1st Europe trip
 

My husband and I (mid 50's good health)are leaving for Europe 4-4-07 for 5 weeks. Would you wise and experienced Europe travelers please look over the itenerary and let us know if you approve?(A younger friend built it for us) We plan to fly the long stretchs. We would so appreciate your advise. Thank you in advance for your help!

Date From To
4April US London
7April LONDON EDINBURGH
10April EDINBURGH BELFAST
12April BELFAST DUBLIN
14April FLY DUBLIN SPAIN
16April SP.FLY PARIS
18April PARIS BRUGES
20April BRUGES AMSTERDAM
23April AMSTERDAM FLY BERLIN
25April BERLIN MUNICH
29April MUNICH INTERLAKEN
2May INTERLAKEN CINQUE TERRE
4May CINQUE TERRE FLORENCE
6May FLORENCE VENICE
8May VENICE FRANKFURT
we leave for home May 9th
Again thank you so very much.

My husband and I (age 60) are energetic and like to explore and see it all,but you've left no down time. You might be able to do this if you were on a tour (but we've never done a tour) and didn't have to think about getting around each new city on your own. I would try to eliminate a few cities (I don't know where your preferences lie) and build in some more time into the remainder. Try and put more time into cities where you can relax and enjoy the view. You know eating out everyday, is a grind in itself.

Well, that's alot of traveling and not the trip I'd take on my first trip to Europe but I certainly appreciate your ambition. You'll be covering a lot of territory, and the movement makes sense in most cases. Here's where I'd change.

Fly into Dublin first instead of London to avoid the high air taxes and Heathrow altogether. See Ireland and then fly on Ryanair to Stansted if you can. (At all costs, avoiding Heathrow and Gatwick, if at all possible.)

Then take the Eurostar all the way from London to Brussels, rather than Paris, and work your way down to Paris from Amsterdam.

I'd completely skip the Spain leg, which isn't going to get you much except for the bragging rights for another country.

I'd omit Berlin as well and do a little travel around Bavaria from Munich, which might give you a bit of a breather. You could add Salzburg.

Finally, I'd omit Venice and do Rome instead. I suspect that's going to be a non-starter for you because people who include Venice usually really want to go to Venice, but it's a long train trip and Rome is only 2 hours.

Look, none of this is "wrong" so take everything I say with a grain of salt, but my purpose in making these recommendations is to help the flow of your trip and minimize your travel time on trains and planes. It's still going to be considerable amount of travel, and if it were me, I'd leave out a couple of countries (Ireland, France maybe) entirely and do the remaining places at a more leisurely pace.

But it's exciting to see you planning a trip like this, so I hope you can get the most out of your experience. Bravo and bon voyage.

Even if you fly everywhere this is far too rushed. You will barely get to the place you are going and get oriented when it's time to move on. You will not have time to see very much of anything, and you will spend way too much time just getting from one place to another.

Trying to do too much is a common mistake made by rookie travelers. Please pare it down and post back with something more reasonable. At that point we will be happy to help. :-)

gray-- you are leaving in 2 weeks, hardly the right time to ask for advice....and by the look of your itinerary, you REALLY needed some help.

IF (big IF) this post is for real, there is way too much jumping around, way too much backtracking, way too much pack/unpack. Five weeks-five countries. Dublin-London-Paris-Munich-Cinque Terre (to deflate!).

Their leaving awfully soon. April 4th.
That's a lot to take and and a lot to rearrange at short notice isn't it?

Assuming you have all the flights, trains, and hotels booked?

If you do, as others mention, it's a bit too late for a critique
;-)

It's hugely too hectic for me, as I always try to spend 5 days in any new place. Hopefully the person who made this schedule is there to give you advice on the details??

Good grief, what a mess! I'm in my 50s, too, and of strong mind and constitution, and this would downright slay me!

I think Doug's suggestions are spot-on.

If I were you I'd go straight back to the drawing board in the very few days you have left to salvage this trip and winnow it down to something that would actually be enjoyable.

Best of luck...and happy travels!

It looks like you'll be moving from place to place 15 times ! You'll be seeing airports, taxis and train stations rather than some of the most beautiful places in Europe. Just the idea of checking into so many hotels makes my head spin.
2 days in London?
April 14 fly to Spain and April 16 to Paris? No time in Paris?

I'm exhausted simply thinking about this trip. Most of your time will be spent on planes and trains and getting to/fro airports/train stations and finding and checking in/out of hotels.

I'm sorry you've left it so late to ask for opinions - because I don;t know what you can do about it now.

First of all - you have all cities -pracatically no countryside, since you don;t have days for side trips built in. Second you have left yourself very little time to see anything in the cities you are in. And in one case - Spain - you don;t even list a city. Are you doing Madrid?

Do you have all of these tickets already? If not, you're probably too late for really cheap fares? Are all of your hotels set already?

I know you have a good amount of time overall - but you have so may one day stops I can't help thinking you would enjoy the trip much more if you simplified it. As it is you have no time for cafe sitting, just relaxing or getting a real feel for any of these places.

I;ve done a bunch of european vacations (30+), several of them 3 weeks and a couple 4. Our rule is NEVER more than 2 hotels per week - and for a big city we spend 5 days minimum on a first trip (but will do perhaps 3 on subsequent ones).

At a minimum I would bag Spain and add those days to Paris. I would probably also bag Munich to have more time for Berlin and Switzerland.

I'm not trying to be rude or mean, but I don't care how healthy you are...this trip will exhaust you! As others have pointed out, you won't remember much except time in airports and at train stations and checking in and out of hotels. If you have reservations for all of this and can change them, please consider it. For five weeks, you should consider no more than ten hotels, and even that is really too much moving around. This itinerary looks like a forced march!

Welcome to Fodors: OK - I'll lay it on the line here -- the "younger friend" who planned this mess is either insane or hates you.

By the time you get back you will know the ins and outs of half the airports/train stations in Europe and will not have seen almost <u>anything</u>

Every time you move from one city to another you lose at least 1/2 a day - so you are losing about 8 days just getting from place to place. Plus you will be packing and unpacking <b>sixteen</b> times.

Sorry, but this is worse than &quot;If this is Tuesday, it must be Belgium&quot;

Sorry - I know you are excited about this trip - and I wish you luck - but for a first trip IMHO your head will be spinning by about day 7.

They leave in 2 weeks, and now they ask for advice?

I'm of two minds about this post. It's a first and only question on the forum. And it seems already cast in stone.

I wonder if there is any room to revise the itinerary???? Can we help?

Or are all the arrangements already made, and I'm not sure our comments are helpful.

If everything is set/pre-booked - then no, our comments aren't very helpful (except gray and Mr. gray will know it is nuts and who to blame)

And if it hasn't all been booked - then hopefully we've got their attention and they'll make changes.

Hi G,

Since you are leaving in 2 weeks, I assume that you have all of your reservations, tickets, etc.

Enjoy your European adventure.

((I))

IMHO, travel planning and travel itself is a very personal experience. And if you're lucky it will be a spiritual journey, too. We’ve always preferred to see a lot of a little rather than a little of a lot. Choose just a few destinations; get to know the people, place, culture, cuisine, etc; leave space/time in your plans to get lost and for the serendipitous moments; have fun!

Let us know what you thought of your trip when you get back. After you've rested up!

I hope we have not scared Gray1234 away...

I'm thinking the most helpful advise at this point might be &quot;pack light&quot;!
:-)

Good advice, Suze!

hi, gray -

you've just got back to your post to find all these wet blankets raining on your parade!

sorry, but they are RIGHT. [can we all be wrong?]

here's my ideas [and many of the others are just as good]

4/4 as the OP says, fly into Dublin.
8/4 fly to stanstead [you need 4 nights to recover from jet lag]
12/4 eurostar to paris
17/4 TVE to Avignon. have a rest in provence.
21/4 train to venice
25/4 pick up car. drive to tuscany. stay a week.
1/5 fly/train to munich.
7/5 train/fly to frankfurt.

that's 5 countries in 5 weeks and 7 moves. quite enough, IMO. you could squeeze in Rome if you wanted or CT. you want a holiday, not a route-march, and to come home with happy memories not exhaustion.

repeat after us LESS IS MORE.

have a great time,

regards, ann