Planning a trip to Europe in May/June
A few friends and I are thinking about traveling to Europe in May/June of '09 for 2 to 3 weeks. We'll probably be getting the Eurail Global Pass... or maybe a flexipass. Anyways... I have been looking at the route we could possibly go to visit a decent amount of place in Europe during this time. Seeing as though Eurail doesn't cover England, we were thinking about flying into London first, and then flying from there to either Naples or Rome (depending on the price and the slots available) because my friends aunt lives in Naples. So here is a list of cities from first to last that we could possibly visit.
London (fly to from Boston) Naples (fly to from London, then Eurail from then on) Rome Florence Pisa Milan Paris (overnight train from Florence, Pisa, or Milan) Lille Brussels Antwerp Amsterdam Arnhem Düsseldorf Cologne Bonn Heidelberg Stuttgart Munich Salzburg Vienna Venice (overnight train from Vienna) I realize that this is probably far too many cities for three weeks, but it's just a list of places that fit the route that we'd be going on the trains. Most of the cities are within 2-3 hours from eachother. I'm wondering if any of the cities listed are not worth it, or if any additional cities are a must that are within the route we are taking. Also... cities in bold are cities that are kind of a must for us to visit. Any input/advice would be greatly appreciated. :) |
First of all, welcome to the boards!
You're right that those are definitely a lot of cities for 2-3 weeks. If you have 3 weeks, I'd say you could comfortably visit the 6 cities you have in bold. It would give you about 3 days for each city plus travel time. I'd definitely suggest going with 3 weeks because otherwise you'll either be rushing around too much to get to all your cities or you'll have to drop one or two (I'm talking about the ones that you really want to visit). I actually haven't been to many of the places you mentioned besides Paris, but for Germany, I'd definitely recommend Berlin. Good luck with the planning, it sounds like you have the right idea about things. |
Yeah, I'm usually one of the fastest travellers on here and even I'd suggest that your itinerary is too aggressive for 3 weeks. Last year I did 16 days and we saw 6 cities and that was A LOT.
Also, a Global or Flexi is pretty expensive for only 3 weeks of usage. I would eliminate some cities ( I know its hard, once you get over the Atlantic you want to see as much as possible) and then decide on which pass is right. Any reason Naples is a must? I've been there - besides for acting as a jumping off point for Capri and Pompeii its really nothing too special - especially when compared to Rome or Florence. |
I agree, you should try cut down to the things you definitly dont want to miss. I spent 2 weeks in Italy alone. Rome is amazing and I suggest at least 3 days there to get in all the sights. Florence, didnt really enjoy, but alot of people love it. Pisa is a definite day trip from Florence. As for Milan, well, its just an industrial city. I would give it a miss.......
|
Quote:
|
I'd definitely skip Milan, and Pisa can be done in a day trip. As much as I love germany, I think you're going to have to skip a few cities there, too. I haven't actually been to that part of germany though so I can't make a recommendation. I will say that I think Munich requires less time than you might think, yes you can sit in a beer hall for days but you can actually see the sights and have a few good beer garden/beer hall sessions in about 2 days... the centre of the city is pretty small. Same goes for Salzburg, it's beautiful and you could spend a lot of time there, but if you're pressed for time, you don't really need to.
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
I dont know the overnight train prices....but I flew from Rome to Paris, and Easyjet.com offers flights for +-40eur. I know it saves on accomodatoin for the night, but with the time limit you have it might be best trying to save on time. Its just a suggestion, but if you were to fly, you could go from Naples to Florence the back down to Rome..... |
Quote:
Also, I dont know how old you are, but 26 and under qualify for Youth passes. Also as long as there are two of you together, you can get the Saver passes. If you are positive you are going to be with your friends, look into the those, its a good way to save cash. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
As far as the saver pass goes... I would definitely go with that if I were over the age limit for the youth pass. It's $619 for 15 days plus the promo which makes it 21... and it's per person so it's probably not worth the money even though it allows first class travel. |
If you go with 6 cities and one of the journey's between cities being a plane from London to wherever you're going to, then you'll have enough travel days on the 5 day flexi pass. Price out the different rail passes and price out the individual train tickets and choose whichever is cheaper. If you think you'll be traveling much more, then yeah, the 15 day pass (or 21 if it's a promo) is worth it, but if you're only traveling 5 days anyways, why spend the extra 100 bucks?
|
Quote:
Are you thinking about extending your trip? Before you were talking about doing a 14-21 day trip. I doubt you want to be on the train everyday. I hope you know we're all just trying to help you out, save you some money if possible, and make sure we do our best to ensure you have a great trip abroad. One tip I usually do. I setup a spreadsheet (yeah i love spreadsheets as others might know). It has 6 columns on it and a row for each day. The columns are Day # (0-end of trip), Date, Day of Week, Morning, Afternoon, Night. I put in where I want to be for each of those last three. I found this is better than just listing the places because it really illustrates how one moves around during the journey (wake up in Milan, go to sleep in Naples for instance). Then I highlight in gray any time I'm getting on a train/plane/bus/boat/etc to go somewhere new. That is a great visual way of seeing how much traveling one will do while away. Then you see the nice relaxing white days, free of travel, when you know you can relax and just tour one place. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
All times are GMT -7. The time now is 04:05 PM. |
CopyrightŠ2002-2018 TravelPUNK.com