KaylaS

Hello, I am planning a trip for next May - June. My boyfriend and I will be starting in Germany (munich, frankfurt) and then heading to Switzerland, France, then down to Italy and greece. From Greece we will make our way back to Germany. We are planning to hit all of these places within a months time and spend 4 - 6 days in each country. I am basically looking for any travel tips, i've only been to europe one time before and that was a highschool preplanned trip. Any advice is welcome! Especially regarding the best places to stay for a good price, and transportation.

Thanks

nytraveler

Without knowing what CITIES you are going to be in it's hard to give tips. And without budgets it's hard to give hotel or rest recos.

You really need to be thinking in term of cities - not countries - since in a month you can;t see 4 countries (or even most of one country unless it's a tiny one).

halfapair

Do you have an itinerary yet? You have many destinations listed and you're planning on spending 4-6 days in each country? How about 4-6 days in each city?

You should try to pare down your destinations.
Use Google Earth to look at the distances between destinations.
Use the Eurail site to look at travel times via train (if you're planning on traveling by train).

Each time you move you lose at least 1/2 day, of sightseeing time.

Read this message board thread:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...understand.cfm

KaylaS

Oops I meant cities instead of countries. At this point in time we have only JUST started planning. But budget will be around $7000 per person.

Germany: Start in Frankfurt - karlsrue - Munich
(6 days potentially)
Switzerland: 2 or 3 days
France: mainly just Paris, 5 days
Italy:Venice - Florence - Milan - Rome (8 days, these are cities we want to hit but may not be able to see all of them)
Greece: Athens 7 days

As for travelling back up to Germany,we want to maybe hit Prague and Vienna but I am not sure how long travel takes etc. Information on this part is definitelly needed

branderson925

I think hitting Venice Rome Florence and Milan in 8 days is brutally tough. Aside from the fact each play is a few hours apart given train and misc travel time. If you really want to get the most bang for your buck, I'd do 2 days Venice, 2 1/2 days Florence and 3 days Rome, leaving you with a half day for trains in between cities. This would be best taken by night trains to save time.

If this were my trip Id pick two big cities and do a day trip from one or both places (ie 4 Days Florence (with a day trip to Siena or half day trips to Lucca and San Gimignano) & 4 Days Rome (Day trip to Pompeii or Ostia Antica)

But then again I don't really know your vibe for traveling.

KaylaS

That makes a lot of sense thanks!

Sassafrass

You are starting early so have plenty of time to plan. To help narrow down your choices, read as much as you can about different places. Think about what you really want to see or experience. Besides the big tourist sights, look for a few things that are of particular interest to you - makes for a more personal and interesting trip.

Get a map and kind of chart things out, looking at how best to group places and to see what may be wonderful things to do and see near your major bases. Examples: all the lovely hill towns near Florence, and Padua, Vicenza and the islands near Venice.

When you have your final itinerary and start to book flights, look at multi-city, flying into one and out of another. Unless you have a special reason for Frankfurt, skip it and fly directly to your first city of interest.

You might end up using some night trains, but sometimes flights between cities are cheap and make more sense. That decision will depend on your cities.

In Italy, you would not use night trains between Venice and Florence because it is only about a 2 hour trip, and Florence to Rome is only about 1 & 1/2 hours. People do day trips from Rome to Florence.

Very much agree with doing day trips from a base. You are young though and sometimes going for a quick overnight in a new place can be fun, depends on you, what the area has to offer in the evening and the rest of your itinerary.

Whatever you like to do; cooking, hiking, etc. try to find a way to do a bit of during your trip, take a cooking class, etc.