2 weeks in Europe - Paris and....
 

Hi,

I was hoping you might be able to give me some advice. I am headed to Europe in early July for a bit over 2 weeks. I fly in and out of Amsterdam, and plan on staying a few days there on each end of the trip. I am then headed to France for a week, and plan to be mainly in Paris.

This is my dilemma...I am not sure where to go for the rest of my trip. I was thinking Northern Spain/Barcelona I am guessing I would need to fly from Paris? I think I would rather stick to train travel. And the heat in July? I am really open to suggestions. I am wondering if I am overlooking a great destination.

Thanks,

Beth

If you are going to spend 2 days in Amsterdam on either end and a week in and around paris, you only have about 3 days left out of your 2 weeks. Rather than flying somewhere for only about 2 full days, why not choose someplace between Paris and Amsterdam like........Belgium.

Brugge, Ghent, Dinant, and Antwerp are all good places to visit. Throttling it down a bit from major cities might be a nice change, too.

elizabeth999, it depends on your interests as to what to suggest, but if you're already looking at Spain in the current mix, then why don't you do:
AMS - 3 nights
train to Paris (Thalys fast train)
Paris - 6-7 nights
fly Barcelona (check Vueling, easyJet) and if you can fly out of CDG or Orly then do that rather than out of Beauvais, it's a long way out of Paris and just adds unnecessary travel time to your day. NOTE: fly into BCN and not GRO which is 100kms out near Girona and Ryanair use it often)
Barcelona - 4 nights
fly to AMS to stay remaining time (1-2 nights depending on the "bit over 2 weeks" time frame you have).

Taking the train on the PAR-BCN leg or the BCN-AMS leg is going to eat into your time dramatically, and air travel is completely convenient on these routes.

Heat in July - well, hopefully some considering the start of Summer has been somewhat (!) wet. July is usually comfortably warm, esp in Paris and Barcelona. Amsterdam is *usually* OK in July, but that sideways rain can strike at any time! A light jacket/throw for evenings will be plenty.

As far as missing "a great destination", it's difficult to recommend what might be great to you without knowing your interests. If you want to stay in the Netherlands/France region, then geographically you could consider days in Brussels and Bruges/Brugge. Or, and this is just because I'm biased to it, you could fly AMS to Berlin, then fly Berlin (4 night stay) to Paris then train back to AMS.

The combinations are almost endless...

I'd look at the area covered by the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg down to Paris as one fantastic holiday destination. Apart from the cities like Brugges locked in the middle-ages you can use the very dense train system to visit

Trier, Strasbourg, Reims, Luxembourg city, Arnhem etc etc

Spain is lovely in the spring and autumn but packed with tourists in July and August

You could also take the Eurostar to London and then fly or take the train or ferry back to Amsterdam...