5 Country Plan?
 

So I'm goin to Europe this summer, as I posted earlier. I want to have a plan though, and know what I will go to see and stuff. I really wanna check out Ireland for the scenery(Huge fields of green and the shore). I really want to check out Normandy(D-Day landing of Omaha). But mainly, now that I think of it, I want to see beautiful landscapes. Something you'd see on the National Geographic Channel, or in a magazine. Huge fields of gold, or green, The big Wind Mills you see in Holland. And aside from that, just some of those classic cobbled stone narrow streets with shops left and right of you, you see pictures of them all through out Europe.

That's the stuff I wanna see...Nothing in general, as long as its that. Any idea of a 5 Country Plan I should do? Like, what 5 Countries that are not too far apart, and will offer that should I do?

Any help would be much appreciated, thanks.

Also, I am going for 1 month, and will have 5000USD, including 1200 for the flight to and back, and 669 for the 1 Month Eurail Pass.

Hi M,

Don't buy a railpass until you have an itinerary and can enter it at www.railsaver.com and click "only if it saves money".

You might be flying a lot. See www.whichbudget.com for discount airlines.

Fly into your nearest city and out of your farthest or vice versa.

See www.kayak.com

Enjoy your visit.

((I))

You will need to either begin or end your trip in Ireland, so you could travel Dublin --> fly to London --> train to Paris and visit Normandy and France --> train to Brussels and visti Belgium --> train to Amsterdam and visit Holland.

Or when you get to Paris, you can head west into Spain and Portugal, and fly home from Lisbon.

If you look at a map, you can put together several interesting itineraries -- buses and trains go everywhere.

Hi Mike. I second the advice to try to firm up an itinerary before committing to a rail pass. But if you're firmly decided on the rail pass, one combination you might think about is Ireland, France, Benelux and the Netherlands. Although Ireland will eat up some travel time, it is beautiful, and I think people should go where they really want to. ; ) Once you are there, though, you will probably have to add a bus or join tours to see some of the beautiful landscapes you're looking for.

In France you can get out to Normandy and Brittany quite easily by train; you could see the Normandy beaches, Mont St.-Michel and other places that appeal to you (there are pages and pages of posts on this forum if you search for a particular Normandy destination). As for landscapes, I think Normandy is quite beautiful. Not necessarily heart-stopping, but lovely. Then you could take a few days to explore Paris, if you want, before heading over towards Belgium, where towns like Bruges and Ghent might fit the bill for cobblestones and classic architecture.

I think most of the "blooming" will be over in Holland by the end of June, but the windmills will still be there, and Amsterdam has a lot to recommend it.

If you were not going to Ireland I would suggest including one or two stops in Germany, both for the connection with your interest in history and for the scenery. But to me that seems like cramming a lot into just one month. You could add a destination in Germany, though, if the pace of what I'm suggesting is too slow for you (basically a week for each country, although I would add an extra day or two for Ireland and France and subtract that from the time spent in Belgium and Holland).