KaylaS

Hello if you have been following my posts I am planning a month trip to Europe with my boyfriend, going to France, Germany, Switzerland (maybe) and Italy next spring/summer (may-june). Below is a more detailed itinerary. We are in our early 20's just out of University.

Paris 5 days
Mainz and down the Rhine river to Stuttgart, Strasboug, Karlsrue etc. (have not decided exact locations yet but will be spending about 6 days in the area) If we rearrange we may also try to see a major city like Munich.
Zurich Switzerland 3 days
Venice 3 days
Florence 6 days (may include a couple day trips in the area)
Rome 6 days (again some day trips)
Positano 3 Days

My main question is for what cities do you recommend booking a tour bus for a few hours of a day. I am not sure of the cost to do this but i'm wondering if it is worth it, or if the better experience is to just see the major sites and discover the cities by way of public transit.

The main cities I am wondering about are Paris (I have been there before, the boyfriend hasn't) Munich, Venice, Florence, and Rome. If you think getting a guided tour through any of the other cities I have mentioned is a good idea definitely let me know.

Thanks all!

Sassafrass

No, not worth it for any of them.
You can do all of them easily on your own, see what you want to see, spend time where you want. Florence and Venice are both small and easy to walk everywhere. The center of Rome is also not that big, and is easy to walk or take the bus. We have always just walked. Paris is easy with the metro. Why sit on a bus, looking through a window when you can be walking and getting the experience of being there?

Be sure you are allowing plenty of time to get from cit to city, and not counting travel time as being in a city. Example: will you have three full days in Positano or does that include time getting there from Rome?

adrienne

I'm not a fan of city bus tours as I prefer walking tours. You're the only person who can decide if a city bus tour is something you enjoy. Try one and see if you like it.

I'm not sure that Mainz is large enough to have a city bus tour; I didn't see any when I was there. The center of the city is pedestrian.

Venice certainly won't have this as there is no vehicular traffic; it's all canals and pedestrian streets. Perhaps you should do some reading about Venice so you're not surprised when you get there.

Florence - there are no buses allowed in the center.

Positano - I haven't been there but have been to Amalfi and Ravello and there certainly wouldn't be city bus tours in those towns and I don't think Positano is much different.

In Paris I use Paris Walks. No need to book except for specialty tours - just show up.

http://www.paris-walks.com/

Rome has lots of walking tour companies at various prices. You can also get walking tours in Venice and Florence.

There are free Sandeman tours in various cities; you need to give the guide a very good tip - equivalent of paying for the tour.

http://www.neweuropetours.eu/

Gretchen

No need for a bus tour. Get good guide books and plan your own tour for what YOU want to see.
One reason I like the DK Eyewitness guide books (paris in particular) is that it graphically shows you the sites/sights within a given area. That is very useful for seeing things close together. I like the Michelin Green Guides for better in depth explanations of sights.

KaylaS

This was what I was hoping for, I prefer a walking tour as well and have taken a bus tour of Paris and found myself wishing I could be on the street. Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

annhig

Hi Kayla,

I agree that it would be useful for you to clarify whether you actually have 3, 5, or 6 days in each place, or are you counting nights/days when you are travelling from one place for another.

eg your trip may loom like this:

Day 1 arrive Paris. Stay 6 nights [gives you 5 days as per your post]
Day 7 - depart Paris for Germany. 7 nights [gives you 6 days]
Day 14 - travel to Zurich. [Zurich???]

etc etc.

or is it this:

Day 1 - arrive Paris.[arrive when?] Stay 5 nights [gives you 4 full days]
Day 6 - travel to Germany. arrive at [time] Stay 6 nights [gives you 5 days]
Day 12 - travel to Zurich

I'm sure you can see the difference. when I am trip planning I like to include the time that my train/plane is due to arrive plus the time it'll take to get to the hotel and check in - your plane may land at CDG 9am, but if you've got to collect luggage, get through passport control and get into central Paris, you may not be checking in until noon. if you've included that in your 5 days in Paris, that means that you've actually only got 4 1/2 and that first day may be blighted by jetlag. if you were going to do a HOHO tour that might be the time to do it, but no need to book - you pay on board. Personally I'm not a fan, but they can be a way, albeit an expensive one, of getting an over-view of the city. Better perhaps to do a boat trip on the Seine, get to know the area around your hotel or apartment, but don't book anything, in case your flight is delayed.

nor an I a fan of bus tours especially in places where there is such good public transport and/or relatively small city centres. Paris is quite large of course but you can buy a carnet of 10 tickets for the bus/metro which you can just pick up at any metro station, and add to when you look as if you need some more.

In Venice you can buy passes for the vaporetti [good value as any trip however short is €6.50] and otherwise you have to walk of course. In Florence you are probably better off just buying tickets as you go; there is a Firenze pass but at €72 for only 72 hours, it's pretty pricy. Even though it covers virtually every museum and gallery in Florence you would have to go some to make it worth your while, IMO.

In Rome there is a Roma Card which is good for 3 days' transport plus 2 free entries at, say, the Colosseum and Capitoline museums, so long as you use them there first [ie the first two places you visit are free so it's a good idea to make the most expensive/ones with the longest queues at the top of your list; the Roma card gets you past the huge queues at the Colosseum which is a good reason for using it there] After that you should feel confident enough just to buy bus/metro tickets as you go - each of them is valid for one metro journey or a bus journey with a change so long as you start it within 75 minutes:

http://www.rometoolkit.com/transport...ravel_pass.htm

hope that helps - have a great time!

suec1

As mentioned above many of the places you are visiting have walking tour options. I don't like HO HO buses but many do or Viatour options - esp. Viatour you could research ahead of time and see if they appeal.

Two other options are either Rick Steve's podcasts or using his guidebooks that have walking tours all written out. We have done these several times. Some folks don't like Rick Steves but I think his information is very helpful and is at an "educational level" that works for me. Certainly either of these options are cheaper than a group tour but sometimes a group walking tour seems to hold my interest better. We have done probably 5 Paris Walks over the years - they are entertaining and educational. Enjoy your trip!

KaylaS

Hi Annhig, thank you for all of your suggestions! Sorry I did not include the travel times in my post but I have definitely put them into consideration when making a concrete Itinerary, which will likely look like the first example you posted.

nytraveler

First, I would bag Zurich - which is primarily a business city and get out into the Alps in Switz. consider staying in Lucerne if you want to ascend one of the smaller mountains - 7K feet - or a town in the foothills if you want to ascend the Jungfrau.

I know a lot of people like the bu rides around the city but we have always found them a waste of time. (Walking tours of specific areas or sights are IMHO much more informative and fun). Perhaps this is because we are big map people and already have a view of the city (where hotel and major sights are, neighborhoods, etc - before we ever arrive). Found we see much more walking than on a bus. (Bus tours are OK for a long, complicated day trip - otherwise we avoid).

nytraveler

Sorry - the "cities" on the Amalfi Coast are really small towns and no way would they have bus tours, although you may want buses to avoid some of the gazillion steps to be climbed depending on where you are going.

In Venice you could get a vaporetto (bus boat) pass - but they are not for tourists with commentary - just primarily transit for locals. How can you have a bus when there are no streets?

kybourbon

The historic center of Florence is only about a 25 minute walk side-to-side. Easy to walk around on your own. Rome's historic center is pretty compact also if you stay somewhere central it will be easy to walk.

Your list seems to include mostly cities (except Positano which is more of a small town). I suggest taking a few days from somewhere (maybe a day or two from Florence and a day or so from Rome) and staying somewhere in the Tuscan countryside (a hill town). Many hill towns are easily reached by bus from Florence. Another option would be take the train to somewhere like Orvieto for a couple of nights on your way to Rome.

flpab

I only do bus tours for day trips like a vineyard tour. I don't spit. You can do Vespa tours out of Florence.

KaylaS

nytraveller, Zurich is still a question mark for us, thanks for the suggestion I will look into other cities in switzerland or possibly eliminate the area altogether.

When I said Bus tours I was speaking generally about guided tours, via road transportation or boat in Venice.

annhig

Kayla - there are not so far as I am aware any boat tours in Venice via the vaporetti though I have read about a private boat tour somewhere. for walking, there is an excellent book called "The pleasures of Venice" by JG Links, albeit it may be a little detailed for a first visit. Really if you have a guide book and a map, it's unlikely that you'll need anything else. Something to look out for in Venice are the directions painted on the side of buildings - "Rialto", "San Marco", "Ferrovia" [train station] are the main ones.

Excuse me if I was telling you something you already know but you would be surprised how many posters forget that you need to take account of the time that it takes to get between places when they are working out how long they want/need to see them when they get there. THat said, they tend to be those who think that you can do day trips to Venice from Rome or to Pompeii from Florence.

Talking of day trips, you can easily get to Siena and/or San Gimignano from Florence by bus [bus station to the left of the train station SMN] and from Rome by train to Orvieto, or train/bus to Tivoli for the Villa D'Este. the beauty of them is that none of them need to be booked in advance - you just decide on the day [possibly the day before if you want to be sure of a seat on the bus] and turn up.

IMDonehere

In NYC the HOHO cost about $40 a person, per day.

PalenQ

There is no need to book bus tours in advance IME - these ubiquitous hop-on-hop-off open top double-decker buses circulate constantly and you just buy your ticket when boarding the first time at any stop. A good way to orient yourself to a city IMO but like adrienne I love to walk more than take a bus that often gets snarled in funky traffic in larger cities.

Sue_xx_yy

First off, as others have suggested, plan according to the nights you spend in each place, and don't forget that you'll lose a night on the plane if you're flying from North America. "A month" is too vague. Do you mean 28 nights, or 27 nights minus the plane?

Get the broad outline of your itinerary first. This means picking your air gateways (make it open jaw, i.e. into one city, fly out of another) to maximize your time. Don't book your tickets till you're sure of your itinerary.

You could start in Frankfurt, do a bit of the Rhine and head to Venice via Munich, head from Venice to Rome, turn around at Rome, and head north to Florence, the Cinque Terre, and up to the Lauterbrunnen valley in Switzerland (much nicer than Zurich). More time in Cinque Terre and hiking in Switzerland seems a better fit for your itinerary than Positano, nice though that little place is. Take the train from Lucerne to Paris and fly out of Paris.

Remember to include some 'down time' when all you do is maybe a laundry, write postcards, and maybe get some extra sleep.

nytraveler

I'm afraid you haven;t absorbed a lot of the info above. Unlike London which is a large city - where you might take a day on a bus to see various neighborhoods (well I wouldn;t want to spend all that time in traffic - but it is doable) - you can't do it in many of these cities and towns.

Florence - the pedestrian center/area you will want to see does not allow buses - or any car or truck traffic. You just walk everywhere. You can cross the whole area is about 25 minutes.

The historic center in Rome is larger and you might be able to get to parts of it by bus - but again - many places do not allow them and you will see much more on foot. If you do take a half day bus tour you will have to keep getting off the bus and walking someplace and then later walking back to the bus again since it has to stay out of so many places you will want to see.

I have never seen a tour boat in Venice. There may be one - I don't know - but all I have ever seen there are walking tours. Or people taking boats to visit the outer islands (Murano, Burano, Torcello). Or taking the local bus boat (vaporetto) to get from one area to another. But these are for local commuters and no one will give you any commentary - just get on and off. But again - very small and on foot is better if you want to see a lot.

adrienne

<< In NYC the HOHO cost about $40 a person, per day. >>

And everyone always looks so bored on those buses.

Mainhattengirl

Most cities will have walking tours, either private companies or something through the Tourist Info. Cost is usually around 12-15 euro per person. Look on Trip Advisor for each city you are visiting to find tours, read their websites to see if they offer what you are looking for and read their reviews. For some cities, a private tour may work better and be an excellent investment of time and money more than a group tour or a regrettable HoHo bus tour.

Frankly, one of the poorer ways to spend your money in many cities is a tour on a bus with a recorded message. I cannot think of anything else I would dislike more than doing a city tour on a bus. I want a real person telling me history, answering my questions, taking me inside historic buildings, showing me the best a city has to offer, making restaurant recommendations, telling me about events happening in the city while I am there.

If you are in Mainz, hopefully, you will plan a visit to Frankfurt.