pjoneslake

My daughter, her mother'-in-law and my three grandchildren 7,9, and 11 are traveling to Europe this summer to visit former aupairs. Our rough itinerary is:

7/19 fly into Zurich then travel to Lucerne to stay at a friend's house
While in Lucerne travel to Venice to stay 3 nights at rental
travel to Salzberg for 2 days
visit Basel Switzerland from Lucerne
then
8/4 drive to – Leudinghausen, Germany spend 1 or 2 nights at aupairs house
then to – 8/7 - 8/15 Eckernforde, Germany Stay in house furnished by aupair for 1 week
travel to southern Sweden for one week stopping at aupairs houses
return to Zurich, Lucerne and fly home on 8/25

Our question is: Railpasses are overwhelming. What is the best mode of transportation? We want to use the free housing as much as possible and may need a car in the smaller towns. We also would like to see as much of the area as possible. Can you give us any advice?

janisj

I only have time for a quick comment just now - I'll sit down later to give your whole trip some thought. I'm sure others will chime in w/ ideas.

But my initial comment - I'd definitely look into open jaw tickets. Open jaw means flying into one city and flying home from another. That saves having to backtrack to your original airport. Something like into Venice and out of Stickholm. Or into Lucerne and out of Amsterdam which isn't that far from Ludinghausen. Something like that. Try to arrange the itinerary to take advantage of an open jaw route.

cferrb

If you decide that you need a car, take a look at the leasing programs through Peugot and Renault. You have to lease for at least three weeks (I believe). The car is yours as a lease, with your own car insurance covering it. You turn it in at the end. We were able to lease in Rome and return the car in Lisbon. I don't know whether this is possible on your itinerary but it's worth checking in to. I know that you cannot lease within France. I'm not sure whether you can lease in Switzerland.

If you do rent or lease car, do get a GPS unit with it. Also, unless you are really good with a stick shift, plan on a manual, despite the extra cost. Getting out of underground parking lots in Europe can be really difficult, especially with a manual. (I know, there are lots of expert manual drivers on this site who will scoff at this, but take my word for it, you don't want to be sitting on steep ramp if you are not confident with the stick shift.)

My issue with the train with three children is that you are tied to the train schedule, and if a child is having a tough time one morning and you are trying to catch a train, you will be really stressed out. The car gives you flexibility the car does not.

pjoneslake

Thanks for the great comments. We're also thinking as an option the cruise from Mainz to Dusseldorf where we're thinking of picking up a car. Any thoughts

annhig

hi lake,

even with an open-jaw, your itinerary seems to include a lot of tooing and froing, if you fly into Zurich.

IMHO you would be better flying into Venice, then moving west/north - Salzburg, luzern, Basel, Leudinghausen, Eckernforde, Sweden.

I suggest getting a good map annd using a programme like www.viamichelin.com to work out how long each leg of the journey will take you. you could pick up a car at any stage of the trip after Venice.

lovely idea for a trip, BTW.

pjoneslake

Thanks. We have free housing in Lucerne for two weeks and thought it would be a good base for travel. Also since we wanted to rest a day or two because of jet lag and we'll be paying for 280 euro for housing in Venice we thought we'd recoup in Lucerne in our free housing. We'll relook at this idea though. We may scratch Salzburg if we get a place to stay in Paris at the end of our trip. Keep sending ideas.

annhig

hi again, lake,

I'm not suggesting dropping Luzern [certainly a fortnight's free lodging is not to be sniffed at], but switching it round a bit, and Venice can also be relaxing - no cars, for one thing. and it makes more sense to pick up the car after you leave Venice, as you won't need one there, but have one in Luzern, especially as you'll be there for such a [relatively] long time, and afterwards when you set off on your tour.

scratching Salzburg is also a good idea - it doesn't really fit in with your route, and I don't really see it appealing to your kids. they will much more enjoy the mountains of switzerland and all the trips you can make from there - there have been quite a few threads about them I think.

regards, ann

meath1

At 37 days leasing a car is probably more affordable than renting a car - if you decide that you need to have a vehicle. You can definitely lease a car in France from www.autofrance.net
You can pick it up in France (or most other places in western europe) and drop in back in france or elsewhere. It is actually cheaper if you pick up and return it in france but still affordable to pick up anywhere. You can keep the car up to 179 days, you have your choice of peugeots, manual or automatic, diesel or petrol, and all insurance is included. It is a great deal. There are other lease companies out there as well all of which lease cars in France.

pjoneslake

Thanks. My daughter is getting all of the flights and car rental with frequent flyer miles so I'll pass that on to her. We also need a van since there are 6 of us traveling. The way things are turning out, we are staying in Luzerne and then flying to Stockholm and working our way down to Dusseldorf and flying to Paris. The flights are super cheap, only $41 to fly to Paris. We'll rent a car after Stockholm and drop it off in South Sweden and then rent a German car for a short period becaue the drop off fees are soo high in a different country