekend cost the same as usual in our data.

If what you want is a Christmas market, most are open by this weekend; just remember that Austria is on holiday too on the 8th, so expect the Vienna markets to be busier with locals on the Tuesday. Prices and dates for the main markets are in our guide to Christmas markets on a budget.

Five moves for this weekend

• Fix the days that suit you and leave the city open. On the same route, moving the days shifted the median fare by only a few euros; changing destination on the same days can halve it.
• Fly against the flow. Into Spain or Italy at the start of the weekend and out at the end is the opposite of what the locals do, and in our data it costs no more.
• Check the hotel before the flight. In Madrid, Lisbon or Rome that weekend the rooms are wanted by domestic travellers; the flight may be cheap and the bed not.
• If you live in the UK with family in Italy, Spain or Portugal, think about who travels: flights out of those countries that weekend cost 31–51% more, so a visit to them is cheaper than a visit from them.
• Don't wait for November to look. The weekend is close: the low fares in this guide can disappear within days.

The easy way: get an alert

For this weekend it pays to fix the dates and leave the destination open: tell FlyDown where you fly from, how much you want to spend and that you want to leave between 3 and 6 December; it checks the airlines every few hours, day and night, and writes to you as soon as a trip drops below your price.