Planning 6 weeks in europe for May 2012 first time going there so would love some advise on an itinerary looking at doing London, Paris, Belgium, Germany, , Prague, Spain with stopover in Italy for about 1-1 1/2 weeks possibly in the middle. Not sure whether to fly into London and do paris belguim germany etc then italy then on to spain back up to London to fly out or go the other way London, Paris spain, Italy and then prague etc and fly out of Germany. We were looking at rail travel (possibly at night to cut down accommodation cost or is it better to travel during the day to see scenery) and possibly hiring a car to do some day trips from Florence.

Not knowing where you are coming from, what sort of budget you are working to, or what your likes/dislikes are it is a bit hard to give you much pertinent advice.

Suggest you get a few guide books, and haunt this Forum, and then start asking specific questions. We would be glad to help.

One point might be to not fly into and out of a single European destination. Starting in London, for example, and then returning there to fly home would mean back tracking from your last city. Much better, IMHO, to get an "open jaw" ticket that allows you to plan a journey that would let you fly directly back from your last stop.

Do this a lot next in April fly into LON aa.com for me this time AAdvantage CC points for free. seat61.com train from there regionals are cheapest.Sleeprs are expensive and not a good way to save. eurocheapo.com ricksteves.com
2 good euro ewbie sites. Crack open a guidebook or 2 and
go for it. Insuremytrip.com wise lots of strikes fianacial
unrest over there that will not be improving soon.

Happy Planning!

A few quick thoughts:

1. Fly home from someplace other than London to maximize your time (to not spend time/money getting back to London).

2. Very ambitious itinerary. If you subtract the 1.5 weeks in Italy you have 4.5 weeks for 3 major cities plus 3 countries. You'll have a flying visit to Belgium, Germany, and Spain and seeing very little because of time constraints. I would take Spain out of the trip this time.

3. You intimate that you have financial constraints on this trip (the comment about night trains to cut down accommodation cost). The more you move around the more money you'll spend. A brief visit to Spain may not be worth while once you consider how much you need to spend to get there for just a few days.

4. Map out each leg of the trip and how much time it will take to get from one place to the next. For instance, London to Paris will take about 3/4 of a day so I would count that as one day of the trip. You need to factor in not only the train time but getting to and from the train stations and hotels plus packing/unpacking time.

5. Figure out where in Germany, Belgium, and possibly Spain you want to visit. Identifying locations will help map out a plan.

6. Traveling during the day or night: Most of your journeys are too short for night trains. That would be the deciding factor.

7. Sometimes it's less expensive to fly rather than take a train (Prague to wherever in Italy, for instance). You need to look into costs of airline and train tickets.

Good post from Adr,

Your challenge will be travel logistics---I would focus on that. I do not see how Spain fits at all.

If it were me, I would use planes to make major hops, and point-to-point trains for places in closer proximity to string together. www.skyscanner.net has a great feature where you can look at the cheapest flights from ANYwhere to ANYwhere in Europe within an entire month. If you look at cheap airfares, you can make major breaks in an itinerary (e.g., fly from London to Prague or Berlin, then do a string of trains through Germany to Belgium, then fly to Italy, etc. - - you might find that you can hop from northern Europe to southern Europe and back north again and save money over taking longer train trips. Or don't start in London - - do it in the middle of the trip, because flights in and out of London tend to be super cheap (just one watchword - - you have to be packing light - - most flights enforce something like a 20kg checked bag limit along with a 7kg carry on).

It is usually more expensive to fly into the UK than it is to fly into Brussels. From Brussels, you can take Eurostar or Thalys to London & Paris.

Ryanair is a good (cheap) option for getting to around (esp. to London). But be aware that they don't fly out of major the airports, are very strict about luggage (you'll pay to check a bag), the cheap flights are usually at 6 a.m and the 10€ flights they advertise are usually only to/from the UK.

The Student Agency (Czech) runs luxury buses from London, Paris, Germany, etc to/from Prague. They are very inexpensive and many overnight routes.

You'll find the biggest selection/best prices for hotels on booking.com. Or look at renting apartments--homeaway.uk.com is good for finding those.

If you're driving and using Google Maps to figure travel time, we've found it especially inaccurate in Italy and parts of Germany.

A VERY ambitious itinerary for the time you have.

Agree you need to:

Get open jaw transatlantic tickets to avoid wasting time and money backtracking

Look at discount trains and planes (but do realize they are serious about not letting you on board with anything larger than a small gym bag - if you bring sizable luggage the overweight cost will be more than a regular flight)

Check overnight trains - they are expensive unless you sit up al night and many routes are too short for them (bahn.de is the best place for schedules and routes - but gives prices only for trains in/from Germany)

To get an idea of what you will really have time to see map out a night by night (where you will sleep) itinerary and use michelin gudebooks to figure out how long it will take to see major sights (the books will tell you it tkes 1.5 hours or 4 hours or whatever to tour the sight)

Start figuring your budget now. You have avoided hte most expensive places - Switzerland and Scandinavia - but do realize that everything will cost more than in the US (esp if you are not from one of a couple of major cities) with some thngs (soft drinks and hard liquor - but not basic wine or beer) MUCH more expensive than in the US.

Your question is HUGE. Once you have worked a bit more on your trip people will be able to help more specifically, when the questions are more bite-sized.

Excluding your 12 days in Italy, you have 4-1/2 weeks and mention 3 cities + 3 countries you want to see which is an ambitious itinerary to say the least.

It depends where-to-where you are talking about if a night train makes more sense (you want it to be at least a 7-8 hours journey to be worthwhile paying for a couchette or cabin) or day train to view the scenery. Also many people don't sleep well on a train, so I wouldn't do it more than once a week.

I would work with a map and a few guidebooks and try to prioritize your itinerary. What is it YOU want to see, why did you put Germany, Spain, Brussels on your list?