I almost didn't look at this thread because it's tagged for the UK. Click on the yellow triangle and ask the editors to remove the UK tag or add tags for other countries. You're limiting the responders who will look at this thread.

I think all your choices look good and it would be hard to choose. Put them all in a hat and pull one out or decide based on the weather. If you dislike cooler, possibly rainy, weather then avoid the northern places in April.

It's going to be difficult with a car in the cities so try to plan your cities either for the beginning or end of the trip.

Thank you very much Adrienne. We're actually having a rough time trying to decide where to go! Rough but enjoyable time!

Considering your advise, that could narrow the search down to:

A) Spain: Barcelona (3 or 4 days), Basque country-Euskadi (7 days), SouthWestern France (4 days), Paris (5 days).

B) Italy: North to South. Florence and Tuscany (7 days), Rome (4 days), Amalfi Coast (7 days).

C) Munich, Prague, Vienna, Switzerland (visiting cities and towns in the way).

It could also be a different combination of some of these regions/cities...

Regarding the tags, it appears to me as tagged for France , Germany , Italy , Portugal , Spain and United Kingdom...

Thanks!

"Regarding the tags, it appears to me as tagged for France , Germany , Italy , Portugal , Spain and United Kingdom... "

It was originally tagged just for the UK -apparently the editors added the other countries for you . . .

But you also have the Czech Rep., Austria, Switzerland etc etc etc. .

Sort of hard to help when you are considering most of Europe. I'd start by getting a couple of good guidebooks and narrow things down just a bit and then we can help.

You say you're going in April and then you mention beaches. Probably the only place you will get beach weather in Europe that time of year is southern Spain - or perhaps Crete. In other places water will be cold and air temps are also most likely too cold for the beach.

Also - most places in the Alps and north will be chilly and rainy at that time of year. Not sure what you REALLY want to do - but I think you need to focus on a couple of places.

We have done numerous road trips through Europe - but mostly in May/June or Sept/Oct for better weather.

You can see much of Italy that time of year and weather will not be too cold - and you can easily do a driving trip, spending time in the countryside in various areas. You might want to start out with a week in Sicily - seeing the sights there - then head for mainland and see a number of town in Tuscany - as well as 4/5 days in Rome and a few in Florence and/or Venice.

But, really, you need to pick a couple of must sees and then build a trip around it. I would get a bunch of tour brochures and guide books with photos of major sights - and use that to pick your "anchors". If you tell us what those anchors are, people can make suggestions about a trip that will include them.

One thing to keep in mind is that renting a car in one country and dropping it off in another will cost you a huge extra fee. So keep that in mind when planning. Also, in case you're not aware of it, it's often about the same price to fly into one country/city and out of another as it is to do a standard round trip.

But yes, you need to narrow the playing field a bit before we can really be of help.

There is never a perfect destination. Options A, B, C, or D all are good. If there's not one which your gut feeling tells you to do then picking one out of a hat or throwing a dart can help you decide.

But, and it's a small but, if your first language is Spanish and Madrid is the cheapest entry point from Argentina then option A may just have the edge over the others.

It often doesn't matter where you go - just go. The rest will still be there for next time.

Thank you guys very much for your advise! We´ll be probably flying into Europe mid April, considering that, and according to your suggestions, we should probably go for something else rather than beaches and also consider that the Netherlands, Belgium and Uk can be cold, windy and rainy that time of the year.

If that´s right, then we should be thinking of one of these choices:

A Spain: Barcelona (3 or 4 days), Basque country-Euskadi (7 days), SouthWestern France (4 days), Paris (5 days).

B) Italy: Florence, Tuscany, Rome, Venice, maybe Sicily as suggested above

C) Munich, Prague, Vienna, Switzerland (visiting cities and towns in the way).

Some comments/questions about each destination:

A) We've spent some time watching and reading about the Basque Country and it seams it´s pretty much about the beaches... Is that so? I love Barcelona and Paris, and would like visiting them with my wife, but I'n dubious about Basque Country. I'd appreciate the opinion and impressions of those who visited before.

B) Seems an interesting program... But we won´t have Paris and Barcelona... ;(

C) Same as B. Another positive is that I LOVE beer and I'm actually a homebrewer, so Munich and Prague are kind of attractive to me... The question is, how's the weather in that time of the year?

Thanks!

The basque country includes the beach but you also have one major mountain range and, just about, the Picos d'Europa to the West. Also you have serious wine country (Rioja) and a few good cities. I could imagine doing this area with Barcelona and then along the north coast a fair bit. (in fact I have in, an open topped sports car ) Should be a good trip but a bit cold for going in the sea. For many years the people of Castile and Aragon were the only people who were allowed to emigrate to South America (theory is about pure christian blood etc!) so maybe an interest from an historical basis, but it does mean that there are still denuded villages, while the camino to Sanitago means that there are a good number of monestries and weird religious places to stay. Bilbao has a fine art museum and a hanging road bridge (interesting if you are an engineer).

Given that your English is great and your Spanish then this makes some sense though of course many of the locals will only speak Spanish as a second language I find that, unless your are in the hills, that does not cause any communication problems.

Beer, I'd stay in Germany as much of Prague Lager is no longer lagered, even Pilzen is shipped out the day it is made. Still the basic law still apply and you can drink in true Brasseries in Prague. If you want to see a range of beers then Belgium is the place to go.

Weather, have a look at Wiki (down the bottom of each city and there is normally a historical weather chart)

B is very pretty and not to be ignored. Trying to fit in Sicily in your time scales ..."priceless" LOL, don't do it. Stick to the mainland there is enough to do.

2) Munich, Prague, Vienna, Switzerland.

3) Paris, Belgium, Netherlands, London>

For these two options I would take the train as you are basically going to big cities where cars are more and more a liability - large swathes of city centres are now off limits to private vehicles, parking can be expensive and hard to find, many city center hotels may not offer parking, etc.

So consider the train for either of those two options - for a lot of good info to plan a rail trips I always spotlight these IMO fantastic sources - www.seat61.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com. Depending on how many trains you will be taking consider a railpass - if only a few train trips then try online discount tickets which however must be booked often weeks in advance to get as they are limited in number and usually cannot be refunded nor changed - but can be very cheap in some countries.
In Switzerland even a few train trips can merit a Swiss Pass, which is also valid on boats, buses, city transports and gives free entry to 400+ Swiss museums.

PQ: "2) Munich, Prague, Vienna, Switzerland.

3) Paris, Belgium, Netherlands, London>

For these two options I would take the train . . . "

Get w/ the plan. The OP has moved on and is no longer considering what you call 3, and #2 is now 'C'.

mroggio85: Now that you've narrowed things down a bit a couple of quick comments. For your Italy proposal - you definitely don't have time for Sicily. And April is really not a great time to visit Switzerland.

BTW in April many of the other places places you listed can be just as cold/windy/rainy as London or more so. I've been in Paris in Aprils when it was 70F and sunny and when it was 47F and raining sideways. Prague/Munich/Vienna could be nice or awful.

The best chance for nice weather would be the Italy or Spain options - but even those won't guarantee good weather.

Thank you all for your advise; it's really great!!

Bilboburgler, Janisj, PalenQ, etc...

It seems like I should try to push my trip a littte bit more into May than April... I could do that with no problem (other than my anxiety!).

I'll keep up the research on Spain and Italy. Any other advise on these two destinations will be welcome (just trying to make up our minds...). Then we'll start planning our schedule.

Best Regards!

Me and my husband did Amsterdam, Brussels, Brugge, Paris, and London last summer and we absoltuly loved it. Only tihng I would have changed was maybe not do Brussels and add ghent to it. My fav was amsterdam so beautiful and everyone so nice there. We also loved paris. Question for you mroggio85 out of barcelona, paris, london whihc was your favorite? We are trying plan another trip next year to prague, croatia and we are torn if we should add berlin or munich and torn if we should do barcelona or amsterdam again sindce we loved so much. How would you rate barcelona?

BTW our trip we did was very easy short train rides from each other. We suggest that instead of driving.

Well you're still giving us tough choices.

I'd save plan C for a later time of year.

My vote is for plan B although I would not add Sicily as you only have 3 weeks and Sicily needs a couple of week on its own. I spent 12 days there and didn't get to see everything I wanted to see.

With 3 weeks on mainland Italy you can spend a week in a part of Tuscany, spend several days in Florence with day trips to Lucca, Pisa and get a thorough visit to Rome. While in Venice you can visit Padua, particularly for the Giotto frescoes. Venice is so magical that you'll want to spend several days there exploring the islands (particularly Torcello) and wandering the small streets.

Let us know what you finally choose.

Thanks Adrienne and Brunotraveling! Really some good advise... We actually made same decisions already! We just bought our tickets form Buenos Aires to Madrid (got a nice deal).

We're arriving to Madrid on April 23rd (5pm) and leaving from there as well on May 14th (8pm). So we have 20 full days in Europe, in which we're thinking (at least for the moment...) the following itinerary:

23/04: Arrive to Madrid
24/04: Madrid
25/04: Madrid
26/04: Flight or Train to Barcelona (whatever is faster and/or cheaper)
27/04: Barcelona
28/04: Barcelona
29/04: Barcelona
30/04: Barcelona
01/05: Flight to Paris
02/05: Paris
03/05: Paris
04/05: Paris
05/05: Paris
06/05: x
07/05: x
08/05: x
09/05: x
10/05: Fly to Munich
11/05: Munich
12/05: Munich
13/05: Munich
14/05: Fly to Madrid, fly back home

As you see, there's been quite a change of plans, that's because I want to visit Paris and Barcelona (since those are 2 of my favorites...) and I wanted to add Munich to make a "brewery tour" in the city and surroundings (make some day tours). Our doubt now is what to do in the 4 or 5 days left in the middle (x)... for wich we have a few options: London, Bruges and Amsterdam, or vienna and Prague.

I know we should probably flip a coin to choose between those 3, but any suggestions are always welcome...

We decided to leave Italy for a next opportunity and maybe combine it with greece and croatia.

Besides that, what do you think of the itinerary? Any ideas, opinions or suggestions?...

We're really excited right now!!! haha

Not nearly enough time for Vienna and Prague (you could do one or the other).

My choice is Bruges and Amsterdam as they look very different from the other places you're going. You can see Bruges in a Day and devote the other 2+ days to Amsterdam.

If you will take a suggestion not on your list, my immediate thought was Strasbourg and Colmar area as it's on the way to Munich and, again, very different from the other places on your itinerary. Take a look at some photos on the internet - beautiful towns and there is plenty to do for 3-4 days.

one quick comment . . .

"14/05: Fly to Madrid, fly back home"

Have you booked that flight yet? If not, it would be better to return to Madrid a day earlier. One should try to be in their departure city the night before - if there is a problem w/ the Munich to Madrid flight you will miss your flight home. That would be very expensive because you would have to buy new tickets home.

Thanks Adrienne, We're thinking of doing Amsterdam and Bruges probably... I'll check out Strasbourg and Colmar as well...

Janisj, great advise from you! I guess we'll save Madrid for the last so we get there a few days before our fight home...