Welcome to Fodors, a lot to do in 6 weeks

Serbia
Italy
Rome
Azure coast (Cote d'azur I guess)
Barcelona
Madrid
Portugal
French Atlantic coast
Brittany
Paris
Belgium
Germany
Berlin
Prague
Vienna

I'd start by reading www.seat61.com to understand the train option.

Before you start with your planning (I think you have way too many places for 6 weeks...) you will need to rethink your budget. €3000 is only €71 a day, it will be near impossible to eat, sleep, pay for any sites, and transit on this amount. I am assuming this does not include your flights to and from Europe...?

Plus the more you move the more you pay in transport costs.

Plus you are going in the high season, meaning everything will cost you more.

I would either cut down the time, or postpone until you can increase your budget.

I thought forums are made for such - sharing personal experience to help fellow travellers.
NOBODY knows EVERYTHING, hence there we have a network of many people giving little but preciouss advice.
Connecting many answers - a person gets A REALLY GREAT INPUT.

Someone somewhere wrote something like: "forum is not made to be your personal search engine" - TOTALLY DISAGREE!!!
(OFCOURSE - everyone SHOULD make their own search googling the web AS WELL, don't we all... )
THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT FORUM SHOULD BE. Everyone is everyone's personal engine. If EVERYONE would just focus on giving others what they REALLY ASK FOR - we would have a much smarter search engine than google.

Anyway...

Yeah bilbo thanks, I was on that website already. Lots of useful info. But is it not too early for most BUS/TRAIN websites to calculate such information about fees in the summer ? ? ? ? ?

Yeah jamikins, I'm aware of all that. I'm gonna do it anyway, and when I see I'm aproaching to my money limits, that might be the end of my journey.

Or MAYBE I make an extra borrow-deal to finish it up.

I'm a minimalist so I think I'll get far enough. Need no fancy sites, it's an adventure journey through city rush, misty mountains and all kinds of people - just like Bilbo.
I'll get somewhere for sure - that's what I know.

NOW IF ANYONE COULD JUST GIVE A STRAIGHTFORWARD ANSWER THAT WOULD BE SO VERY NICE AND HELPFUL

An EXAMPLE to explain what I'm asking:
Say a SPECIFIC train/bus from SPECIFIC CITY to SPECIFIC CITY costs MUCH LESS than...some other connection for similar goal distance.

Rome
Cote d'azur
Barcelona
Madrid(or some other nice place on the way to Portugal)
Portugal
French Atlantic coast
Brittany
Paris
Belgium(doesnt have to be)
Germany
Berlin
Prague
Vienna

I'm open to suggestions about visiting(NOT) any place(you think is awesome) along the way.

Example:
"Yo man, you can cheaply get from X to Y by Z train.
You can jump out and chill out on this great lake/town its awesome."

I'm not inclined to help somoeone that is yelling at me and seems to have an attitude.

I am definitely not helping someone who is yelling and me. And really has an attitude.

And will no doubt ignore every piece of advice I can provide. And people can say I am middle-aged - and I am - but my 19 year old daughter and 2 friends spent almost 6 weeks summer before last. they covered a lot less ground and came back complaining about all the things they didn't have time to see. And they spent WAY more (as in more than double) than that - even though they did not shop or do nightlife - except a beer in a student cafe. They took trains mostly - but went to the websites far in advance in order to get discount fares.

Too many places, too little time, too little money, too much attitude.

Ditto what janisj said.

Danila, the trouble I had was to spot the questions between the words. Still, seat61 will give you a good idea about the best country or european pass, this gets you around most of the individual journey costs. If you want to know about individual costs you don't need to know the exact day or even the right month the issue on train costs is the time of day and how far ahead you book stuff, again seat61 will tell you all of this.

Now most of places you want to go to are not cities so offering ideas of the costs one to the next make no sense, while this whole wwwnternet thing can tell you specific costs for the train and you can use skyscanner for the cheapo airline flights which often are the best.

So 1)
of these proposals dump the Cote d'azur, its rubbish, if you want to get out of the train go walk in the Camargue.
2) All of the other places are fantastic, I would not suggest getting out of the train anywhere except
Trieste, Venice, Verona, Florence, Lucca, Sienna, Ferrara, Bologna, Padova and any of the other five walled cities around the Euganian Hills.

Hope that helps

And how is that personal forum search engine thing working out now that you have alienated a lot of decent people with expertise by shouting at them in caps and gving off a huge attitude.

So if you are determined to do what you want anyway, with a barebones budget, then let me suggest that Google be your friend. And good luck.

LOL caps is yelling? you people are crazy

nytraveler thanks for the input, thats good to know what im getting into

janisj if I were you posting to this thread, I would never tell you to quit. I guess everything you said is true. I don't care. Still doing it. Peace bro

Bilbo what a great peace of advice!
You're talking wisdom in between
Scyscanner is great thanks! I can add momondo to the list.
Camargue is very interesting. I just saw it on Google earth and then I located the train rails. Now I can follow it and see where else I can go !15km per min you can actually cover 900km in an hour. Which is 1/11th of what I'll cover!

I understand that time is the main issue.
Meaning I will have just 4-5 days in each...yeah not much. But still enough to see the city in 3 days, and a 1 day trip somewherelse...
I wonder...what could be approximate money difference between these 11 stops? (if possible at all)

Rome-Torino-Montpillier-Barcelona-Porto-Rennes-Paris-Brussel-Berlin-Prague-Vienna
and
Rome-Torino-Nice-Montpeiller-Barcelona-Madrid-Porto-Coruna-Bordeaux-Rennes-Paris

This could end up being one of my favourite posts...

The difference between the two proposed travel plans will be 121.37 euro.

How did you figure that, Peter (or was it i n jest)? Seems to me it could be 500 euros or more if the OP doesn't do any basic homework on how to buy train tickets and get discounts in Europe.

If it was in jest, that's fine too. Well deserved.

St C, it derived from a secret formula, courtesy of Bradley Manning and that guy stuck in the embassy in London. If I told you the formula, then I would have to arrange for the CIA or that firearms trainer in Texas to shoot you.

I figured as much, Peter. I don't care to know the formula, as I'm actually intimately familiar with train fares in Europe. But keep that Texas guy and the CIA out of it, please. Over and out.

http://www.networketiquette.net/do_not_use_all_caps.htm

Crazy you say? And Peace Bro right back at ya.

And I would either rethink the budget, or length of trip. But since you said you were going to do it anyway, again good luck.

Danila..Yes caps are taken as yelling...Are you sure you aren't Dobby the turtle on another rampage???

Bookmarking to follow, when this nubie learns some manners.

We are willing to help, but you need to play nice.

Fine, I'm nice now. Sorry for being rude.

@amer_can No...but once I met Nick the turtle, a young Jamaican white guy wandering the streets of Europe. He earns by playing guitar on the streets and looks like a big turtle with his huge green backpack. He said he's "from da world". Cool guy!

I bet his budget is much lower then mine, yet he managed to see and experience more than most of us ever will.

Just a thought on what can be done vs "you need more money or don't even try it" attitude.


Yeah, but I don't have that much time, so I'll pay
Maybe I'll increase my budget by borrowing some money.

Now I wanna see how much is the least this trip could cost me.

I've found airplaine ticket from Serbia to Rome in July for 86e.
How far in advance should I buy it? (I wouldnt risk the last minute offer if I buy other tickets in advance)

I'm searching the trenitalia website. The furthest it can calculate is in May (2 months from now). Rome - Torino 40e.
Is that the price that will be in July as well? Are there any additional costs?
How far in advance should I buy it? Two months?

4h trip and I'm in Torino. Are the Alpes around Torino awesome as well? Would you recommend to go visit them from Torino?

How to get from Torino to Nice or Arles? Is it better to use a train from Torino? Or...I've read that there are cheaper ways to cross the border by changing the transportation somewhere near the border?

The regular walk up price on Trenitalia is listed as base price. Summer schedules aren't loaded yet (current schedules are through June 8). Once they load summer schedules (keep checking), you can book 120 days in advance. Rome/Turin base price is 90€. You may or may not be able to snag a discount online.

I agree with everyone else. Too many places and too little money. What is the point of a trip if you are just going to ride cheap trains or buses the entire trip and not actually visit any of the wonderful sites in these cities? It's a tour of bus/train stations and the inside of transport. The more you move around, the more expensive your trip.

Sorry to be dense but where in this list of destinations is WEU?

Frances: I took it to mean Western Europe i.e. Western EU since the OP is starting from Serbia.

You may find the Thorntree forum on the Lonely Planet a helpful resource. There tend to be more backpackers traveling closer to your budget level on that forum, so they may have some helpful advice for you. Just don't use all caps there either. God luck with your plans.

Thanks kybourbon, I guess you're right.
It's because since recently we didn't have visa free option in this shitty country. So now I have a BIG oportunity "to see it all"..ofcourse I can't. There the wish and enthusiasm.

So I have 7 weeks. And let's say 4 or fullmax 5000euros for everything.

And I want to see the most of Europe that I can.

I can walk 15-20km a day no problems. Thats how I saw most of Amsterdaam center ring + Vondellpark in 2 days. And most of Rotterdam and Haag in another 2. And "whole" Utrecht in 2. I walked the cities all day, stopping by here and there to rest/eat/meet people. Slept in hostels. Thats what I want to do. My accent is on the big cities
+ Alpes somewhere
+ 1 idyllic countryside experience (for some reason France associates me to that)
+ the Athlantic ocean somewhere
+ cote d'azure somewhere

So what would any of you recommend me to do if you were in my place considering my situation, interests and capabilities?

What route - what to see - how many days in which place?

Let's say I'll skip Belgium, Prague and Vienna.
let's say Rome, Barcelona, Paris and Berlin is a must.
everything else is open ... to fit in
and Potgual is far...but if possible I would love to experience it just a little.

I would mix the alpes, countriside and coast...in between to take a rest.

Please give some suggestions...

Thanks...

Ok, you have loads of time, which is a real asset. The cheapest places to stay are areas like Eastern Germany (still struggling) so you could do Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Prague (Prague can be expensive but after three cheaper cities that should help),
I have to go, maybe more tomorrow.

After Prague train to Rome (stay near the main railway station the hotels and hostels are cheap), then a train to Paris but stop off at a few glories like Genoa and Auxerre. After Paris I'd fly to Porto (which again is a cheap area) and use buses/trains to work your way south until you get to Lisbon then Barcelona.

Not a great plan but by focusing on a bunch of second class smaller sites you can keep the prices right down.

A bus pass might be more economical for you. Many buses are overnight so you could save a night of staying in a hostel if you can sleep on the bus. I would check some of the postings on Lonely Planet Thorntree for reviews of bus passes.
http://www.eurolines.com/en/

That actually are some great ideas Bilbo! Thank you very much.
Does the stop off mean that I can get off the train, and catch another one with the same ticket?

Yes kybourbon, so I've heard the buses are the cheapest transportation in WEU. I'll check them out. Especially in Germany where trains are expensive. Though I guess I should use trains somewhere else if price is good cause I could see lotz lotz...during a day trip...

If you really want to keep the costs down, do the trip by bicycle with a tent. Certainly there are a series of european bike arterials that could link up much of what you want to do.

http://www.eurovelo.org/routes/

Sorry, I may have missed this - what is WEU?

jamikins: Danila84 hasn't confirmed this but from up thread, >>Frances: I took it to mean Western Europe i.e. Western EU since the OP is starting from Serbia.<< That is my guess.

But anything is possible

Wow I never would ha e guessed that..I haughtily it was a tour group! Thanks!

I Thought...sorry argh!

Thanks Bilbo, nice perspective. Perhaps one day I'll do it with a bike and a tent as well. Havent used a bike for a long time so Im not in shape I guess. Nor do I own one at the moment. Ill leave that for the years to come, when doing a nature camping trip..

Yeah for me its all Western EU.

I was looking at some airplane options,
around July 18th
Prague - Rome ~ 60e
Berlin - Rome ~ 60e
Vienna - Rome ~ 75e

around August 12th
Paris - Lisabon ~ 75e
Paris - Porto ~ 60e

I've heard it can be cheaper like 20-40e, I guess not or is it just the last minute special price?

I see a bus Prague-Rome is similar price as an airplane. And a train a bit pricier...like 110e with changing trains in Vienna.

Since not a huge difference in prices...Should I use the overland or fly? I mean, am I going to see much through a window or is it not worth the 20h vs 2h trip?

Note that the flying bit includes, getting to the airport early outside of a city, hanging around, flying, getting off the aircraft and catching a bus/train into the city.

The train involves, get on, travel, get off.

yeah I'll keep that in mind

I was watching pics of French regions...Brittany looks the prettiest so far Asterix&Obelix are waiting for me!
Is it smarter to switch places in Brittany or sleep in Brest(or some other place) and make a few daily trips to different parts of Brittany(Bretaigne)?

Im thinking about spending ~ 15days in France, ~20+ days in Spain+Portugal, ~10 days in Italy and another ~10- in Berlin+Prague