ohhh where to go...

[epicballa]

hey guys...

i'm leaving on july 4th for a 50 day trip. i have a pretty good plan of what i'm doing and where i'm going up until august 10th. that's when my travel buddy is flying back home and i have 10 days left to occupy myself with. i'll be in amsterdam when he leaves. i'm flying home out of london so i don't want to stray too far from that area.

there's a few different things i've been thinking of doing and wanted to see if anyone has any good experiences in the regions i'm thinking of going to. i'll be going to mostly major cities for the first 40 days of the trip so i kind of want to get a taste for some of the smaller towns and off the beaten path places.

option a - train to brussels and fly to madrid(like $50 on ryanair) -> spend 2-3 nights in madrid -> hop around to a few different cities in spain/portugal (bilbao, porto, lisbon, sevilla, valencia) i've been to barcelona already but i really want to see more of portugal and spain.

option b - get the benelux-france railpass and spend the 10 days hitting up brussels, luxembourg, and some of the smaller towns in france with only a night or 2 in paris since i've been there. outside of the major cities in france, how easy would it be to find cheap accomodation in some of the smaller coastal cities in normandy and other areas?

option c - train to brussels, fly to dublin. my friend lives 30 min outside of dublin so i'd stay with her and then get the ireland railpass to take day trips and maybe a couple overnight trips throughout ireland.

so which of these looks good? and if anyone has any better ideas i'd love to hear them. i was thinking of doing the switzerland too but i know it's expensive and i don't want to be burning money at the end of my trip.