5 Weeks In Europe Itinerary - Any Advice Appreciated!!
 

Hi everyone! (Sorry for the huge post)

My partner and I will be heading to Europe in late June for 5 weeks (32 days). This is what we're thinking (in no particular order). Would love some suggestions on how many days we should spend in each country/city and if there are any unique and local restaurants/experience/area/sight we should check out in each of these places.

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT US: We tend to spend the first day exploring and sightseeing all the "main attractions" but then the few days after that, we like to go off the beaten track and find local places that not a lot of tourists know about! We're very low maintenance and love eating local food and will be staying in hostels, AirBNB and budget hotels. The only time we'd splurge is on activities and experience.

- Italy (2 DAYS) - We're flying into Rome and going straight to Milan to visit Lake Como (it's one of my favorite place in the world!) We've both been to Italy before so we won't be staying for long.

- Poland: would you recommend Krakow or Warsaw? We'd only be able to do one I think

- Austria: We will spend about 2 days in Vienna and then possibly a day trip to Hallstatt if time allows!

- Slovakia - We'll probably do a day trip or a 1 day 1 night trip to Bratislava as it's so close to Austria!

- Hungary: Budapest, my partner loves this city but I haven't been so we'll probably spend 4-5 days here. Any suggestions for hostels or Airbnb? Or day trips to go on?

- Czech Republic: Prague - we'll only be spending 1 to 2 days here as it'll be a pass through country, what should we do to maximise our time here? Any MUST see places?

- Slovenia - Ljubljana (how many days would be good to explore the city?) and Lake Bled!

- Croatia: Dubrovnik (how many days do you suggest here?). A day trip to Split. Also a day or two in Zadar (would you recommend Zadar?) and also Plitvice National Park or do you have any other suggestions for less touristy areas? Croatia is the one place we want to spend the most time in so most likely a week will be spent here or even 10 days if need be.

- Greece: We just want a few days lazing by the beach & to watch the infamous sunsets! We'll probably spend 3 days 2 nights in Santorini although super open to suggestions of anywhere else that is not well known but also has beautiful beaches and gorgeous sunsets?) We may tack on a few extra days for another small island!

I know 5 weeks is not a lot but it's all the time we have so I want to fit as much in as possible without of course rushing it so much that it'll feel like we haven't learnt anything about the country or experience the local ways.

Thank you so much for reading my essay of a question!!

I think your proposal is extraordinarily ambitious. Rather than responding to your questions, I would encourage you to do some more research first. Get, or consult, some good guidebooks. Search this forum for information. Use rome2rio.com to get a sense of how much time you will spend simply getting from place to place. Realize that the way to maximize your travel experience is to keep the amount of time in transit low relative to the amount of time you actually have to see or experience places. Make some tough decisions. Then come back to us.

I haven't taken the time to do the math, not in detail, but it looks to me like you're making the same mistakes many who come here make - not counting the days of relocating as days in their itinerary.

When you say 2 days in Vienna that must mean three nights in Vienna.

The day you arrive in Vienna, depending on how far you had to travel, cannot be a day in your itinerary - maybe a few hours of a day, but do you see what I mean? And the day you move on from Vienna to wherever, that, too, can't count against a full day in your itinerary.

Suddenly you have a half-day here and a half-day there, and it all becomes a hasty blur, because you didn't allocate enough time for traveling from point to point, and not enough nights to give you full days in places you visit.

Make a list with counting nights rather than days. Then fill in the travel times on travel days, door-to-door. See what's left. That will give you an accurate estimate of what's sensible and what's not.

Hi guys!

I definitely see what you both mean and I did have an inkling it'd be ambitious however, this is not a set itinerary and I AM looking to chop and change things around hence why I wanted to estimate how many days I should spend in each place to get the most out of the area but also in a small time-frame I have. I think my post is more asking for advice on what cool things to do in each places so I can see okay Budapest seems like it's going to have A LOT going on so 5 days are needed so I will have to cut Prague in order to have enough time for example!

The places that I was thinking of doing a day trip for or only spending 1-3 days are places I will most likely cut out if we don't have the time.

But thank you for your advice I'll do further research and come back with another post :)

How much time to spend in any one destination depends on what YOU want to see and experience. Example: I found 5.5 days in Vienna extremely rushed. Other people find a few days sufficient. And what is "cool" is also up to each of us to define. Sometimes including the day trips makes sense, particularly if you aren't likely to return to an area and so want to really take advantage of the time you have while there.

Fodorites will be here when you come back with a better plan.

Good luck with your research!

This is true! I may look up some blogs with similar travel style as me and go from there. Thanks again :)

Yep -- back to the drawing board . . .

>>I know 5 weeks is not a lot but it's all the time we have so I want to fit as much in as possible without of course rushing it so much that it'll feel like we haven't learnt anything about the country or experience the local ways.<<

Your plan is the antithesis of 'experiencing the local ways' It would be a continual study of the train stations and airports of half of Europe. The more you try to squeeze in the less you actually see. If you have 5 weeks -- plan an itinerary that fits 5 weeks -- not a 3 month trip shoe horned into 5 weeks.

Here's a possible routing <i>(presuming Como and Budapest are special from reading your post)</i> and spend some time on google maps as you orient yourself
- fly directly into Milan (why Rome?) - head to Como (train to Varenna?), spend few days and onto Verona
- train from Verona to Innsbruck - drive west to east through Tirol and Carinthia - onwards to Bled and Ljubljana and onto Vienna (release car)
- From Vienna its easy to get to Bratislava (day trip by boat/train/bus) and/or eventually head out to Budapest and fly home. You can get to Prague (train) but its much further away.

This "outline" itself is intense, and you may want to drop a few things / extend some <i>(e.g. Austria itself deserves 2 weeks or more).</i>

Packing in Greece, Croatia or Italy into this would seem impossible. Once you have a viable plan, spend some time with relevant country guidebooks/travel forums.

Thanks guys, I understand it's ambitious but we don't get a lot of time off or have the financial means to be able to travel for a long period of time and coming from Australia it's a 30+ hours flight so we just wanted to make the best of our time!

I'll definitely rethink the plan.

>>so we just wanted to make the best of our time! <<

Everyone understands that -- but IMO/IME cramming in as many places as possible is not making the best of one's time.

Seeing sites, enjoying a city's ambience, relaxing on a cafe, exploring a few neighborhoods on foot -- that is a better way to enjoy a city rather than arriving mid day on the train, dashing around for a day or day and a half, running to the station, traveling half a day to the next city . . . repeat.

Yeah janisj you're right and that's what we want to do, not cram everything in. I guess I went in not really knowing how many days are needed per city etc as for some they may want to spend days and for us we may not enjoy the city as much so I kind of just went a bit crazy with trying to see as much as possible. More research is definitely needed haha