allintime22

Hello, brand new here. My wife got great insight here when we did a Pac Northwest trip a few years back.

A few of my good friends and I are planning a trip to Europe in June 2012. We're basing the trip around Amsterdam and trying to figure out where we go from there.

1. Trying to decide to either go 1 of 2 ways. Amsterdam, London, Brussel, Paris -or- Amsterdam, Brussels, Munich, Prague, Amsterdam. Any thoughts or suggestions?

2. Any insight on booking a rail pass? I was looking around and it doesn't look like all the cities/countries are compatible with each other.

Is the Eurostar the only line that runs under the channel to London?
If we get a pass on eurail or raileurope would we have to then get another pass to go to London?

If someone could point me in the right direction on this that would be great! Thank you!

Lexma90

I'll jump in with the usual questions.

How long will you be in Europe? Including or excluding your travel days?

What do you like to do? Art and culture, history, outdoors activities like hiking or biking? Drinking, smoking, good food, etc? Do you prefer big cities, small towns, the countryside, mountains, beaches, or a mixture of some/all of those?

On the Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris option, it makes the most sense to follow the order of: Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, London. Or the reverse.

I've never gotten a rail pass, but based on the advice I've seen given here, it's not always the best financial decision - I think you need to price it out vs. point-to-point tickets to your destinations.

Whatever itinerary you end up with, it makes the most sense to travel open jaws - in one city and out another. That way you aren't backtracking.

annhig

mmm - what is it that draws you to Brussels?

ignoring that, Lexm is right - open-jaw and using the eurostar to get from Paris to London, [or vive versa] is the best option.

jamikins

And yes, the eurostar is basically the only passenger train to and from London (there is a car train as well I believe). Be sure to book your tickets as early as you can to get the best price.

allintime22

Thank you for the quick replies.

We can certainly scratch Brussels.

This trip has been "talked about" for about 12 years - "Let's go to Amsterdam when we're 30" and he we are.

We're going for about 12 days (2 travel days) in early in June. This is a trip with my 3 college buddies so we're looking more at drinking, smoking, eating and site-seeing. In my opinion, we should scratch London and Paris and go west of Amsterdam (Germany, Czech). I'm going to London and Ireland in February with my wife so that's why I'm kind of leaning towards not going to London with the guys.

Round trip flight from Chicago to Amsterdam and back is significantly cheaper and we are on a budget. Plus I don't think we'd mind having to back track to Amsterdam.

Lexma90

Make sure you're checking the pricing on open jaws flights carefully - in my experience, the flights themselves tend to be the same as a round trip flight. (Including flights from Chicago when we lived there.)

Also, especially if you end up in Prague as your eastern-most location, you'll need to factor in travel time - out of your 10 days of vacation time - and the cost to get back to Amsterdam. Let's say 8 1/2 hours, at least, if you drive, and 10-12 hours by train. Even on a budget, your time is worth money.

Lexma90

Make sure you're checking the pricing on open jaws flights carefully - in my experience, the flights themselves tend to be the same as a round trip flight. (Including flights from Chicago when we lived there.)

Also, especially if you end up in Prague as your eastern-most location, you'll need to factor in travel time - out of your 10 days of vacation time - and the cost to get back to Amsterdam. Let's say 8 1/2 hours, at least, if you drive, and 10-12 hours by train. Even on a budget, your time is worth money.

Mimar

Open-jaws is multi-city on airline web sites. When you compare costs, add in the cost to return to Amsterdam and the time you'll lose backtracking.

bilboburgler

Smoking in Czech is still prevelant, a little less in Germany and not really acceptable in Netherlands. Dutch food has improved in the last few years but you will pay for it, Germany generally is more reasonably priced and Czech even easier (though the meat content goes up as you pass to the East)

While this time is not a good focus for beer festivals there are some good wine festivals. Do not think the gentile wine sniff and slurp of the states, think glasses (up to a pint in size) of wine and lines of roasting pig leg cooked to perfection and stuffed in buns to help the wine go down. German tourist info has a list of most festivals in 2012.

bilboburgler

a useful article http://www.mybikeguide.co.uk/German_Wine_Festivals.php

allintime22

Thank you all. Your info is much appreciated. We're kind of all over the place here.

I did more research on flights and we decided to scale it back to 3 major cities with most likely an open-jaw flight.

Chicago, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Chicago
or
Chicago, Amsterdam, _______ , _______ , Chicago

We're hoping to all sit down on Monday night and figure out what the priorities are.

greg

I would recommend you look at the trip as a whole. As you already found out, optimizing solely on the basis of transatlantic flight lead to an inefficient routing.

Different people can/want to travel different number of destinations in a given time. Some are very emphatic about their approach. But in the end, it is up to you how you want to spend time.

Play with different open-jaw combinations. For each identify what you can do with them, how to connect the dots, and the cost implications.

In 10 days, some possible open-jaw combinations if you are staying on the continent:

AMS in, back from CDG (+sw Netherlands/Bruges)
AMS in, back from FRA (+Mosel/Rhine)
AMS in, back from MUC (+Neuschwanstein/Salzburg)
AMS in, back from CPH (+northern Germany)

and so on.

I presume the trip had to be in June? It is when the airlines hike prices to catch families with kids in school who cannot travel earlier.