Assistance required for travel with seniors
 

We are a family of 4 and intend to travel Europe in Mid may 2014. I am planning to travel with my parents who are 75 plusyears.the scheduled itinerary is as follows-
Day 1. ArriveLondon
Day 2.London
Day 3.London
day 4.Paris
Day 5.Paris
Day 6. Paris
Day 7. Zurich
Day 8. Switzerland
Day 9.Switzerland
Day 10Switzerland
Day 11. Rome
Day 12. Venice
Day 13. Venice
Day 14. London
Day 15. Fly home
While my wife and I have travelled in Europe, this is a first time for my parents. I wish to understand whether or not htis is a doable program as it should not be hectic as their movement on foot shall be rather restricted.We plan to move around in London using hop on hop off, and proceed to Paris by a flight or train (which should i prefer!) I plan to use the swiss rail pass for travelling in Switzerland and procced to Rome and do venice by train before flying back to london.
Can anyone please suggest the comfortable way to travel with seniors in these places without involving too much of walking around. Also should Rome and Venice be included in the itinerary as I believe both these places are seen best on Foot.(Have never been to Italy before !)
Any suggestions are most welcome !

Well one way to make it comfortable is to cut several places from your itinerary. You have no travel time accounted for between places, and some are quite distant. air travel gets you there fast, but getting to airports, etc. is quite tiresome and time consuming.
London Paris and Switzerland, but not because Venice and Rome "are best seen on foot"--not at all.
Book an open jaw flight so you don't have to return all the way to London--time consuming and expensive.

IMHO this is a VERY aggressive trip for many people of that age - and esp for those that are not very strong walkers. Agree to cut back and slow down the pace. And from London to Paris the simplest rout is train - but buy tickets 90 days in advance to get the best prices.

I agree - it's exhausting just reading it, and I'm a long way off 'senior' age.
It's very difficult to get around Venice without a lot of walking. Beautiful place - but it would be the first one I'd cut out.

The suggestion to fly open jaw, or multi-city, is a very cogent strategy to eliminate time consuming backtracking.

You only have thirteen days on the ground for traveling and your itinerary is like a marathon at a dead run. You have scheduled one day for Roma, but you will be on a train for about eight hours, at least, leaving almost no time to explore the city. IMHO, you should drop either Italy or Switzerland. If it were me, I would drop Switzerland in favor of Italy.

Buon viaggio,

One day in Rome????????????

I see the recovery from jetlag taking up a fair bit of London (I'd use taxis to get them around). Hoho depends on how they are feeling. Take the Train to Paris. Venice is all about walking in narrow alleys with lots of people. If you do go there book rooms easily accessible by vaperetto and chose sites which are easy to get to.

I'd look maybe at Florence rather than Switzerland and Rome

<< One day in Rome???????????? >>

Ira - look again - they have to get from Switzerland to Rome which will take most of a day and then the next day move on to Venice so there will be a few hours in Rome.

Remove Italy from the itinerary and add the time to London and Paris. There is much too much moving around and not enough time for sightseeing, especially as the seniors are not robust and cannot walk far.

I would forget the HOHO buses and use taxis to get from one place to another.

Don't fly back to London for your return home but fly home from Zurich.

Fly open jaw, into your first city and out of your last. Choose 3 destinations. Not 3 countries but 3 stops - something like London, Paris, Rome or London, Switzerland, Paris. Your plan is not one for seniors, it is one for sprint runners. You will see very little and your parents, unless they are sprint runners, will be exhausted after 2 or 3 days. If this trip is for them, allow yourselves to experience the places you visit.

IMHO this is way too much traveling - for anyone - especially seniors. I think the worst part of traveling is getting to/from airports/train stations, packing and unpacking at hotels. Slow down your pace, eliminate at least two cities, and enjoy your time and get to know the places you visit. Our rule of thumb when we are traveling between cities is to spend a minimum of three nights in one place - no less. My advice would be to eliminate at least two cities. I hope you enjoy your trip.

where do you parents most want to go?

do they want to see the canals of Venice, the Colosseum, or the Eiffel tower, Buckingham Palace or the swiss mountains?

Get them to pick their top 3, and organise accordingly.

of all those places, Rome strikes me as the most difficult to get about for seniors. In Paris you have the metro, in London the buses and underground, in Venice the vaporetti. In Rome of course there are buses but they might be hard work for your and your family. OTOH taxis are relatively cheap in Rome.

Left up to me, I would do London or Paris, Switzerland and Venice. You could use the trains to get between those places which would be much nicer than airports.

Good luck!

I took my mother last year. She is also 75 and slowing down. There is no way she would have enjoyed this trip. Skip Italy, heck skip Switzerland. Do Paris, do London. If you want someplace else I would consider Provence. We rented a car which made it easier on my mother.

"Venice is all about walking in narrow alleys with lots of people. "

In reality Venice is all about walking up and down the stairs of endless bridges to get to yet another narrow alley with lots of people.

And by mid May "lots of people" means lots even by the standards of a Delhi railway station. Only in Europe, stations have no porters.

In reality Venice is all about walking up and down the stairs of endless bridges to get to yet another narrow alley with lots of people.>>

Flanner I don't entirely agree with that; in any event judicious use of the boats can make a big difference.

Where would you suggest that the OP and family go? besides the Cotswolds of course!

Also, remember that, by May, Italy can start to get hot!

Evidently, you're looking to reap your inheritance soon after the trip.

You want to know if this is a doable itinerary with seniors. It is not. Prioritize a maximum of three places and re-do the itinerary.

I just turned 78, and I'm an experienced (and frequent) traveler. I agree with everyone else that this itinerary is way too busy. Cutting out all of Switzerland would help.

Remember that you'll lose half a day to a full day every time you change locations.

I have noticed that on my last few trips, I'm not up to being constantly on the go. I have to have more down time than I did when I was younger.

Depending on your starting point, jet lag may be a real problem. I live in the northwest, and the time difference between my city and Europe is 9 hours, so I'm knocked out for at least the first day after I land.

You say your parents cannot walk, yet the trip you outline is a mad run. Believe me when I say they will NOT enjoy such a trip, perhaps not even survive it.

Please take the advice of all the sincere folks who are advising you to limit your trip to a maximum of two or at maximum three destinations.

How about this:
Day 1.Fly into Zurich (ticket from Home-London-Zurich)
Day 2.Switzerland(pick a base-Lucern or Interlaken or?)
Day 3.Switzerland
day 4.Switzerland
Day 5.Switzerland
Day 6.train to Paris
Day 7.Paris
Day 8.Paris
Day 9.Paris
Day 10.Paris
Day 11.train to London
Day 12.London
Day 13.London
Day 14.London
Day 15.Fly home from London

The good
Airports only on 1st and last day.
Short(4 hour) train rides between cities.
Can do day trips from London and Paris to the countryside.

drop Italy, regardless, that part really doesn't make sense.

Do not buy air tickets that involve returning from London, that also doesn't make any sense to go back to London just to fly out.

London, Paris, Switzerland would be do-able. You could fly home from Zurich. Some people love Switzerland, it is really a pleasant place to travel, don't know how else to put it. I'd travel by train to make it easier and more pleasant for all (London to Paris and Paris to Switzerland).

YOu can get a nonstop train from Paris to Lausanne, for example, it takes on 3:30 hrs. You could go from there to Montreux or Lucerne, end up in Zurich. I did the opposite, actually, flew into Zurich, took the train to Lucerne (which takes on 45 minutes), then to Montreux. There is a special scenic Swiss train between Lucerne and Montreux you all might enjoy. It's called the Golden Pass. It was really beautiful. http://www.goldenpass.ch/?Language=EN

YOu could do that trip in reverse, of course, which is what I did -- ended up in Paris. Only I went home from Paris, you could go to London from there.

If that is too much, just do 2 countries.