6 of the best European universities you can stay at this summer

School’s out for summer, and if you haven’t yet thought of spending a night or two in one of Europe’ s beautiful universities, frankly, you’re missing a trick. Europe’s cities often heave with visitors in summer, leaving scant choice when it comes to affordable hotels and B&Bs. Big on atmosphere and comparatively low on price, university halls of residence can be an enticing alternative, giving you a backstage pass to the city far beyond the tourist crowds.

From the hallowed halls of Oxford’s Christ Church to Paris’ Latin Quarter and Barcelona’s Gothic alleyways, we’ve rounded up six of the most beautiful universities you can stay at in Europe this summer. Get studying.

1. Trinity College, Dublin

Best for historic clout

For the fast track to Ireland’s soul, spend a night – or better, a week - at the country’s oldest university, Trinity College in Dublin, founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I. Welcoming guests during the summer when its students take a breather, the university is the city’s pride and joy – an architectural stunner home to wonders like the barrel-vaulted Long Room in Old Library which hides the Book of Kells, an intricately illuminated Gospel manuscript dating back to the 9th-century. Some 20,000 rare volumes fill the dark-oak bookcases, and you’ll be drawn to other marvels like Ireland’s oldest medieval harp, the Guinness logo model and the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic declaring independence from British rule.

Trinity has produced literary gold, including Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker. You can breathe in all of this history and culture by staying in heritage digs like the 1690s red-brick Rubrics or contemporary campus rooms. Each room and building tells a tale, with Roman numerals marking the way, heavy wood doors and winding stone staircases.

The clincher is the location, just minutes from the shops, flower stands and buskers of Grafton St and the craic. Party until midnight at the live music pubs on Temple Bar, then walk home across the cobbles in Front Sq, knocking on the ancient Front Gate to be let back in.

Planning tip: Rooms swing from singles with en-suites to 4-bedroom apartments with well-equipped kitchens. The Buttery serves a cracking full Irish breakfast, and guests can use leisure facilities including a gym, swimming pool, steam room and sauna. 

2. Christ Church, Oxford

Best for Harry Potter vibes

If ever a university is going to give you goosebumps, it will surely be Oxford’s majestic Christ Church, a gold-stone beauty with dreaming spires, grand interiors and a sweeping meadow teeming with wildlife and home to long-horn cattle. Founded by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525, the college is the beating heart of one of Britain's most prestigious universities, once home to author Lewis Carroll, whose picnic excursions with the then-dean’s daughter inspired the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Other famous alumni include poet and playwright WH Auden, philosopher John Locke and an arm-long list of British prime ministers.

Staying in vacant college rooms reveals a side to historic Oxford few get to glimpse, with the option to wander in the Masters Garden or explore the Tom Quad quadrangle after the day-trippers have departed. Reached by a fan-vaulted staircase, the Tudor Great Hall, with its hammer-beam roof and portraits of past scholars, starred as Hogwarts’ dining hall in the Harry Potter films. And the movie magic comes when you get to have a full English breakfast here in true wizarding style.

Planning tip: Single and twin rooms with either en-suite or shared facilities can be booked during holiday times, namely July to September and at Easter from roughly mid-March to mid-April. Bear in mind that there are no lifts, and reaching your room might involve tripping up steep flights of stairs.

3. Residencia Universitaria Maria, Reina de la Pau, Barcelona

Best for solo female travel

What a delight it is to find these charming university quarters right in the heart of the dark-stone, moodily lit, medieval alleyways of Barcelona’s Barri Gòtic. It’s a 19th-century beauty full of original flair, with warm stone and arched stained-glass windows. The buzz of Barcelona fades the minute you step into the serene, light-drenched courtyard. Walk by the pot plants, trickling fountain and statue of the Virgin Mary, and venture up to the sun terrace, peeking across the rooftops.

Rooms in the converted convent house are bright and cheerful, with patterned bedding, pops of vibrant color and mosaic-style tiles. Stay here, and you’re more than welcome to use the gym, library, music room and chapel, and a generous buffet breakfast gets you started for a day of exploring. Big-hitter sights like the Gothic Catedral and the Museu Picasso are just a few minutes' walk away.

Planning tip: Run by the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation, the residence is women-only except in July, making it a safe and appealing option for solo female travelers. There’s a midnight curfew. 

4. Centre Culturel Irlandais (CCI), Paris

Best for art and culture

Inexpensive rooms are like gold dust in Paris’ Latin Quarter in summer, so whisper quietly about the fact that the Centre Culturel Irlandais has empty beds to fill when its students flee the French capital to go on their holidays.

Once home to a collegiate community of Irish priests and seminarians, and with origins reaching back to 1578, the Irish Cultural Centre forms a grand first impression. Built in 1775 and recently restored, it’s a handsome building with a pale-stone facade topped by a mansard roof, gathered around a tree-rimmed courtyard that plays host to events from dance to theater, poetry readings and summertime Fête de la Musique concerts. The interior creaks with history, with a chapel devoted to St Patrick and the vaulted Old Library harboring 8000 rare books and beautifully illustrated manuscripts (visits by appointment). There’s an interesting roster of exhibitions, too, some of which are courtesy of artists in residence.

Right on the doorstep, you’ll find treasures like the neo-Renaissance Sorbonne (the nerve center of French academic life), the domed Panthéon, where Voltaire, Hugo and Nobel Prize-winner Marie Curie lie buried, and the striking art deco-Moorish Mosquée de Paris.At Jardin du Luxembourg, you can also walk through fountains, ponds and chestnut groves.  

Planning tip: The residence is open to non-students from May to September for short stays of at least 2 nights. Rooms are en suite, and there are shared kitchens, as well as a salon where you can browse books and watch DVDs.

5. Corpus Christi, Cambridge

Best for messing about on the river

Moving at a more relaxed pace than rival university city of Oxford, Cambridge is fantasy Britain in a nutshell – a place of lazy, hazy afternoons spent drifting along the River Cam in a punt or nosing around musty secondhand bookshops for preloved literary treasures. Outside of term time, you can stay right in the thick of things at 14th-century Corpus Christi college.

The hushed monastic atmosphere of the medieval Old Court offers a deep dive into Cambridge life and a fascinating brush with history. Keep an eye out for the sundial and plaque to 16th-century playwright, poet and past student, Christopher Marlowe. New Court leads to the Renaissance Parker Library, with an extraordinary stash of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.

Within a 5-minute walk, you can be at Scudamore’s punting station, where you hop on a punt or hire a boat to tour the college Backs, and the mighty neoclassical Fitzwilliam Museum, with its feast of Roman and Egyptian finds and Old Master paintings.

Planning tip: Modern rooms lodged in the heritage buildings in the college grounds include singles with shared or en-suite facilities. There’s no breakfast, but you are just a step away from Fitzbillies, an old-school fave famous for the stickiest Chelsea buns (as well as Chelsea-bun French toast).

6. Porzellaneum, Vienna

Best for cool summer stays

Though just a tram rumble away from the pomp, ceremony and Habsburg palaces of the Innere Stadt, Vienna’s 9th district, Alsergrund, feels a world apart. Sigmund Freud and other great thinkers once pounded these leafy, quietly graceful streets and squares lined with Biedermeier houses.  And it is here that you will find the Porzellaneum, Austria’s oldest student residence, founded in 1887. Its historic doors open to non-students from July to September.

The 19th-century residence has plenty of period charm, with vaulting, whitewashed walls and a tree-shaded, cobbled courtyard where you can relax with a good book. The neighborhood is more about getting a sense of local life than ticking off sights, but there are a couple of unmissables. First up is the Sigmund Freud Museum, where the "father of psychoanalysis" bashed out theories for 47 years before fleeing the Nazis in 1938. Also nearby is the resplendent Palais Liechtenstein, a baroque palace in beautifully landscaped, sculpture-dotted grounds. Its galleries showcase a princely collection of masterpieces by Raphael, Rubens and Van Dyck.

Planning tip: Choose between single, double and quadruple rooms. There are shared bathrooms and kitchens on each floor, as well as a gym and club room with table tennis. For breakfast, wander to the nearby lanes of the Servitenviertel, dubbed Vienna’s "Little Paris," where the cafes and patisseries ooze French flair. There’s a minimum 1-month stay, so best to make a summer of it.