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6 weeks: Great Britain, France, Italy, The Netherlands

6 weeks: Great Britain, France, Italy, The Netherlands

Old Jul 1st, 2016, 09:52 PM
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6 weeks: Great Britain, France, Italy, The Netherlands

I'm planning to make a 6-week trip to the UK + Europe in September/October 2017.

Being a first - timer, I tried cramming as many locations as possible to fit in that time frame, but I was advised to cut down on the number of places. So, my current itinerary is as follows:

ENGLAND (10-11 days)
London
Bath
Manchester (to visit Old Trafford)
Liverpool

SCOTLAND (5 days)
Edinburgh
Isle of Skye
Loch Ness

IRELAND (5 days)
Dublin
Cliffs of Moher
Belfast

FRANCE (5 days)
Paris

ITALY (10 days)
Cinque Terre
Rome & Vatican City
Florence
Venice

THE NETHERLANDS (2 days)
Amsterdam

Is this itinerary still a little too ambitious?

Thank you for your comments.
uprisingxo is offline  
Old Jul 1st, 2016, 11:19 PM
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It is just about doable. I might challenge Scotland as being a very tight, you might look at taking a Rabbies tour. instead but Edin needs 3 days, getting to Skye.... visiting Skye, you need more days. I would drop LochNess, it's a loch.

What I might re-do the plan listing how many nights. For example is Netherlands actually only one night? So that would be fly in, dump the bags, spend the afternoon visiting, sleep, fly out? If so that would be a failure.

Ireland needs one more out.

Italy needs another removed
bilboburgler is online now  
Old Jul 1st, 2016, 11:21 PM
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Better than a lot of rushed itineraries, but still a little tight because of travel time. You might need to cut a few more places, or one country, but that would be your choice as to where to cut. Start adding in travel time. The more you can fly into one place and out of another, the more time you can save too.

Also, I would revise the itinerary to start in Ireland and end in Rome, works better logistically.

You have a year to enjoy planning. I am sure there will be many changes and it will be fun.
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Old Jul 2nd, 2016, 05:59 AM
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Mostly doable but some is quite rushed. I agree w/ bilboburgler re Scotland for sure. Skye is a loooooong way from Edinburgh. I'd consider 2 full days (3 nights) in Edinburgh and then a 3 days tour to Skye through the Highland with Rabbies.

https://www.rabbies.com/en/tour-scot...from-edinburgh

And your plan for Italy is pretty hectic -- not much time most places after allowing for the travel.. Dropping the CT would help a lot.
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Old Jul 2nd, 2016, 06:13 AM
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Yes, I too am wondering why you are bothering with Amsterdam for the sake of a day - that could easily go.

Have you tried setting out your itinerary day by day? once you factor in travel time, [a rough rule of thumb is that you lose half a day every time you move from one base to another] you'll see that some places are still quite rushed - Ireland and Scotland particularly.

Starting in Ireland is a great idea - fly from Belfast to Edinburgh, then get the train to Manchester [or Liverpool - whichever works best] and from London get the Eurostar to Paris. From there fly to Venice, use the trains to get around Italy, and fly home from Rome.
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Old Jul 2nd, 2016, 07:41 AM
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Thank you all for your replies, they're very helpful. Will be tweaking my itinerary to make it a more feasible one.
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Old Jul 2nd, 2016, 08:46 AM
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are yous going by car or train or sometimes plane - Ireland begs for a car rental to go along the remote West Coast to places like the Cliffs of Mohair but Britain and the rest of your wish list are easily done by train - especially on the Continent where you are going largely to large cities where cars can be a boondoggle - for train info check www.seat61.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com.

For schedules for all European trains check www.bahn.de/en - the German Railways schedule page for schedules of just about all trains in Europe.
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Old Jul 3rd, 2016, 06:20 AM
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Some of what I'm advising just reinforces things that were said above.

The Cliffs of Moher are a fairly long way from either Dublin or Belfast, and I wouldn't go there unless it were combined with other things in the area. Maybe drop Belfast and spend three or four nights visiting Galway and one of the Aran islands. A car is almost a necessity in western Ireland.

Or if Belfast is a must, drop the Cliffs of Moher altogether, and visit the Giant's Causeway instead when you're in Belfast. There are tours there, or you can take the bus.

I wasn't exactly thrilled with Edinburgh, and liked Glasgow much better, but I seem to be in a minority there.

It's not worth the trip for such a short time in Amsterdam.

In Italy, you need to either increaseas the number of days or drop something. I would drop the Cinque Terre, which is practically sinking under the weight of tourists, unless you can spend a few days there to do some hiking and enjoy the peace and quiet when all the day trippers go home.

September is high season in Italy, and all the famous attractions will be very crowded. I recommend skipping at least half of the top "must-sees" and seeking out hidden gems instead. This will give you an incentive to come back to see the things you skipped over!
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Old Jul 3rd, 2016, 09:57 AM
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Yes need a whole more day at least for Amsterdam- I'd too advise dropping the Cinque Terre and perhaps adding some time to Amsterdam.
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