pomparr27

HI All,
My fiancee and I are doing a Euro Trip! We have this itinerary planned so far I would love to know all of your comments and advices!

April 1-2 LAX-Heathrow
April 2-5 England
Days 2 london
Day 3 Bath
Day 4 and 5 london
Night 5 Thursday night fly to France from england
(2-3 hours flight)
April 5-12 France (provence)
guide http://www.parislogue.com/featured-a...tor-guide.html
http://www.parislogue.com/planning-a...o-giverny.html
(day trips) http://www.parislogue.com/beyond-par...m-paris-2.html
Paris 5,6,7 (weekend) nights and days around paris
Sites: Eiffel Tower, Montmarte (sacre couer), Notre Dame, Boat ride Seine, Musee d-Orsay for (louvre), LATIN QUARTER
http://www.parislogue.com/travel-tip...cant-miss.html
Sunday the 8th day trip to Versailles (maybe night again in paris?)
Monday the 9th day trip to Giverny (night again in paris?)
Leave paris on the morning of 10
10-12 Loire Valley (Tours)
12th night train/flight to italy
ITALY Thursday night 12th night
First and
Second stop Venice 12-14
Third stop bologna (14 15)
Fourth stop Florence (15-17)
Fifth Stop Lucca17,18,19,20 Pisa 20, 21, Siena 21, 22, 23
Sixth Stop Rome 24,25,26,27
Seventh Stop Amalfi Coast (capri pompei etc) 27,28,29,30, may 1st, 2
Possible Eighth stop Sardinia probably not

Spain May, 2-May 17
(cordoba)
Andalusia-
Granada 2, 3, 4, 5,
Cordoba 6,7
Seville 7, 8, 9,
Gibraltar 10, 11
San Sebstian- Bilbao Basque country 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
Madrid 15, 16, 17

Thank you!!

nytraveler

At first glance it looks like you have a resonable amount of time in each place - but if youstart deducting time for travel - not so much.

I think you're OK in some of the bigger cities - but for some of the others I don't hink yuo have as muchtime as you think since you haven;t allowed for travel (which in any cases is 1/2 to 3/4 of a day - by the time you get done fooling around with packing, echecking out, trekking to airport, security, flight and then reverse to next hotel. So places you maythingk you have 2 days you really have oly 1 - and some 3's are really only 2's.

I would lay it out day by day - inserting real travel schedules - actual train or flight times - including the trekking to an fro - and then see what it looks like.

annhig

oooh, I'm a bit confused by your lay-out.

can we try this:

April 1-2 LAX-Heathrow
April 2-5 England
Days 2 london
Day 3 Bath
Day 4 and 5 london
Night 5 Thursday night fly to France from england
(2-3 hours flight)
April 5-12 France (provence
5,6,7 Paris (weekend) nights and days around paris
8th day trip to Versailles (maybe night again in paris?)
9th day trip to Giverny (night again in paris?)
10-12 Loire Valley (Tours)

12th night train/flight to italy
12th -14th Venice
14 15 - bologna
15-17 Florence
17,18,19,20 Lucca
20, 21, Pisa
21, 22, 23 Siena
24,25,26,27 Rome
27,28,29,30, may 1st, 2 - Amalfi Coast (capri pompei etc)
Possible Eighth stop Sardinia probably not

Spain May, 2-May 17
2, 3, 4, 5, Granada
6,7 Cordoba
7, 8, 9, Seville
10, 11 Gibraltar
11, 12, 13, 14, 15,San Sebstian- Bilbao Basque country
15, 16, 17 Madrid

so this is a pretty good plan, but there are a few tweeks you could make:

1. you aren't really giving yourselves long enough in London. you need to allow for jetlag, and a bit of R&R before you start. if you're going to do Bath, make it day 4 or even 5. [and possibly squeeze yourself an extra day].

2. I'm not following where Provence comes into it - you mention Paris and the Loire, with some day trips [which you should try to space out rather than doing them on consecutive days.

3. Italy - if you are staying in Lucca for that length of time, you can do Pisa as a day trip. that would enable you to stay longer in bologna or Florence. as you seem to realise, you don't have time for Sardinia.

4. Spain, lose Gib. you'd do much better spending more time in Seville, where you curiously have less time than in Granada. [i liked Granada but i liked Seville more].

have a great trip!

kybourbon

>>>17,18,19,20 Lucca
20, 21, Pisa <<<

Way too much time for me in these towns. I found Lucca to be deadly dull and you will probably see what you want in Pisa in a few hours. You can easily day trip to either of these cities by train from Florence in an hour (about 6€ each way).

Does your flight home depart from Madrid?

pomparr27

Thank you nytraveler and annhig,
I'm working on the transportation part of the itinerary right now and am having some issues about deciding whether to transport by train or plane
After staying in tours on the 12th should i go to paris and fly to venice it will only be a 1 hour 30 min flight at a cost of 58?

I'm assuming right now we will be doing a flight from
london to paris,
paris to venice,
and i have no idea of what to do from the amalfi coast to granada...
I am also doing a flight from granada to northern spain since i want to avoid too much time being wasted in train travel from south to north. By the way these are all assumptions by me (that flights will require less time, and time=money)

by the way i dropped gibraltar thank you for the recommendation.

kybourbon thank you for your advice!
i have no idea, my fiancee designated the time for lucca, we love the countryside but it was sounding like much time for me as well. Our flight does depart from Madrid so that is why we're doing a weird schedule in spain.

I really am at a loss when it comes to transportation from france to italy to spain...

well thank you all so much

tuscanlifeedit

pomparr: there really isn't countryside at Lucca. It's a walled small city. There are heavenly mountains to the north, but it takes a car and some very dedicated and careful driving.

I would think that about Lucca and Pisa can be seen from Florence, or certainly that 3 days in Lucca would be more than enough, even if you had a car for one of them, and used another to visit Pisa by train.

pomparr27

I have changed some parts of Italy and made some changes of itinerary.

April 1-2 LAX-Heathrow
April 2-5 England
Days 2 london
Day 3 Bath
Day 4 and 5 london
Night 5 Thursday night fly to France from england
(2-3 hours flight)

April 5-12 France (provence) art galleries Place des Vosges
the first sunday, musee dorsay and louvre aare free
guide http://www.parislogue.com/featured-a...tor-guide.html
http://www.parislogue.com/planning-a...o-giverny.html
(day trips) http://www.parislogue.com/beyond-par...m-paris-2.html
Paris 5,6,7 (weekend) nights and days around paris
Sites: Eiffel Tower, Montmarte (sacre couer), Notre Dame, Boat ride Seine, Musee d-Orsay for (louvre), LATIN QUARTER, arc de triumph
http://www.parislogue.com/travel-tip...cant-miss.html
Sunday the 8th day trip to Versailles (maybe night again in paris?)
Monday the 9th day trip to Giverny (night again in paris?)
Leave paris on the morning of 10
10-12 Loire Valley (Tours)
12th night train/flight to italy

ITALY Thursday night 12th night
First and
Second stop Venice 12-14
Third stop bologna (14 15 16)
Tuscany region (florence pisa lucca siena) [16-23](i am deciding on leaving it open it's a big confusing on which day to leave to where from florence)
Fourth stop Florence (16, 17, 18 19 20 day leave)
Day trip in pisa
Fifth Stop Lucca 20, 21, Siena 21, 22, 23
Sixth Stop Rome 23, 24,25,26,27
[St. Peters Basilica, Vatican, Colliseum]
Seventh Stop Amalfi Coast (capri pompei etc) 27,28,29,30, may 1st, 2

Spain May, 2-May 17
Andalusia-
Granada 2, 3, 4, 5,
Cordoba 6,7
Seville 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
San Sebstian- Bilbao Basque country 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
Madrid 15, 16, 17

I am still deciding about going to bilbao and basque country, my dad says lisbon is beautiful... and bilbao is dangerous.

zeppole

On what basis does your dad say Bilbao is dangerous? I'm not sure anyone else shares that view.

Lisbon has a notable pickpocketing problem, and drug problem, and people are usually more worried about safety there (as well as in parts of Spain other than Bilbao).

I suggest you take a day from Florence and give it to Venice.

In Spain, I suggest you take two days from Sevilla and add them to Madrid so you can do day trips from Madrid (Toledo and Segovia).

Overall, unless you already know you want more of Italy than you do France, I think you could steal some time from Italy so you could spend more days in Paris (I would take the time from Tuscany). Also, this may not bother you, but you are going to the most densely touristed places in Italy, with the exception of Bologna. I know it is hard to plan a trip relying on guidebooks, which of course steer you to the most popular-with-tourists places, but if you want to get off the beaten track for a while in Italy, there are beautiful places in between Rome and the Amalfi, or outside of Florence, where you would get a glimpse and taste of Italian culture among the Italians that isn't commercialized for foreign consumption.

jamikins

Why fly between London and Paris. The Eurostar goes from city centre to city centre and is much more convenient. Book yoru tickets as soon as they become available for the best price. www.eurostar.com

annhig

you are still talking about Provence - but so far as I can see you aren't going anywhere near Provence which is in the south of france.

and you need to do some research about the best routes to use to get between places - eg the eurostar between london and Paris as has been pointed out, and did you know that you can fly on easyjet from Naples to Madrid? [they probably go from paris to venice too, but I'll leave that one for you to find!]

pomparr27

Hi ALL,
My biggest issue right now, which I have researched, has to do with travel within countries. Looking at the Eurorail passes it almost seems that I would be spending more using a EuroRail youth pass than to purchase train tickets from point to point. I would love to hear your recommendations, this is in reference to
France: (Paris (day trips), Loire Valley (day trips) (Possible Extra cities in france too)
Italy: Venice, Tuscany (Florence and surrounding parts), Rome (and surrounding parts), Amalfi Coast (surrounding parts.
Spain: Granada (surrounding parts and day trips) Basque Country, Bilbao

Hi Zeppole please tell me about the small towns. It is our first trip so we want to see the (touristy) monuments, but we insist on striking a balance between touristy and off the beaten track. I have placed much time in florence and madrid because I wanted to keep my options open for doing day trips from those city centers to other much smaller places in Italy. We would both love recommendations to magical places that we would not find in guidebooks or websites. Thank you!
Also you may not know this but the dates are a bit rigid because I wanted to make sure that we do not spend weekends traveling but in specific cities instead...My birthday is on the thirteen of April and I don't want to be traveling around or unpacking on it. However, we do want to spend more of our time in Italy than France.
I believe I will really have to move things around, but I could possibly steal 12-15th for some part of France, but then that would give me the weekdays from 16-18 or 16-19 in Venice instead of the weekend. In any case let me know what you think and thank you for helping me thinking about different options.

Hi Jamikins,
Thanks to your recommendation I am now booking a Eurostar ticket instead. So much easier!!

Hello Annhig,
I have been researching the routes for about three hours now,
From London to Paris:
Eurostar
From Paris to Venice:
As for Loire Valley to Venice, most likely we will have to travel by train to Paris to get the best deal on a flight from Paris to Venice which would be 93.22 with Ryanair.
From Naples to Madrid:
It seems that naples to madrid is cheapest at 227.57 in total using skyscanner with a overnight stop in Milan (which would be nice). Now I am researching cheap/fast ways from Madrid to Granada. On May 3rd 68.30 from madrid to granada total for two is 136.66 one hour flight via rumbo.com
So Naples to granada this way would be -- 364.23
Naples straight to Granada 380.68 with a five hour layover in barcelona
Also Provence is just written there as a very very improbable but if insisted upon, I will find a way to make it happen.

Thank you all so much!

pomparr27

Also very random question but I booked my flight through Vayama as a roundtrip from lax to spain spain to lax. However there is a stop/layover in London for quite some time. Can I just take my baggage and leave the airport instead of going to spain?

pomparr27

The reason I ask is because it was a much more expensive flight to book a multi city trip from Lax to London then Spain to Lax, however since the roundtrip has a stop in London I was hoping to just leave and not finish the flight to Spain

jamikins

No you can't if you don't show up for the london to Spain flight they will cancel theorist of your flights, including the return journey.

jamikins

Cancel the rest...sorry for the typo

pomparr27

Oh no! Thank you for your quick response, I have to call my airline I really hope they will work with me on fixing this.