We are in the beginning stages of planning a trip to Europe in September 2013. We thought it might go something like this; London 4 nights, Paris 3 nights, Provence 7 nights, Malta 2 nights, Santorini 2 nights, Croatia 2 nights, Tuscany 4 nights, Venice 2 nights, London. We were wondering if it would be better to not go to Malta and spend more time in Santorini or Tuscany. Also not sure about going by train, plane or boat. Anyone done a similar trip? We would love to hear your thoughts or suggestions

I personally think that is a crazy itinerary.

You'd end up w/ 3+ days in London, 2.5 days in Paris, 6 days in Provence (that part is OK, generous even), 1 day on Malta, 1 day on Santorini, 1 day in Croatia, 3 days in Tuscany(OK), 1.5 days in Venice, and a dash back to London.

You would spend almost 8 full days just in transit.

If it was me - I'd go back to the drawing board (and look at a map)

Well obviously you will do a combo of train and plane or train and boat, since you can't get to Santorini by any other means,lol

Personally I would never fly into a country for only 2 days ( Greece-Santorini). And I would never "do" a country in two days (Croatia).. and you need to be a little less vague "Provence 7 nights",, which town or city or a tour of the area?

Also heads up , for September I would really be already narrowing down where to stay in Paris, its a high occupancy month ( trade and fashion show season) and getting your first, or even second choice hotels may not be so easy...

So it seems you have about 3 weeks. Don't count arrival or departure days.. and when you plan a "two night" stay , remember that works out to only one full day of sightseeing, I personally think 2 nights is too short to bother with either Croatia or Greece, either give them more time or eliminate them, but don't fly into another country for one full day of sightseeing. I do understand some people do not mind short visits but those are usually when they are in transit to another place, not actually visiting a country they have to fly or boat to just for one day.

Its very tempting to want to do and see it all, but for 3 weeks I am suggesting narrowing list down to 4 or 5 places max.

Fly open jaw ( you price that as a "multi destination "ticket , not two one ways ) . So maybe start in London, then Eurostar to Paris, then train south ,, then from there you will have to decide where you want to go, I loved the Greek isles so for me I would leave Santorini in,,

Agree that you have too many locations for your given time. Keep in mind that you will lose about 1/2 a day each time you change locations, so 2 nights = 1 full day. Moving also greatly increases the cost. The more you move the less you will actually see of your chosen locations. The time and effort of getting to satorini, Malta and Croatia is not worth 1 day...only to jump back on a plane and head off somewhere else.

The best thing to do is figure out how many days on the ground you have and then prioritise. You should look to drop at least half of your locations and then do some research on transport to each. Fly open jaw into your first location and home from the last to avoid the waste of time and cost of backtracking. Get yourself a good map of Europe and plot out your trip.

Happy planning!

It would be helpful to know if you have been to Europe before, if you are aware of the great distances between some of your choices and the amount of travel times required between them. Two nights gives you basically one to 1&1/2 days in a place.

Do you have any interest in any places right outside the cities: any place outside London or Paris, for example: Versailles? Have you been to Florence and Rome already?

OP: "would be better to not go to Malta and spend more time in Santorini or Tuscany"?

Yes, absolutely, but it would probably be better to eliminate Santorini also. It is just too far and too expensive to spend only one day there unless you were already in Athens. What do you hope to see in Croatia in one day? Just Dubrovnik? A lot of travel for only one day.


As to plane, train, boat, it depends on your final itinerary. Examples:
London to Paris - Eurostar through chunnel.
Paris to Provence - TGV to Avignon - rent car
Provence to Venice - probably fly
Venice to Malta - fly

My thoughts/suggestions: Give Venice another night - at least two full days. Give Paris another night and do a day trip. For the rest of it, were it my trip (though, of course, you must do what appeals to your own heart), I would skip all three of the outlayers (Malta, Santorini and Croatia) on this trip and put the extra days into another destination closer to your other stops, probably someplace else in Italy. If you took one nt from Provence and gave it to Paris, one more to Venice, you would have five left to put all into one place -The AC, Italian Lakes, even Slovenia or Croatia if you did it that way. Still rushed, but better.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I guess it is tempting to go to a lot of places, but probably not really worth it if you are only there for a short time. The places we really want to go to are Provence, Santorini and Tuscany. One of the main objectives for us is to take stunning photos of scenery

By the way we have 28 days in total so we haven't included time for flying NZ to London

I would start then focusing on those three areas and determine how you get between the three. That might lend itself to adding a couple more places that fit in logistically. Athens and Rome are the obvious additions as you will likely need to transition through them to get to Tuscany and/or santorini.

You might do something like this

Fly into santorini via Athens spend 3-5 days
Fly to Athens 2-3 days
Fly to Rome 5 days
Drive to Tuscany 5-7 days
Drive/train to Venice 2-3 days
Fly to nice and drive to Provence 5-7 days
Fly home from nice.

Or skip Athens and Rome and just use them as transit airports and take that time and add 5-7 days to Paris or london and fly home from there. Both cities have more than enough to fill your time, or you could do a couple day trips. You could also do the trip in reverse.

Venice and Provence are gorgeous, Tuscany is beautiful, but after seeing the Amalfi Coast and Sicily, scenery wise, Santorini was, for me, a very big let down. I hope it is not so for you.

Hi there, Unless you have a really good reason for going to santorini (apart from photography) I would skip santorini for this trip. On our first trip we flew Sydney - Athens and by the time we arrived we had been travelling for just on 30 hours and were worse than useless. I think you should skip santorini and save it for another trip when you can slow down and really enjoy lots more of Greece.

Oh and I forgot to mention that we spent 4-5 days touring the Greek countryside and three days in Athens and had a wonderful time. We have beautiful photographs of the countryside and there is really good access to Ancient Greek ruins.

4 weeks - keep it to London, France and Italy and even that is pushing it.

As it is, it is crazy.