Hi,

I am travelling to Europe (Schengen area) on Business. First 5 days I will be in Brugge on Business, after that I have 9 days for myslef, I am thinking of Paris, Barcelona, Rome and Amsterdam, spending 2 days each location, are there any better places to visit?

This is my first trip to Europe, and I have a limited budget and limited time.

I love travelling, I wish I had more money and time for this trip, any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

You are not figuring travel time between those cities - leaving you only one full day in each and packing up and unpacking, finding your hotel, etc can take a lot of time.

This is a totally unrealistic itinerary and often folks not used to European travel do that so don't take offense - you need tro drop at least two of those cities - like Barcelona or Rome.

More realistic - take train from Bruges to Amsterdam
then take Thalys train from A'dam to paris - fly to either Rome or Barcelona and back home from there.

for lots of great info on European trains - www.seat61.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com. check www.thalys.com for info on Thalys trains Amsterdam to Paris. Check www.whichbudget.com for flights to Rome or Barcelona from Paris - cheap flights that is.

actually I'd cut down the travel and hit places near each other:

Bruges to Amsterdam - 3.5 hrs by train

Amsterdam 3 ngihts, two full days

Thalys train to Paris - 3.5 hours

Paris three nights two full days

Paris to London - Eurostar train abut 2 hrs (www.eurostar.com)

London 3 nights - fly home from London. As a presumable Indian you may have been to London if so fly to Rome or Barcelona instead.

What you would see in Rome and Barcelona with the time you have available is next to nothing. If as you say, you have a limited budget, the cost of travel between locations will be far too high for the time you will have there.

Nine days is two locations that you can reach easily and cheaply, so from Brugge, I'd choose Amsterdam and Paris.(or maybe even Brussels)

<<This is my first trip to Europe, and I have a limited budget and limited time.>>

And yet you want to spend a large part of that budget and time in transit. Not a good plan. Go in depth to Amsterdam and Paris, then save money for wherever else you want to visit.

Too many cities. You won't see much except for train stations. I like Palenque's option. He's a very experienced traveler and knows what he's talking about, as do Rubicund and BigRuss.

Choose two cities. Stop. You'll have more time to see/do/experience what you came to Europe for and you won't waste so much money and time on transport.

Too many places for only 9 days. Especially on a tight budget, you want more time in each but less cities total. 2-3 are plenty.

less indeed can be more!

Thanks a ton PalenQ, and all other who replied, now I see things differently, and I will stick with 2 cities, like BigRuss said I will explore Amsterdam and Paris, if I have time and money after Paris, I will opt for Barcelona, if not just go back home.

Any suggestions on hotels in Paris?

thanks

How about this plan?

Day1: Brugge to Brussels - take Thalys to Paris 9AM from Brussels
Day1, Day2, Day3 in Paris
Day4: Paris to Barcelona
Day4, Day5: Barcelona
Day6: Barcelona to Amsterdam
Day6, Day7, Day8 in Amsterdam
Day9: Amsterdam to Brussels, I have a flight back home at 22:00 from Brussels.

You can take on most days an early Thalys train I believe directly from Bruges to Paris-Nord.

I think this is still a bit too much and would stick, instead, to visiting two cities. You would be spending an awful lot of precious time (not to mention money) to travel to Barcelona to only be there for one full day. Paris and Amsterdam would work well together. I would add a day to Paris.

Oops - schedules now show no direct Bruges to Paris trains - there are two routes to chose from for going to Paris from Bruges and both take about the same time though Thalys is marginally faster - both involve at least one change of train, - one route goes Bruges - Lille Flandres station in France then via TGV train to Paris - the other by IC train to Brussels then Thalys train to Paris - if doing the latter check on the ABS All-Belgian-Stations fare from Bruges that lets you take any train within 24 or maybe 48 hours of your Brussels to Paris Thalys train to Brussels - easily allowing you to spend some hours there before continuing on via Thalys to paris. Plenty of lockers for storage of bags in Brussels-Midi (A K A south or Zuid) station.