1 Month Itinerary in Europe
 

Hello!

I am in the beginning stages of planning a trip to Europe, specifically in September for 1 month.
My friend and I have an itinerary started but are having trouble deciding if it is packing too many places in. We want to enjoy ourselves, but also try and see a good amount without getting exhausted or overwhelmed.

We are planning to purchase open jaw tickets to cut down on travel time. We are planning on flying into Amsterdam and departing out of Rome. As of right now we are only purchasing a pass from the Eurail and then local buss or train passes.
Thus far, the itinerary looks like this;
Amsterdam
Berlin
Prague
Vienna
Budapest
Venice
Florence
Rome

Alternatively, we would skip Budapest to give us extra time in each place, but both of us are really interested in visiting this beautiful city.

We considered going to Munich after Prague and cutting out both Vienna and Budapest, but we seem to be more interested in those places rather then Munich. We are also open to changing our plans, say we meet new friends and decide to take a detour to a different city. This is just a rough outline. As long as we make it to Rome by our departure date, we will be happy!

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

If it were my trip, I'd do about half of it: Either drop Amsterdam and Italy, or drop Central Europe. Looks like you're more interested in Eastern Europe, so Eastern Germany, Czech Republic Austria and Hungary Mix in some smaller cities and some rural villages. In a month you'll be able to see a lot of a smaller part of Europe rather than a little of a large part.

My spouse and I spent three weeks in Austria, Munich, and the Czech Republic (with one day in Hungary and two days in Venice) some years ago and would like to return, so there is a lot to see.

The alternate would be to do only Italy--fly into Venice and out of Rome. In a month you could see a lot, although there will never be enough time to see all that Italy has to offer.

Ok 8 cities in 30 days (minus the 5/6 days it will take to get from one places to another) will give you 3 days in each city. This is doable and for smaller cities not too bad, but I would want more time in Rome.

Also - this gives you only larger cities and no time in the countryside (unless you count what you see out of train windows). I would be hesitant not to mix it up with some smaller towns and perhaps ever countryside if you like biking or hiking rather than just major city sights.

While Munich is fine it's not my favorite city and I much prefer Budapest and find Vienna fairly similar to Munich. (FYI I have been to europe a lot and have been to each of these cities at least a couple of times and some many times - but I am a whole different generation and am a history freak and want to do major city center sights).

I wouldn't have any trouble doing your itinerary in a month's time, but I would only pick a few things to do in each city -- and some of your destination have fewer things to attract me than others, so spending just a bit of time in them (or eliminating them) would work for me.

If you have picked this itinerary as an "overview" of Europe, it could end up being very dissatisfying, queuing at Europe's major tourist attractions in peak season, always being in the midst of a tourist mob. If you are the kind of traveler who really is not happy with a having a plan for your destinations, but instead wants to be spontaneous about everything, it could be a mess.

But if you are going to, say, Amsterdam, to see the Rembrandts and the canals (and the rest is gravy), and going to Vienna to see the Secessionist movement and eat cake (and the rest is gravy), and going to Florence to see Michaelango's works, the Duomo and taste the wine (and the rest is gravy), then it can be fun to have very specific targets in different cities, and not get frantic about not seeing "everything" and "doing" Rome, or Venice or wherever.

Personality thing.

Your first draft is very heavy on big cities. There is so very much more to Italy than Venice, Florence, and Rome! Just like there is much more to the USA than New York, Chicago, and LA.

You should also build in a 3 or 4-day break in the middle of your trip to recharge your batteries. Long trips are mentally exhausting without a break. Find a beach or a mountain village and relax.

Nothing wrong with your initial plan. As mentioned above, subtracting time moving place to place you'll still have 3 days in each city (7-8 of them).

Personally I'd probably cut 1-2 because I like a bit more time in places & continual 3 days stays would get tiring for me an entire month.

I'd cut a couple cities, then put a 5-6 day stay in the ones I was most interested in, instead.

This won't be - probably, hopefully - the last time you're able to visit Europe. Concentrate on the things you're really interested in, and do them well.
If, as has been noted above, your particular interest seems to be Central Europe, why not limit yourself to that? Prague and Vienna alone deserve four or five days each (I'm not so much a Budapest fan), and there is also much to be enjoyed outside the capitals, with relaxed provincial cities and outings to the countryside.

I'd do about half to two-thirds of this as well. It gets tiresome to get into a rut of 3 days here and 3 days there, followed by the packing, schlep to the train station, train ride, schelp to the new lodging, unpacking, etc. I did a trip like that a couple of weeks ago and while it was a great trip it was more tiring than exhilarating.

Plus I'd do a serious comparison of the Eurrail pass against point-to-point tickets.

I agree about evaluating the value of a rail pass. People often automatically assume it's the best deal, when sometimes you would be better off with regular 2nd class tickets from place to place.

It would be a bit too much for me.

Are you considering the time it will take to unpack, check out, reach your next city, find your next hotel, check in, etc.?

Let's be dead-on accurate: all of the people above who've responded have seen FAR worse itineraries. You have 8 set for a month, which is doable. I'd skip either Florence or Venice. I'd also consider skipping Berlin (particular reason to go?) and concentrate on others.

I would NOT skip Budapest. Prague/Vienna/Budapest is a popular trio because the cities have certain similarities but they are also VERY different. Anyone who thinks there are significant redundancies among the three isn't paying attention.

Thanks so much for all the input!

We want to spend time in Germany, and Berlin is on the way to the Eastern part (Prague, Vienna, Budapest) that we are interested in. There is also a festival (Lollapalooza) in Berlin the same weekend we would be there, so we think it would be awesome to fit that in one night!

We have only looked into the rail system a little, but I think we would do a 5-6 day travel pass which is around $300 so it seemed like a good deal getting from big city to big city. It also seemed like a way to have some form of transportation planned instead of the point to point, but we are not opposed to that either.

Italy is important to us. We were planning on spending about half the trip there (taking day trips to naples/pompeii)