pisco123

I want to lease/back a car to pick up and drop off in Paris; plan to spend :
France
Paris just to pick up car
loire valley+ bordeaux ( have been once before 8 years ago)= 6 days
Spain
san sebastian+ bilbao+ santander= 2 days
Gijon-la coruña- compostela= 3days
Portugal
Porto + coimbra+ lisbon+ sintra + 7days
Spain
seville+ cordoba+madrid+Zaragoza+ ( have recently being) in barcelona= 7 days
France
Avignon+nice+ 3 days
Italy
San remo+genoa+ livorno= 2days
pisa+florence+rome= 7 days
rome-naples= 3 days
pescara+assisi= 1 day
assisi+venice= 2 days
Austria
Vienna+ 3days
Salzburg=3 days
Germany
Munchen= 2 days
Austria
innsbruck=2 days
Switzerland
luzern+zurich= 2 days
Germany
stuttgart +frankfurt (romantic road)= 4 days
heidelberg= 2 days
cologne= 2 days
brussels+ ghent+ bruge= 7 days
paris ( have been several times) = 5 days

I need some help regarding the estimated days spent on each of the places indicated above and will leasing a vehicle make more sense than train; planning to travel around 6,000 miles; have calculated an average of 7 dollars per galon ( base on viamichelin.com)
Suggestions are very welcome.

bobthenavigator

Are you a family of 4?
What time of year?

How can we help if we know nothing about you?

Jean

I can't really tell how you've accounted for the driving times.

Obviously, you have different interests from mine, but a few things jump out at me:

"Pisa+Florence+Rome=7 days" Not enough time IMO. And no real time in Tuscany?

"Assisi+Venice=2 days" Not nearly enough time IMO.

"Rome-Naples=3days" Not enough time if you hope also to explore the Amalfi Coast, see Pompeii, Capri, etc.

michele_d

Hi pisco123,
We did a lease buy back three years ago for our 96 day trip through Europe. If I may make a suggestion. You are spending too much time jumping from place to place. If you want to spend 1-2 days in each place then IMO you should settle down and spend at least 5-7 occasionally in one location. You will get burned our very quickly with the above pace. Also, there is no need to return the car to same location. We picked up in Paris and dropped in Rome and flew home from there. We loved doing the buy back and driving around. So much freedom.

swandav2000

hi pisco,

Most folks go to Switzerland to see the mountains, not the cities. The cities are nice, but the mountains are truly unique and beautiful. I'd recommend that you include a few days in a mountain village somewhere.

Oh, and having a car is a liability in Switzerland. It's nothing but a hassle in the cities, and the best spots in the countryside (ie in the mountains) are car-free.

It's also much better for the environment if you take the train.

s

mscleo

Not to rain on your parade, but have you seriously calculated the driving distance between all the places you plan to visit? You're going to spend half your time traveling between locations and the rest of the time sleeping because you're too worn out from driving!

Also, you're not spending hardly any time in Tuscany?

IMHO, your itinerary is too much. If it were me, I would much prefer spending some time exploring a few places instead of running around from city to city trying to cram everything in at once. With your current plan, you'll never see anything. My suggestion? Slow down...enjoy your holiday time, and take out four of the eight countries on that list.

bilboburgler

Well for distances I'd just use google maps but add about 30% for the times as google seems to think there are never delays. I guess if its 6000 miles and 75 days that is an average of 100 kms a day. I used to do that in my job and I gave it up because of it (European roads are a bit different to American roads for example).

This is you first question so I suggest you do two things
1) Try and scale your european tour to your local environment and think if you would enjoy touring at home the way you are suggesting
2) Tell us what you like to do and see so we can help you with focused advice

qwovadis

Have done this in the past renault eurodrive lease or pugeot
lease will be expensive but way cheaper than rental.Regional
train like a local budget lodgings far more cost effective
way to do it for me.Looks very crammed typical newbie mistake
I used to make pare back for better experience.eurocheapo.com karmabum.com couple of nice budget sites for you.

Good luck!

pisco123

I thank you for all the responses;for sure I thought i had considered tuscany by mentioning Florence but i guess not. I'll tell you some more: we are a senior couple that loves to observe the beautiful arquitectures in centuries old buildings, churches, etc; also like to take scenic roads passing through villages;stop very so often and enjoy picnics although we enjoy museums we have been to the ones in Paris, Madrid, barcelona, florence, so this time we won't do much of it; we'd like to do the trip in the months of April/May or September/October and stay overnight outside city centres to avoid parking fees.

annhig

well, with just two of you, travelling off season, you probably don't need to book at all, except perhaps at the beginning of the trip in Paris, where I would give yourselves as day or two "sans auto" in order to recover from the journey/jetlag, and again at the end if you want to spend some days in Rome.

this will give you the freedom to spend as long or as little time as you like in the places you visit. however, travelling like this will be easier if you keep out of big cities and stay in the country or smaller towns; perhaps using them as bases to tour and do day trips - which i see you already like doing.

Personally I would not hire a car in Paris, but pick it up perhaps in Tours.

as for the rest of your itinerary, even with 75 days IMHO you are being very ambitious.

I would pick EITHER Spain OR Italy OR Austria as your final destination country. that gives you [not counting 2-3 days either end] 10 weeks of travelling.

it you go the spain/portugal route:

it'll take you 4-5 days to explore the Loire satisfactorily, then rather than Bordeaux, I would head for the Dordogne - much more to do - unless you are real wine buffs. you could easily spend a week there. heading over the border via the pyrenees, [3 days?] you arrive in the lovely San Sebastien - do you really only want to spend a day or two there? surely the area is worth a week or so at least- and what about rioja?

then west to santiago di compostella, and down into Portugal - that and the travelling is worth surely 10 days?

then working your way round to andalucia - for what you want to see, you need a fortnight at least.

finally up to Madrid - and that's about 8 weeks.

add in a few days here and there and your 10 weeks will soon disappear.

you can work out the same sort of routes for ending up in Italy and in Austria.

bilboburgler

annhig this makes sense, I took 7 days to drive along the north coast of Spain looking at the little towns and visiting the Picos with only half a day in Santiago. Time passes fast when you are having fun.

janisj

You have laid out/accounted for 75 days -- where is the time needed in transit??

You need to cut one whole region IMO -which one depends on your wish list.

annhig

I know that i am lucky to live in europe so I have easy access for making multiple trips to places i want to see in depth.

but I know that of the longer trips we have taken, the most successful ones have been where we have taken our time, stayed longer in a few places, and not tried to see everything in one go. The danger of the whirlwind trip is that all you remember is the moving around, not what you saw when you got there!

Michael

Lease a diesel. For the amount of time and the distances you plan to cover, the extra cost on the lease will pay for itself. Lease a Clio or Peugeot 207 for more efficient mileage. Given the enforcement of speed limits (at least in France), more power will not give you much of an advantage, especially if you know how to downshift when necessary.

I second Janis' question: No time given to get from one location to the other.

logos999

I like those HDI Diesels, yet given how expensive diesel fuel is, you won't save a lot. If it's the same price, always do get a Diesel. No idea, why downshifting would be beneficial?

pisco123

i thank you for all new inputs; I will take into consideration all your advices and will restruture my trip
accordingly.

Michael

logos,

diesel is cheaper than gasoline in France. You've never downshifted to accelerate or maintain speed on a steep uphill?

jnjfraz

Your best rate on a car will be with Peugot least buy back. Go onto the Autoeurope site and type in a long period of time and you will see on the right bar that there is a new site for Peugot. Rent and return in France and it is quite a bit cheaper than others.