1st Time in Europe. Honeymooners. Help!!!
 

Hi all!

At the risk of sounding stupid, travelling in Europe for our honeymoon sounds so overwhelming! We've narrowed down our travel to the following. Hope to hear your critiques and comments! Thanks in advance.

London -- 4D/4N -- (enough?)
-- travel via Easyjet (is this better than train travel, at this point?)

Amsterdam -- 2D/1N
-- travel via Train

Berlin -- 3D/3N
-- travel via (Plane or Train)???

Paris -- 4D/3N
-- travel via (Plane or Train)???

Venice -- 2D/1N
-- travel via trenitalia

Rome -- 5D/4N

Is this itinerary feasible? Basically, we are sooo confused as to take the train of the cheap airplanes.

Appreciate all the help!

Hi TF,

I think that you are doing a lot of traveling and little honeymooning.

You lose at least 1/2 day each time you move, so your 2 days in Amsterdam are closer to 1 day.

May I suggest:

Fly into London 4N
Eurostar to Paris 5N
www.myair.com to Venice 3N
Train to Rome 4N
Fly home

This will give you enough time in each city to get to know it a little bit, and you won't be constantly on the move.

Happy Honeymoon.

((I))

I would shuffle the itinerary to
this: London, Paris, Rome, Venice, Berlin, and finish in Amsterdam. I would cut London down to 3D/3N and up Amsterdam to 3D/3N. I would use the trains, overnight. They are more convenient than planes. The itinerary looks good for a 15 day Eurailpass "Super Flexi" which would give you 10 days of travel together in a two month period for $608 each. That is more days than you need but you can take interesting day trips from the major cities. There is a supplemental fee for overnight cabins which ranges from about $20 to $40 per person, depending on the train and the country. This pass also gives you a discount on the Eurostar train from London to Paris. Check it out at www.raileurope.com.

going somewhere for 2d/1n is hardly ever worth it IMO. especially when you are talking about the distances you are. people never consider how long it takes to get from the train station to the hotel and get settled and then you have to do it all again the very next day.

hopping countries by train sounds great if you are not used to this sort of thing, but in fact the novelty will soon wear off and you'll find the hours spent waiting for and riding on the train boring and tiring...therefore, this time should be kept to the minimum.

i don't know where you have already been in europe or what motivates you so i'm going way out on a limb here but amsterdam and berlin would be my candidates to remove from the itinerary.

for the train vs. air, yes, air is much more popular in europe for the moment. it is generally cheaper and quicker. i prefer the train, all things being equal but to take a train from london deep into the continent is something that i or most other people in europe would probably never do these days. i think a lot of first time visitors have a misunderstanding of the amount of time that it takes to travel by train around europe or the expense involved.

The biggest problem with making the 2D1N trip is that you don't have two days. You get up in London, get to an airport, fly to Amsterdam and get to your hotel. What's left of that day? Maybe and afternoon? Then the next day you get up and begin your journey to Berlin. Even if you wait until noon to do that, you have had only 2 half days in Amsterdam, not 2 full days. Why go at all?

I would cut 2 cities and keep the same amount of time. As others have already mentioned you are just doing too much running around.

2D/1N anywhere doesn't work because you lose a 1/2 day getting there and a 1/2 day the very next in leaving.

I'd cut London and Berlin. Or Berlin and Rome.

Book you plane ticket open jaw, which means you fly into the first city and out of the last (into London out of Venice or into Amsterdam out of Rome for example) to avoid backtracking on the ground at the end of your trip.

I kindly suggest, you will also find it much less overwhelming to plan if you don't try to go so many places.

Ira has a good plan--take heed.

ira has nailed it.

Yep, Ira has the plan you want to follow. Have you considered that Paris and Venice are the two most romantic cities and maybe you should limit you honeymoon to these two? Of course, if you're including Rome for the Papal Blessing, that would be a nice memory, too.

I agree it's too many cities - too much travel.

But I'd also highly recommend swapping one of these big cities for something smaller, where you can get away from the bustle and noise of the city and relax. If you're not used to busy urban environments, 3 straight weeks of big city life can be very tiring.

On both our honeymoon (Barcelona/Menorca/Madrid) and a more recent trip (Florence/Montepulciano/Rome) the second stop was a much enjoyed break from the busier cities.

Maybe an Italian lake town, or a small town in France or Germany?

brian makes an excellent point. even a "city person" can tire of these big, busy cities.

rome, paris and london are extremely crowded, berlin and amsterdam less so but still huge, busy cities. it is possible to relax a bit in venice if you wander out a bit...but no doubt still a bustling large city. traveling around to one huge city after the next might have a compounding effect that will wear you out.

you don't need to be seeing art and culture every second of the day...relax a little.

I absolutely agree with Ira's suggestion.

Ira's suggestion is great, but I might suggest doing it in a little different order -- London, fly to Venice (good cheap options available), train to Rome, (fly to Paris) and home from Paris. There's nothing like ending a romantic trip in Paris, and normally you can get much better prices on open jaw flights with London and Paris, rather than London and Rome (at least that's my experience).

If your screen name has any resemblence to your mode of travel, TravelFreak, then here is my advice. You are honeymooners so you are young. I don't know how old but most certainly younger than I.

I have traveled around Europe for decades but I feel that I am just getting started, at age 63. In January I did a rounder of Europe with a Eurailpass. I used night trains (EuroCityNight, EuroNight, ICN, etc.) almost exclusively. These trains are beautiful. You leave from city center and arrive in city center. I carry on board a bottle of wine, some local cheese, ham, bread, and an orange. I fix my supper in the cabin. I have a perfect sleep, unless the train stops. The conductor holds your ticket, and passport sometimes. You wake up in a new city, refreshed and ready to roll every morning. Cabins in the night trains normally have toilets. Often they have showers. Hey, that sounds great for a honeymoon.

Compare that to lining up for a plane a couple of hours before departure and then finding your way to the city on arrival. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!

I'm sorry fellow Fodorites, this is a no-brainer for me. Go train, and go all the way!

For those who think that TravelFreak's itinerary is too much geography in too short a time, I agree. You would be right unless you had more time and money. But these are honeymooners and probably won't be able to do a trip like this for another 5 or 10 years after the "I do." Their self-made plan is much better than taking a guided tour in somebody's tour bus.

My personal preference would be to skip Berlin and take in Duesseldorf and Koeln for Germany. Alternatively I would try Salzburg, Munich, or Dresden instead of Berlin. If you like New York City you might like Berlin. I would not do Venice except as a stopover, without a night in the town. That's all I needed for Venice.

I didn't comment on these items in my first reply because I just responded to TravelFreak's specific questions and suggested a modified itinerary for the cities that TF wanted.

To all who replied : Many THANKS, really!

Hopscotch had it spot on : The reason we tried to cram so much is because, much as we would really really like to visit Europe again, it realistically isn't going to happen in the next 5 years or so... at least not for this long (20 days).

Actually, we couldn't move Berlin, because we are have tickets to the World Cup match to be held at the stadium there. (yeah! =) So that made it an untouchable destination.

Amsterdam, i made a typo. Actually it should be 2D/2N, coz we are arriving late at night (1st day), and leaving late on the 3rd night. I figure that to be enough..

I am pretty much still of two minds as to take the train or the plane. But my fiancee has suggested (demanded? hehe) we take the following modes of transport :

London -- Amsterdam (late plane)
Amsterdam -- Berlin (late plane)
Berlin -- Paris (late plane)
Paris -- Venice (late plane)
Venice -- Rome (twelve midnight overnight train)

As you can see, her preferred mode of transport is via plane.

I suppose I shall be thinking about the train vs plane dilemma up till the minute that I do book tickets!

That was exhausting just reading your itinerary and I am under 40!

I agree too many cities for two little time and take the night trains. If you take the plane don't forget to factor in the transportation cost/time just to get to the airports outside the cities. The trains are city center. I would cut down the number of cities and stay longer in the big cities as a base and perhaps take day trips to the smaller villages. Most tourist information centers will have info available for day trips.
If I were in your shoes (pack light 1/2 clothes you think you will need twice the $) this would be my itinerary.

Chunnel/Eurostar from London to Paris.

4 hour speed train from Paris to Amsterdam. (Get out of A-dam and see the beautiful towns in Holland).

Exception to the rule here. Fly from A-dam to Italy. Schipol is an easy airport and a favorite for many travelers. Just go to the train station city center of A-dam. Take the shuttle trains to the Airport.

Cut down the days in Rome, pick up Florence.

Save Berlin for your Anniversary trip to Austria/Germany/Switzerland.

First time to Europe advise. Beware of pickpockets every major tourist city has them. And do your research if you plan to take a taxi. How to identify a legal taxi.

Try 1-800 Fly Europe website for open jaw tickets. I just bought my May tickets Chicago to London/ Paris to Chicago for less than I was finding anywhere else for same city round trip tickets.

Sorry,
Must not have scrolled down far enough to catch your last post.

IMHO your itineray is still exhausting.
If you must go to Berlin I would cut out London and stay on the main land.

Although London and Paris are completely different they are the same in the big city sense. Cut out a large city like others were commenting. Also, London is the city you can find great deals for if you ever have an opportunity in the next 10 years to do a long weekend trip.

"I would not do Venice except as a stopover, without a night in the town. That's all I needed for Venice."
LOL!
hopscotch, this is not fair. They are first timers in Europe, they're seeking actual advice and not sardonic mockery at their schedule!
TravelFreak, the reason why hopscotch would play this joke with you is that your 2D/1N plan for Venice IS ridiculous for anybody who knows enough about that city. For the first time in Venice, you'll need AT LEAST 5D/4N to get just a superficial first impression; if you can't or don't want to spend that much time in Venice, you should absolutely skip it entirely and save it for your next trip to Europe - in 5 or 10 years, it's still going to be there...

Franco,
Haven't your heard. Venice is sinking!

Travelfreak, In fact the last time I was in Venice (2004) they had just started major construction and it was not as picture perfect as the first time I was there. Believe me two days is enough for Venice.

Excuse me - how can you judge a city that you don't obviously know at all? If you think two days are enough, you've only passed by the few best-known sights that every ignorant mass tourist from all over the world "knows" (i.e. by their name and from outside...) - and you have seen NOTHING of Venice. Personally, as I have already told more than once on this forum, I've spent there at least six, but rather eight months, all my visits over the last 15 or 16 years summed up, and I'm still FAR from knowing Venice entirely. So please: simply stick to posting on subjects you know anything about, thank you.

Are you flying into London because of the air fare you can get? I would have chimed in to say Ira's plan is best, except for your post on Berlin being a necessity. I attended the World Cup in Orlando, so I know what you mean about having those tickets - they WILL be used! OK, here's my suggestion. you still have too many stops. Amsterdam seems a mere stopover given the days you've allotted, so I would eliminate it. If you CAN bring yourself to ditch one more destination, I would do that. Why? It allows you to do some serious daytripping out of your other destinations to give you a sense of the countryside in contrast to the big cities. And, if you daytrip this way, you can plan it or you can wing it, as you choose. Or, simply add the time to Venice, a terrific honeymoon destination, or...or...!

So, suggest: London 4N; chunnel/Eurostar to Paris, 3N; fly to Berlin, 3N; fly to Venice, 2N; ES train to Rome, 4N.

I based the above on your available 16 nights. If I miscounted and you have more, add to Venice or Paris or wherever most appeals...Even with this plan, you are doing a lot of moving around, making for a very active honeymoon. Heed the advice about how much time each move eats into YOUR time! And, remember, most people are wiped out for the first few days after the wedding. Give yourselves a break! Venice is the most laid back of your destinations so far, so I wouldn't shortchange yourselves here.

Geezzzz Franco chill out. It was a joke.

I only stated to them that 2 days is enough for Venice based on his original itinerary. It seems to me that Amsterdam and Venice are places with the least interest for them. The other cities appear to be a higher priority given the days they allotted. Keep in mind everyone has there own taste.

TravelFreak, One thing you want to remember in considering the train vs plane situation (and please share this with your fiancee):

Train stations are centrally located within cities. So while your ride may take more time, it is scenic, and you get on and off at a convenient location near to where you want to be.

Airports are some where outside the city so require more time, cost, hassle to get to, both in departing one city and in arriving the next.

I would definitely consider one overnight train ride in a private cabin because I think it is very romantic and a memorable thing to do.

To include Berlin consider:

Fly into Berlin
<b>Berlin</b> -- 3 nights
<b>Paris</b> -- 5 nights (don't honeymoon without staying in Paris at least 5 nights!) DON'T CUT PARIS!
<b>Venice</b> -- 3 nights
<b>Rome</b> -- 5 nights
Fly home from Rome

Alternates to above plan:

1) Cut 5 nights in Rome and substitute 5 nights in London.

2) Cut 5 nights in Rome and substitute 3 nights Amsterdam and 2 extra nights in Venice.

2)Cut 5 nights in Rome and substitute 3 nights Amsterdam and 2 extra nights in Paris.

Any of the 4 preceding itineraries will work well for you.

Rules of thumb:

A) Don't exceed 4 cities for 16 nights
B) Don't attempt a visit to mega destinations London, Paris, or Rome for less than the bare minimum of 5N/6D.

OH, my. I'm glad we all have different ideas of what's romantic, but an overnight train ride is not romantic to me -- I'd describe it as &quot;pure hell&quot;. Then again, I've never tried to make a &quot;creative&quot; use of a private train cabin on a honeymoon! Well, maybe it could be romantic, and certainly memorable.

Suze has it, all right.

franco, you say &quot;hopscotch, this is not fair. They are first timers in Europe, they're seeking actual advice and not sardonic mockery at their schedule!&quot; I am giving my opinion based on years of travel in Europe. Venice was worth an afternoon. I don't see any &quot;sardonic mockery&quot; in my reply. You love Venice and I think it is a tourist trap. My preference is to sit at a cafe and converse with locals rather than Ooh and Aah at stuff centuries old, unless it is really amazing. Venice is not really amazing and is bloody expensive.

I would take an overnight train any day any where any time before I would fly any plane in Europe. It is a no brainer. You take a bottle of wine, some local cheese, bread rolls, and oranges on board the train. It's like your own little apartment. Make sure you bring a corkscrew! TF168 and spouse are going to love it, if they do it. This will be the adventure of their lives.

You're counting your days and nights wrongly - you've counted lots of days twice. If you have 1 night in Amsterdam you don;t have 2 days there - you have parts of 2 days - or maybe one day total - or maybe just one evening - depending on your travel arrangements.

So - in fact - 4 nights somewhere is actually 3 days. Redo your itinerary on this basis - with actual days of the week - and you'll see what the problem is. (Getting from one place to another often takes most of the day - when you include packing, checking out, getting to the station or airport - actual travel - then getting your luggage, getting transport, finding your hotel, checking in, unpacking - even a little.)

Voila - frequently all you have time left for is dinner.

TravelFreak:

I've been following this, but I'm confused about the number of days. If I'm reading it correctly, your initial post includes 16 nights. But your later post says &quot;(20 days)&quot;. How many NIGHTS will you actually be spending in Europe?

Have you tried using Excel for your itinerary? Make a column for each: day, date, city where you'll sleep that night. On the rows between dates you can enter notes about transportation from place to place. I'd be happy to email you my format if you have Excel.
jeannebab at comcast dot net.

hopscotch - did you notice that you're on the European forum here? We're not, thus, talking about Venice, Las Vegas... there is an even more famous city of that name in Europe, you know?
Just in case, however, that you'd be talking about the same Venice as we are, I think I should consider it quite a relief that you didn't want to spend more than an afternoon there. People who think that dining in an overnight train cabin could be the aventure of anyone's life might be exactly the type of tourists whose superabundance makes it quite tough sometimes for some of us (nessundorma, where are you?) to continue to love Venice.

Hi TravelFreak,

One very important factor to consider - every time you fly you are facing the very real possibility of a major delay, cancellation, lost luggage, etc., etc., etc. With the itinerary you have outlined, even the slightest problem will become a huge problem. Flying isn't as convenient as it used to be!

Good luck and you definitely owe us a trip report.

You really need to sit down with a calendar and mark out your itinerary in detail.

Step 1: List all of the places you want to go to. (done)

Step 2: Figure out a logical order for your stops. Do not base this only on point to point distances. Look at the options for connecting city pairs and see what is fastest/ most economical.

Step 3: Calculate all of the travel time between each city pair. Include your total &quot;hotel to hotel&quot; time including taxis, transit, security etc. This may require some research, and will help you make the &quot;train vs plane&quot; decision. If the total time is even I always opt for trains as it is relaxing and productive time.

Step 4: Get out a calendar (make a bunch of photocopies) and block in your time in each city as well as the travel time between each place. I imagine an individual square on the calendar as starting at 8am and ending at 10pm, that way I can identify 1/2 day blocks of time etc. Colour/Hilite all the time that you are in travel mode - you can now see how much time you ACTUALLY have in each place.

Step 5: Delete a stop, and reshuffle, making for a less hectic itinerary.

Step 6: Start researching hotels etc. At this point if I find one city very $$, and get a deal in another, I may make slight changes, stay an extra night, and take an early train etc.

You mention that your fiance prefers late flights. It is a matter of preference, but I don't like that idea. Knowing that I have a flight coming up always looms over me during the day. It also make for complications checking out of hotels, checking bags etc. I prefer to get up fresh in the morning and go wherever, then have the rest of the day to enjoy the new place.

franco,

Las Vegas sounds Spanish. I've never been there. Is it near Madrid? I was talking about a city in Italy. It's OK for an afternoon, or longer if you have a sack of cash and want to see every tourist on the planet. This is not my kind of travel.

I read your last sentence, &quot;People who .... love Venice,&quot; a half dozen times but I am perplexed. What are you trying to say? Have you ever spoken to a local person in Venice, aside from the ones waiting on you?

Hi guys!

Am taking time out to itemize my itinerary. As we will embark on this trip in June, we still have some time left to plan.

Do you propose extending the Venice part of the journey to 3D/2N and lowering the Rome part to 4D/3N?

And yeah, do I owe you guys a Field Report!

We've met many locals in Venice over the years.

Just go to campos away from the most popular areas after the work day is over and you can meet local people if you are open but not pushy.

I don't know if I'd take anyone who spent only one afternoon in a place as any sort of expert on it. Couldn't have seen (let alone experienced) much of Venice in that amount of time.

Are there tourist traps in Venice? Of course there are, just like there are in Rome and Pisa and Florence and Munich and London and Paris. Is the entire city of Venice a tourist trap? Of course not--unless you think the entire city of Venice is just that portion along &quot;Daytrippers' Alley&quot;--which is pretty much all you would be able to experience in one afternoon.

Rufus is precisely right. And more than just talking to &quot;some&quot; locals in Venice, I'm talking all the day to them when being in Venice, and I have even gained several personal friends among them. I have my cheese vendor and my fish vendor and my fruit vendor and my bakery, and all of them know and remember me though I am, of course, not their frequent customer, even as a frequent tourist. What has become my favourite coffee bar in Venice is a place that attracted me from the very beginning, and so I frequented it on two or three subsequent days when I first discovered it. It took me more than one year afterwards to return to Venice and to that bar... and yet, they still remembered me at first glance, and their immediate question was where I had been for such a long time...

OK, rufus and franco. You sound like local experts and I give you your due.

However, where is Las Vegas?

Also, which area of Venice would you recommend to get away from the tourists and high prices? I am game for a second try. You have to admit that the tourist area is a disneyland, don't you?

It depends, first of all, on the season when you go and on your own attitude as a visitor - in winter, nowhere is a disneyland, and also in summer, the disneyland ends in the evening, so the most important thing is to stay overnight, then you can go anywhere without experiencing the big tourist overkill. And to escape the tourist masses, it's mostly just enough to turn around the next corner - the tourists are in frequenting but a few main routes through the city. So for a relaxing summer day in Venice, it's just enough to remain in the (bigger) Western half of Dorsoduro, e.g., everywhere in Cannaregio off the train station, in the greater parts of Castello (San Pietro in Castello, San Francesco della Vigna, San Giovanni in Bragora, Santa Maria Formosa) or in Santa Croce (off Piazzale Roma, which you would do in any case, as this is the only really ugly part of Venice).
The Canal Grande, the smaller rests of Dorsoduro and Castello, the quarters of San Marco and San Polo should simply be left to the evening, or to the early morning (or to the off-season, of course). As for the laguna, Murano off the very first street after the water bus station (where all the glass shops are to be found) is a perfect anti-disneyland (though not really worth visiting for art lovers, in my opinion); Burano and Torcello should be visited off season, at least not in July and August; Sant'Erasmo and Le Vignole, the two agricultural islands where Venice's famous vegetables are grown, aren't bearing the faintest sign of disneyland, even in July and August, and so is Pellestrina (south of Lido). And you have to go into the less known monuments, even in the touristed areas. Everyone wants to see the La Fenice theatre, e.g., and justly so, because it has become a beauty again after its rebuilding; but on the very same square, Campo S. Fantin, there is a Scuola, now for long residence of the Ateneo Veneto, a scientific institute. Very few people pop inside, but it's a real beauty, and the historians working there will be proud to give you a thorough private guided tour (and you'll already have your first locals whom to talk to - if you are showing some interest in their building, they won't let you go!). That's just one of dozens of examples...

Maybe franco and hopscotch should just start their own thread instead of hijacking this one for their snarling rejoinders. TravelFreak168 just wanted some advice for what is clearly meant to be a &quot;taste of Europe&quot; - not a lengthy exploration of Venice's back alleys.

Like every other poster, my advice is to cut your schedule down to fewer locations for longer times. Definitely buy an open-jaw ticket so you don't have to retrace your steps at the end. London and Paris and Rome all make great entry/exit points for Americans. The Chunnel between London and Paris is a unique and efficient experience - could you delay your Berlin visit a day or two to squeeze Paris in first? Berlin is a tougher city to appreciate on a short visit than the rest of your schedule - so once the match is over (and you have recovered from your celebration) you should get out of town to either more scenic parts of Germany (Munich, Salzburg, and the Bavarian countryside are all great) or go directly to Italy. As for Amsterdam, it is certainly a pleasant town but it is by no means a must-see location for a once-in-five-years trip.

So I recommend either London/Paris/Berlin/Venice/Rome (a real grand tour of Europe's greatest cities) or London/Paris/Berlin/other Germany if one of you has German ancestry and wants to see more of the fatherland.