AlessandraZoe

I saw that you took down your Eurotrip itinerary, so I'm not sure where you are in the process right now.

I loved Bachlunch's list, but I actually thought it was great you didn't choose London this time around, although if you get a good flight fare to London and want to start from there, there's an overnight train/ferry combo from London to Amsterdam that's sort of neat. Your plan to keep yourself on the Europe mainland sure gives you more exploration/small town time.

Another note Re Amsterdam--You just want to avoid it May 1. That's Queensday and you will have problems getting accomodation around then.

Looking forward to your revised plans. I hope you are keeping Switzerland in the mix

karli822

sorry, the link to the eurotrip is now: http://www.eurotrip.com/trip/circle-western-europe-rome

fmpden: I'm thinking of planning my trip for like 87 days, so we have a couple extra days just in case.

Lexma90: wow thanks!!! my eurotrip map right now is a "wishlist", so I will narrow it down so I don't spend my whole trip on a train. Thanks for posting your favorite smaller cities! I will look into them and revise my list I was thinking about flying in and out of Rome, but someone suggested Amsterdam instead, since the tulips are in bloom in April. Seriously considering that...

jamikins: thanks, I'll take a peek.

AlessandraZoe: Sorry, I just updated the link. Good call on checking flight prices to London. However I'm not sure I'll be able to just skip the British Isles if I fly there! It would be very hard! May 1st... I'll keep that in mind. Although I have some friends in Amsterdam, so I might be staying with them! Switzerland is being difficult... I'm definitely going to try to keep it in! Does anyone know when it starts to get nicer in the Alps? What about mid-May? I guess it varies year to year..

suze

Not all of Switzerland is "the Alps". It wouldn't necessarily be foggy and icky if you are down at sealevel. Like those towns I mentioned along Lac Leman.

fmpden

London is outside the Schenden zone so days in London/England would not count as part of the 90. There is posting on the Rick Steves site from a father who's daughter had to pay a $500 fine because she was departing on her 91st day thinking that three months meant three months.

AlessandraZoe

Just want to make sure you know you can do "open jaw" (fly in one city/out another) and "mult-city" flight arrangements. Those arrangements sometimes cost more, but I'd say we've always ended up even and in some cases, less, on the $$ end of things. You can build flight itineraries on www.kayak.com, www.orbitz.com, whatever to see what combinations might work for you.

So if you already knew that, I didn't mean to insult you. Just wanted to make sure you knew you didn't have to plan your trip in a circle.

There are also cheapie "within Europe" airfares, too, to explore. RyanAir is one you might know, but here's a good list of others: http://www.euroflights.info/#airlines

OK--other thoughts without having checked your latest Eurotrip

May 1 in Amsterdam is when tulips fizzle out, so...

If you hold off Switzerland until late June, you'd be able to do the Bernese Oberland--start with Bern (one of the most underrated smaller cities in the world), hit Interlaken and then ascend up to Murren, Kleine Scheidegg, etc. See Jungfrauroch by traveling THROUGH the Eiger. Yeah, the weather can be iffy, but it can ALWAYS be iffy.

I guess you can tell I like Switzerland, and in fact, I'm busy trying to convince my youngest to spend her junior year abroad there. One of my favorite trips even was when we spent time around Geneva, headed up to Bernese Oberland for around a week, and then flew out of Zurich. We had purchased a Swiss Family Pass there (have no clue what they are doing now), and the transportation abilities just kept me in a state of awe. For example, once we landed in Geneva airport, we practically stepped off the plane and onto our train to Lausanne, hopped on a train to Montreux, then a tram to Chillon, and stepped onto a boat back to Lausanne. Could never get over how easy it was to do anything in that country.

fmpden

O' for an late edit button -- It is Schengen zone

karli822

suze: Maybe I'll hit up those towns if I end up being in Switzerland early.

fmpden: That's a real bummer for her! Definitely good to know those things ahead of time. I don't understand how people think it's fun to wing it in Europe - I'm too much of a control freak

AlessandraZoe: I've always assumed that open jaw flights were way more expensive, however I will look into that for sure, because it would be way easier! I'm making a new itinerary that starts in Amsterdam, so I can see the tulips! I've heard a lot of good things about Switzerland, so I'm working on adjusting things so I can see it later in my trip. It seems like such a relaxing, quiet country!!

AlessandraZoe

karli--Yeah, thinking "open jaw" was more expensive was always my assumption, too. Then I had to make a trip itinerary from hell for my oldest daughter work: NY to Paris (two days) to Prague; fly out Vienna into Cairo; fly back to US from Cairo. I couldn't believe it--the trip sequence ended up far far less than what my point-to-point estimates were.

I really don't usually do Orbitz--I tend to use Kayak as my search tool (actually, I use the software BEHIND Kayak, which can be found at http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ )and then seek the fares with the involved airlines--but Orbitz actually made that exact trip itinerary work for a very reasonable amount of $$.

And then there are the Europe cheapos that just don't show up that much on booking sites, and they often work far better than rail costs and often save a lot of time (time always equals your money). I remember trying to find out how much rail costs would be from Paris to Nice, and one of the posters on this wonderful forum said, "You know, you could all fly there from Orly at 1/2 your rail cost." He was right. That was a good lesson learned.

Those cheapo fares should be part of any equation. I needed to fly back from Granada to Madrid last spring with just hours to spare. Just one way. Would check every day on a bunch of sites to find something reasonable. Out of the blue one day, found a RT fare for Granada-Madrid/Madrid Granada for around 1/2 the price of anything that had been up there previously. Just used the first half of that itinerary. Luckily, the second half was not connected to any other reservation we had made, so there were no other later flight sequences that would have been automatically cancelled.

Switzerland in a way is NOT relaxing unless you are the "responsible citizen" type. Then you can really chill. It is a country full of anal retentive people (big generalization, forgive me)--MY PEOPLE. I love it when I walk into a restroom there and there is no trash and the toilet seat is clean. WHY? Because it's expected that one would pick up after one's self. Chopped wood outside mountain houses are not only arranged neatly but also with a sort of competitive flair. I remember hiking past those wood piles in admiration, looking at my husband and saying, "I MUST have been Swiss in a former life."

karli822

AlessandraZoe: Haha my family must have Swiss roots as well... or at least my mother! I looked into open jaw flights on expedia, and found that it is actually the same price as a point to point! This is super exciting. AND the cheapest of the few cities I tried to fly back home from was Berne, so Switzerland will be graced with my presence in June! Yay. Going to check Orbitz now to see what they quote me. This is potentially going to be a huge time saver. Thanks!

AlessandraZoe

Good.

Have fun--I expect to see a LOT of changes to the itinerary. Good for you for exploring this before 2011.

aussiedreamer

Not sure if will help at all, but I've just started our t/r for our 3.5month adventure in Europe, Aug-Nov this year.

karli822

aussiedreamer: did you ever write a full trip report? I can't find it. I would love to read it! Sounds like you had an awesome time.