Danila84

Hello there!

I'm planning a big trip this summer. I want to visit these countries:
Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Chez, Austria
I will be starting from Serbia.
I will have only 3000e for everything. Yeah, I know its little but thats just the way it is.

So, I must find the cheapest possible transportation options between the destinations.
Main goal is to visit the major cities + some nice coast/nature on the way.

I will start 10th of July and finish in the end of August.

I think it's better to go south in July and north in August because its cheaper and less hot.
I was thinking about making a loop,
something like this for example:
Maybe getting to Rome by air, and start there.
Rome - (some more Italy on the way) - Azure coast - Barcelona - (?Madrid - Portugal?) - French Atlantic coast along the way - (?Brittany/Bretagne?) - Paris - (?Belgium?) - (some Germany along the way) - Berlin - Prague - * - Vienna - home

* And to get a glimpse of some light hiking summer Alpes(NO SNOW)...I've heard they are cheaper in Austria and Germany?
(?should I go that far?)

Any suggestion about getting from A to B...and what is the lowest it could cost? (If there are options to jump on and off (trains) to see more on the way...that would be awesome!)
Any suggestion about pretty nature/countryside along this way...most wellcome!

Please help
BIG THANKS!
Danilo

bilboburgler

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.

jamikins

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.

Danila84

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."

CathyM

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

nytraveler

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.

janisj

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

mamcalice

Ditto what janisj said.

bilboburgler

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

socaltraveler

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.

Danila84

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

jamikins

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

Peter_S_Aus

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

StCirq

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.

Peter_S_Aus

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.

StCirq

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.

socaltraveler

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.

amer_can

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

nukesafe

Bookmarking to follow, when this nubie learns some manners.

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

Danila84

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?