Deepraj

Hello All,

We are planning a family trip to Europe, from 21st June to 30th June. We will be 6 people.
Countries planned are London, Paris, Switzerland and Italy.
We are traveling from India and are planning to arrive in London on 21st June. Can you please help us with Itinerary, so that we can maximize the trip.

Paris will be a just a small stay, to visit Eiffel tower and then take a train to Swiss.

Rest other countries we want to explore as much as possible.

also budget will be 1,20,000 INR per person.

Please help us to plan this trip better.

Deepraj

One point to add is that we have return ticket from Mumbai to London, so 30th Morning we have to be in London for return flight.

janisj

Sorry - but you can't 'see' London, Paris, Switzerland and Italy in 9 days. Even if you could - you don't want to fly back to London the same morning you fly home because if you miss your flight you will be totally stuck. You will want to be back in London the night before

>>also budget will be 1,20,000 INR per person.<< Do you mean 120,000 INR ($2200/€1600/£1400)?

Where do you want to go in Switzerland and Italy? They are big countries and you have almost no time.

You could spend 3 days in London, 2 days in Paris, and 4 days split between Florence and Rome - but even that is insanely fast.

justineparis

I understand people wish to see alot , but you have too many countries planned for not many days, really only 8 days. You arrive on the 21st ( do you arrive in the morning or afternoon?) so this day is not going to involve much sightseeing, you must go from airport to hotel, then you will be tired so probably will just wish to visit one sight , walk around a bit, find some dinner.

So, now it is the 22nd.

22nd-London
23th- London
24th-Eurostar to Paris, 1/2 day Paris
25th-train to Switzerland( where in Switzerland ?) You will arrive in later afternoon
26th-Switerland
27th-so , from Switzerland you now want to visit Italy?? this day will be travel day.
28th-now you have one day to visit one city in Italy. Just one city , and only one day. This is not seeing Italy.
29th - you must return to London on this day, so this day is just travel

This trip will be expensive, every time you travel it costs more money. This trip is not seeing much, one day, maybe two days in each COUNTRY,( why even go to Paris , you only will have 1/2 a day?), how can I see your whole country in one or two days.. its not realistic.


I think you should sit down and look at the travel time. It takes 1/2 day or more up every time you move..so with all those moves you have so little time left to sightsee. You will be tired .This does not sound fun to me.
Also , does your group include children or elderly persons? If your group includes children under 10 then this schedule is going to be too tiring.

With your time I would visit two countries. London ( since you are flying in and out of there) and either France, Switzerland or Italy.

Deepraj

Yes I understand , the time is bit short, but we are young group of people, also what I am thinking is days will be very long during that time, with sunset around 9 pm in the night, so we can cover lot during a day. In Switzerland, as I have already been there , I am planning to visit interlaken, from there goto Jungfrau, MT. Titlis, any other place you all will suggest, as we all are avid nature lovers, rather than architectural beauty, we will to see places having more natural beauty. We will completely avoid Museaums on this trip.

justineparis

I don't care how young you are, now you say you wish to see two places in Switerland, I suggest you make a plan and show it do us, I would like to know how you think you can visit so many places in such a short time.

Show me a plan like I made you. I did it, now you do it.

It is unworkable.

If you are young you have many years to visit Europe again.

janisj

Age has nothing to do with anything (much anyway )

One simply can't transport oneself that many places in that few days.

"<i>We will completely avoid Museaums on this trip.</i>" . . . and most everything else except train stations and/or airports.

StCirq

I'd like to see your plan, too, as your "concept" is completely unworkable. You simply cannot get to all these places in the very short time you have, unless you just fly over in a helicopter.

LucyLemonade

I have to jump on the "too much" in 9 days bandwagon. Why bother with Paris if you only want to be there 1/2 a day?

If you really really insist on doing this, you're going to have to skip Paris all together, then FLY most likely on easyJet. London - Geneva, Geneva - Rome, Rome - London.

That's the best I can do! But it won't be fun...... Geneva is probably the only airport that is easy and quick to get in and out of. So don't forget you're talking about 1/2 a day lost in travel time.

BigRuss

Janis: he probably means 120,000 rupees per person or 720,000 total. I'm thinking he's saying one lakh (1,00,000 = one hundred thousand in Indian numerological notation) and twenty thousand rupees.

And if I'm right, that means a total budget for 6 people of about $13,500 or 8600 GBP. That will be chewed up with travel costs with all those locations . . .

LucyLemonade

Ok, I've actually worked out the itinerary to do this... But I haven't even touched the budget issue. What can I say, it's slow TV night.

Caveat: I'm NOT by any means saying it will be ANY FUN at all nor do I believe it's a good idea! Especially trying to herd 6 people on a very tight schedule.

Having said that, if you can work out how to make 6 people turn on a dime:

21 London
22 London
23 8:19 TGV London - Paris, arrive 11:47,
12:00 -
16:11 TGV Paris - Geneva, arrive 19:27
24 Geneva
25 Geneva (Lausanne? Vevey?)
26 18:50 EasyJet flight Geneva - Rome, arrive 20:20
27 Rome
28 Rome
29 11:00 EasyJet flight Rome - London, arrive 12:40
30 London

Phew! I'm exhausted!

LucyLemonade

Opps, I sent early. I meant to put in 12:00 - 15:00 visit Eiffel Tour

Deepraj

hmm..by the looks of it...it seems that this trip is very difficult...

Ok first we are deciding to add one more day so our trip starts on 20th June, so we will reaching London at 13:00 outside airport. Here is rough itinerary

20th June : 14:00 In hotel ( central London, in the evening visit London Bridge and nearby)

21st June : early morning start from London with EUROSTAR to Paris, reach Paris ( Gare De Lyon) by 11:00 a.m., Visit Eiffel Tower and come back to Gare De Lyon by 16:00,reach Switzerland by evening, check in the hotel.

22nd June : Visit Rhine fall at Schaffhausen enjoy Boat ride to the fall, Zurich lake and arrive at Lucerne in the night.

23 June : Excursion to Engelberg -Mt Titlis, and then do ice flyer ride, snow sliding and then in the night take Lake Lucerne Cruise.

24th June : Trummelbach Glacial Waterfalls, then Jungfrau and ice palace.

25th June : Sky Diving in Interlaken and arrive In Rome in the evening

26th June : City tour of Rome, Colosseum, Tiber River, Trevi Fountain, and Time elevator ride

27th June : Morning reach Venice, water bus ride to Venice Island, Bridge of Sighs and ride in Gondola ride in canals of venice

28th June : Pisa and florence, In Pisa see leaning tower of Pisa and in florence michelangelo point and statue of david

29th June: Earlu morning reach London, and take a city tour by tour bus

30th June : return back to Mumbai by Afternoon flight.

Budget can be stretched.

justineparis

Are you serious. Is this a joke?

BTW, in Paris you will arrive at Gare Du Nord, not Gare du Lyon, so you will have to store your luggage at Gare Du Nord, go see tower, then return to Gare Du Nord to get luggage, then go to Gare Du Lyon, OR, you can arrive in PAris, go to Gare du Lyon store luggage, then go to Et.. either way what a waste of time.

Deepraj

Yes I understand going to paris for just a half day seems not that reasonable , but this visit is unavoidable because of some other factors, its like we have to go there.

mamcalice

Why do we waste our time.

Deepraj

@mamcalice: nobody is forcing you to , i am just trying to take expert opinions from the experienced travellers....

LucyLemonade

<Why do we waste our time.>

Sometimes because there is nothing on TV.

But it is a shame the people spend all that time and money only to rush around ticking off boxes. If at any time anything goes wrong (that never happens right!?), the whole thing will degenerate into a big mess and no one actually enjoying themselves. Ah well.

Bhavana

Hi Deepraj...having done fairly detailed study of italy as we are going there for 2 weeks...i think the trip you are planning is not advisable as all you will be doing is checking in and out and travelling to one place to another.

If you MUST go to Italy...cancel all other places and relax for 3 nights in venice as you are not interested in museums. I would suggest there are enough and more places in swiss itself which you might want to see...like saint moritz, Zermatt, Lugano, zurich etc etc

Or else do one of the tours from the travel companies like Henna or Thomas cook where they take you to main sights of a few countries.

Just my thoughts.

jamikins

I think you need to be more realistic as currently you are spending all your money and time in transit and not seeing much of anything.

For example:

20th June, so we will reaching London at 13:00 outside airport. Here is rough itinerary

You will need about an hour to get through immigration and get your bags

20th June : 14:00 In hotel ( central London, in the evening visit London Bridge and nearby)

It will take at least 1 hour to get into central London + the time it takes to find your hotel.

If I understand this correctly you are flying into London with only the late afternoon and evening available to see anything and then leaving the next morning? I think this is a waste of time and money and would just drop this and fly into your first location. If you are travelling from overseas you may be jetlagged as well.

21st June : early morning start from London with EUROSTAR to Paris, reach Paris ( Gare De Lyon) by 11:00 a.m., Visit Eiffel Tower and come back to Gare De Lyon by 16:00,reach Switzerland by evening, check in the hotel.

If you arrive at 11am you will need to store your luggage somewhere, this takes time and then you need to allow for time to get to the Eiffel tower and then get back to Gare de Nord, get your luggage, then you still need to get to Gare de Lyon. All in 5 hours – just to see the Eiffel Tower?

These two first days make next to no sense and the trend continues into the rest of your days – all you are doing is spending money and sitting in transport for a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower and a couple sites in London.

You have not considered transit times, waiting for transit, waiting in line for luggage storage or to see sites, delays, eating etc. What if your flight to London is delayed by several hours? What if its cloudy the day you have set aside for Jungfrau and you cant see it anyways?

With 11 days pick 3 locations max. Your first and last day are transit days so you really only have 9 days. You also have to get back to London for your flight home so one of those is going to be eaten up by getting back to London. If you can book your flight into one location and home from your final destination.

I'd go back to the drawing board and rethink this so that it is more realistic.