It’ll be pretty quiet in Nice if you are going in the colder months, but it’s still quite nice and Monaco and Cannes are also worth half a day each, so another day there could be good. Yes, your itinerary looks great. Since traveling from one city to another will take at least half a day, you don't want to waste more time by visiting far-flung cities. Thank you for any help. The earlier you buy those train tickets the cheaper they will be and the greater the choice of departure times. We are flying from Australia. Or Italy and Central Europe a separate trip. Stop in Iceland for 2 nights. im thinking of just skipping switzerland. Even still, most beaches in Europe are either lousy (compared to those in the US or Australia etc) or remote or absurdly crowded or sometimes all of those things. Norwegian is great value, so that’s a very good choice. To Florence (by plane, arrive at 3pm) – sleep in Florence Siem Reap What are your thoughts on the order of the trip, as well staying in hostels? Since you’ve already explored Spain (and personally I think Paris and France are better for first-time visitors) I would give that some thought. From there you could fly from the small nearby airport or take a train to the larger Toulouse Airport for a flight to Lisbon to visit Fatima. So that is our situation could you suggest a Itinerary with all of this in mind. I hope this helps and let me know if you have any other questions. -Roger, Hi Roger, And we have a budget as well London is pretty amazing and most people agree that it lives up to the hype, and I don’t think the visa is too difficult to get. But also as I mention in the article above, I think it’s best to spend 3 nights in almost any city you visit, and 4 nights can be better in the larger cities such as London and Paris. And if you add that extra week I think 3 nights in Interlaken and 2 nights in Lucerne is an ideal first trip. Just to get a coffee in each place, sort of like an amazing race type of thing Has it been done? For most people, the 4th or 5th day in one city means doing things that were way down your list when you got there. Do you think 4000 euros will suffice. We really want to see the Amalfi Coast from Naples and spend as much time as possible in Rome. We have a flex day available besides these. We are planning to go to from New York, Rome, Venice, Paris, London, and back to New York. Hi, we have our Europe trip coming this September which is for 9 days and flying in and out from Paris. We have two full days in Interlaken and I’m debating the best sights. You could even do 2 nights in Florence and 1 night in Venice instead, as they are a short train ride from each other. 1. We would really like to try and do Ireland and Italy. Your tips and hints are very helpful. Your plan sounds fantastic, actually. We have planned on Belgrade, Budapest, Krakow, Prague and Amsterdam 2-3 nights in each. I am hoping to leave home on a Saturday and return home the following Saturday. Spending 3 nights in almost any city is ideal if you want to see a lot. Either way, we’re sure you’ll love this 3-week Winter in Europe travel itinerary. In 12 to 14 days you should be able to do 4 cities well or 5 if you rush a bit. The boats almost all dock in the heart of the city and usually there would be small buses and vans right there to take passengers on city tours. And would you be tell us the best way to get to Geithborne from Amsterdam in case we do make the trip. I am planning to use the Euro rail for traveling for 2 weeks using the Benelux-France-Italy-Spain route . The best and most obvious places to combine with Amsterdam are Paris (a bit over 3 hours by train) and also London (a bit over 2 hours on the Eurostar train from Paris). From Paris you could get to Amsterdam in a bit over 3 hours and from there to Berlin in a bit over 5 hours. It looks like it takes only 90 minutes to reach from Salzburg, so it’s an easy and popular day trip from there. Three weeks South Africa road trip itinerary and map. Loch Ness is also near Inverness and they have a variety of lake cruises that spend a lot of time discussing the Loch Ness Monster. With a Eurail Pass you can ride for free without a reservation in most of northern Europe, but in France, Italy, and Spain you will need a seat reservation for the high-speed intercity trains. I think 10 to 14 days between them (also including Florence in between Venice and Rome) is just about perfect. We are planning a graduation trip for our son. What I’d recommend would be to stay 3 nights in Amsterdam (although 2 would still be okay) and skip Brussels and Bruges on this trip. I will be going for 15 days. What are your views for Ghent ? Wow! I am planning to hire a car from Florence to Siena (Tuscany area) all the way to Sorrento, do you think it’s a good idea? My strong recommendation for trips like this is to plan on staying 3 nights in almost any city you visit, except for 1 or 2 nights in some of the smallest cities such as Venice or Bruges. Thanks Roger It’s often possible to check out of a hotel at 8:30AM and walk 10 minutes to the train station to board a departing train at 9AM with plenty of time to spare. We are a grouo of girl friends visiting Budapest (3 nights), Vienna (2nights), Salzburg (1 night)and Prague (4 nights). Spend one week in Portugal, splitting your time between Lisbon and the beautiful southern coastline. Interlaken, We are flying to Italy from Santorini in Decemeber then to switzerland than to amsterdam and to paris. He has been to London and Switzerland before but it will be my first time in any parts of Europe. so I am sure I would have to make that into consideration as far as places to go. Can I have your recommendations on how we can utilize our holidays to the maximum? We have about $8k-$10 to spend on the entire trip-flights, trains, hotels, excursions, food, souvenirs, etc. I prefer to lock in hotel rooms as soon as I’m sure of my schedule, and I don’t recommend shopping for hotels on foot once you arrive, but you can make plans as you go otherwise. Could you please suggest what places to include(and their important surrounding day trip places) and how many days to spend? I have my India to England to and fro flights booked. UK > ManU and stonehenge As for my case, I just wanted to get your inputs on which would be the best way to spend our 16D (including midday arrival and late night departure) in September. Day 4: Rome, take a train to Florence in the evening I’d spend 3 days there and you could go to Malaga after that if you really want another beach. Any other city if I can pick and add, I am confused in following: 6. road trip. Most of Europe can be like NYC in summer where if you get unlucky it’s very hot and humid, except far fewer places in Europe have air conditioning. Then you’d fly back to London for your flight home. Bermuda Should we remove or consider any other city? It’s best to stay on the main island because it’s fairly quiet in the mornings and the evenings when most of the day trippers and cruise passengers are gone. I took your advice and the itinerary currently looks like the one below. Thanks much for any input. If you want to cut out Florence you could do that, but I really think you’d be better off going to fewer places and staying in them 3 nights each except for Venice. -Roger. Love your website, great tips on travelling, money tips etc. Problem is, not sure if we’ll have time to see them all. Maybe Spain, France, Amsterdam or Southern Italy. Switzerland I’m happy to help with other questions if you have them. I’ll be happy to try to help, though I’m a bit unclear on what. Really appreciate this website and the insight that you bring. 2 – I’ve been all over Europe and to many hidden corners, and I actually think that the popular cities are popular for justifiable reasons. Ghent is really a hidden gem because it’s quite similar to Bruges and even Amsterdam, but it gets far fewer tourists. Should we remove or consider to add antoher country? Fri Florence Florence I’ll give you my thoughts on those three places and hopefully one will stand above the others. The best places to visit in Austria and Vienna and Salzburg, which are very different from each other. Neither Berlin nor Prague is close enough to any of the others to take trains to, and honestly that part of Europe is pretty boring from a train window anyway, so getting a cheap flight is better and obviously much faster. In my own experience you get lower rates and far more flexibility when you book on your own in Europe and most other parts of the world. Also, the train from Venice to Interlaken is one of the world’s most beautiful train journeys. For a 15-day trip I’d recommend you plan on visiting exactly 5 cities. I hope this helps and I’m happy to help more if you need it. You can rent apartments there at good prices because many people have places that they stay in for a couple months and rent out the rest of the year. As much as I don’t recommend rushing around, I would do one day in Venice and two in Florence rather than just three days in Florence. Possible ideas are London, Paris, Amsterdam (I figured staying relatively close we would lose less of our trip traveling between places) Will we be overwhelmed doing only big cities? I’m a big fan of the St. Christopher’s chain of hostels because I prefer a bit of a party atmosphere. I am very confused right now and need some help. The shortest Italy trip that I recommend is one night in Venice, two nights in Florence, and three nights in Rome (Vatican City is within Rome, of course). As this is my first time to travel to Europe, would appreciate if you could recommend. Cheers First, you are amazing. Thanks a lot Roger.. 2. 3 days, 2 nights in Johannesburg; 3 days, 2 nights in Kruger National Park; Day trip to Swaziland before driving back to Johannesburg (I then went to Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe Bridge and, Namibia for about a … Free time to wander the streets of Austria’s capital, with its grand buildings, spectacular gardens, museums and palaces. Kuta, Bali Most of those day-trip train rides you have in mind will be done on local or suburban trains (rather than the intercity express trains) and they are fairly cheap. What kind of transport to travel between country or city that economic and cheap. Thanks for your thoughts on Ireland. Let me know if you have any other questions. Do you have any suggestions to improve this portion of the trip or any suggestions for any of it? We had been to France and Switzerland on our first trip back in 2012 in a similar time frame and It was very hectic as it involved a lot of travel. Airbnbs that are in the main tourist zone tend to be more expensive than hotel rooms (and much larger as well), so I almost always stay in hotels. Still, it’s much better than staying home and you’ll have the nice Christmas decorations to enjoy. Which locations will be the most/least expensive? Your articles and comments here is much appreciated and it helps a lot.especially when im the one need to plan everything. See which places sound most interesting to you and put them at the top of your list. You are a very thorough planner and it is impressive. 2D1N Funchal —> back to Lisbon to transfer And I do think renting cars for a group of 4 people in those countries will be the best way to get around. I think I’d do 2 nights in Vienna and 3 nights in Salzburg, especially if you are doing the Hallstatt side trip. I’m so happy to find your website. Also, not sure if we should skip Brussels all together and spend more time in the other cities in my itinerary? And again, the best values for a good location are on the east side of the river. Those cities are also close together so a shorter visit to each could work because you don’t lose so much time traveling between them. I would fly in and out from Frankfurt, Germany and the cities we would like to visit are: Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona/Madrid and maybe one other city? (a) see a play on Broadway Barcelona is now only 6.5 hours from Paris on a direct train, and then Madrid is only 2 hours 45 minutes from Barcelona by train. Thanks a ton… Nancy. Thanks for your comment Roger, much appreciated. And even if you stay only two nights, that’s really only one proper sightseeing day and then the next day traveling. (its a pain just getting UK visa, and too expensive for even visa) My must do’s are Hi Roger. I’m 20. You can get between all of those cities on the trains pretty easily. Hi Roger, I am planning a 20-day itinerary for Western Europe in the beginning of June next year. The roads in that part of Europe are quite good, and parking in those smaller Swiss towns and cities can sometimes be free. The train departs at 0627 am from Interlaken and has 02 stops at Bern and Zurich before reaching Innsbruck with gaps of 08 and 12 mts respectively. Lisbon Interlaken has more scenic thrills than Lucerne so I definitely recommend going there if you have to choose one. Switzerland has the most amazing scenery in Europe, but it’s also very expensive and it would cut down on the time you have for Italy, so I’d probably recommend saving it for a future trip. Amsterdam is a great choice since it’s a fairly fast (5.5 hour) train ride from Berlin. Could you give me some recommendations? A few of your places are close together (Venice to Florence to Rome are about two hours apart each), but some of the others are 5 to 7 hours apart by train. We can do 2 or 3 weeks for this trip. So my list which is still almost the same (but I planned to include Budapest) is: There’s a possibility I might be able to extend my trip by 1-2 days, maybe Italy. -Roger, Hi Roger, This sort of conflict comes up a lot, even in my own relationship. That’s because the journey from Lucerne to Salzburg is quite long(but not too long also) and we do not want to waste daytime travelling. You could do Italy first or last, although I’d probably do it first because Italy is a bit easier since more people there speak English compared to in Spain. -Roger. Those big cities you’ll be visiting are all wonderful, but they’ll seem even nicer if you have a scenery break in the middle, and Switzerland has the best scenery in Europe.  Ljubljana  Any day trips from here? It’s hard to visit all three in 5 days so I would do Rome for 3 days and either Venice or Florence for the remainder. Based on your blogs, i have shaped the following program but would like recommendations on the number of nights in each and route planning, airports I should fly in and out of for this trip. On the other hand, if you also included, say, Venice, you could spend that same day seeing all of the things on the TOP of your Venice list instead of the things on the bottom of your Paris list. This is one of the best places to research trip planning! The trains are also MUCH more comfortable than buses and MUCH more enjoyable than flights. This sounds like quite a trip. -Roger. D-7 to Garmish Partenkirchen & Mittenwald, off to Inssbruck, sleep in Innsbruck. I would like to visit other European cities and plan to travel alone in Oct/Nov 2017 for about 15 days departing from Ottawa. The Catholic sights are quite remote, so if those are your top priority the best way to do it would be to take a train from Amsterdam to Paris. Interlaken is the best hub for the most dramatic Alps views and experiences. day 1) Delhi London flight landing heathrow at 1500 hrs. 16th -18th September. But I don’t think I’d do just two nights in Santorini. Thanks! If that is possible you could fly from Singapore to London and spend 3 or 4 days there. Anything else? That said, for a party of 6 you might want to look into Airbnbs and other apartments instead of hotels. In west europe we want to visit italy, france, germany, netherlands(if its possible to visit all of them) If you have 20 days of a first visit to Europe after your time in London I would definitely go next to Paris for 3 or 4 days. Then take the train from Paris to Interlaken and then another train to Lucerne. I would really appreciate if you could help me with itinerary if I start my journey from Sofia to Bosnia then to Croatia then Slovenia then finally to Budapest , Prague n Kraków. 2. For Germany the biggest draw is Berlin, and I’d do 3 nights there at a minimum. There are endless ways to piece together itineraries for 10 days in Europe, these are just ten of our recommendations. Hi Roger, I plan to stay at Amsterdam (3), Paris (4), and Cannes (3). 4/5. Often you can see all the main sights in two days if you stay in a very central location, where it might take three days to see them all if you are staying in the suburbs. 4. Paris Where is the best place to fly into from the US? Here are my recommendations for a quick trip to Switzerland. As long as you have at least 3 nights for each of those stops, I think you’ll be fine. My main focus right now is figuring out the most efficient way to travel between home and Europe, and between each city. Looks like i have found the right person. 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