We have just learned that we have two opportunities to make an approximately 11-day (including travel time) trip to Europe for the first time; over the Christmas Break, 2003 holiday or over Spring Break during the third week in March of 2004.

I'm a complete novice at planning such a trip. In fact, I can barely believe that this will be possible for us. Our list of top-choice destinations includes London, Rome, Paris, then Venice, Florence, Edinburgh, Madrid, Barcelona, but there may be related desinations we're not aware of, or, depending on when we go, better places to see at that time of year. We don't want to overdo it, but since we have no idea when we'll go to Europe again, we'd like to visit at least two countries from that list. Our budget is not unlimited, but we are making this a priority so we can go where we want.

"Us" includes my husband, our 13-year-old daughter, our 10-year-old son (both great travelers), and me. We want to balance sight-seeing with just hanging out and enjoying a place. My two questions are:

How do I decide when to go and how do I decide where to go given our possible travel times? A previous post mentioned that Rome was kind of shut down at Christmas and I read somewhere that Madrid is freezing in winter. We are not looking for winter sports, we are relatively early risers and, with the children, not interested in night life per se.

Thanks so much for any advice you can offer.

Jennie W.

Hi.

Warm is better than cold. There is also more daylight. You have only nine days so you may want to limit your trip to two or three cities, max.

I might suggest Venice and Paris with a breathtaking train ride in between. Plenty to see in both cities and plenty of opportunity for doing nothing.

Good luck.

You're welcome.

First, I recommend traveling in March (over Spring Break) instead of in December. The weather will be significantly better, and there will be more daylight hours. We've taken several trips to Europe with our 2 kids (now 12 and 14). Our last trip was to London for 7 days over Spring Break.

I highly recommend picking a base city (or two) and exploring from there. It's no fun to pack and unpack with kids. Also, you lose sightseeing time if you have to wait to check into different hotels.

Keep in mind that you will lose one of your days to flying to Europe, so that only gives you 10 days. If you stay in one place for 7 days (such as London or Paris), you could rent an apartment. The hotel rooms in Europe are tiny and typically only accomodate 2 to a room. (Now and then you can find a quad room, but it's not easy.)

One other way to handle moving to 2 different destinations is to fly into one city and leave from another. This significantly cuts down on travel time. We also like to intersperse big city experiences with more rural experiences.

Perhaps you could fly into London (your kids will LOVE London) and stay for 7 days, then take the Eurostar to Paris for the remainder of the trip and fly home from Paris. Alternately you could fly into Rome and out of Venice. We've not been to Rome and I've been to Venice without my kids, but according to my kids they rate the places they've been as London (#1), Switzerland (#2) and Paris (#3).

They enjoyed London so much we're planning a return trip. It's also an easier transition for the whole family since you will understand the language (mostly). You could take day trips to Windsor, Greenwich, Bath, etc.

Have a fun planning!

Susan

I haven't traveled in December to Europe but have done march trips with kids. I loved going to Europe in March. It's a bit off season so the big crowds aren't around (there are still plenty of tourists). That time of the year weather can vary. We've been to Paris, Amsterdam and around Italy. The best March weather we had was in Italy, especially as we headed south towards Rome. The weather was a little cool and damp in Venice, but after that it was sunny and springlike. Paris & Amstedam were both cooler and on the damp side (it poured one day in amsterdam). That time of the weather is iffy in many places but overall, we've had pretty good luck. There are many indoor sites, so rainy days can easily be kept busy without getting too wet or cold.

I agree with Susan. Since it is your first trip and since you will be travelling with your kids, London should be high on the list. Paris is always great. Why not split your 10 days between London and Paris, using an open-jaw flight to maximize your sightseeing time? This will allow for a really good taste of the two cities and minimize travel time. I, too, recommend March. While the weather is unlikely to be warm, the extra hours of daylight are nice.

continued from my previous post...

My kids' favorite Europe trip was Italy. Italy seems to really welcome children. My husband and I have been there before but this was the first with our kids. We spent 3 nts, venice, 1 each in Florence and Orvieto, and 4 in rome. Florence deserves more time if you have it but we just stopped to visit a friend and did minimal site seeing.

We no longer have the luxury of March breaks (different school vacations). This year I found great airfare for a trip to London-Madrid in April. None of us have been to Madrid so we are really looking forward to it.

Given 11 days including travel days, I would stick to 1 general area (possibly around Italy) or 1 or 2 places with easy transfers. I know many who have done the london - paris trip with kids (taking the chunnel). Keep i mind that any major city deserves at least 3 ful site-seeing days, expecially if it's a first visit. Also consider your chidlrens' interests.

Good luck in planning wherever you choose. I'm sure you will have a great trip.

This could almost be my post - I'm thinking of doing Italy over Spring Break during the 3rd week of March04. I will be taking my 9 & 21 year old daughters.

My questions are about airfare - how much should we expect to pay for airfare from SAT to Venice or Rome? Should we be booking now since the dates aren't that flexible? Do the airlines run specials during the winter and still have dates open for March? I did a quick search and found airfare between $550 & $600 but since I just decided to do this I haven't been watching fares to know if this is a decent price or not.

Thanks for any help.

I agree with those who said do London and Paris and do them in March. I've been to both cities in March and the weather was quite tolerable. Sunset is somewhere around 6-7pm so many more hours of daylight than you'd get in December. London and Paris are both "user friendly" cities, easy to learn your way around public transportation with plenty of both indoor and outdoor sites to accomodate all kinds of weather.

I'd try to get an open jaw ticket flying into one and out of the other. Then since you don't need to book your train between them till much closer to travel time, you can spend the winter researching both cities and deciding whether to split your time 50-50 or more in one or the other. Day trips from London are very easy so you could get a taste of smaller town Europe by going to someplace like Warwick (great castle), Cambridge, etc. Tons of posts on that subject if you do a search here.

I'd probably stick to just those two cities (with a daytrip or two) but if you really felt you wanted to add one more country you could stop in Belgium or Holland on your way from London to Paris without adding too much time. The distances are not that great in that area.

I have on disk long notes of things that parents on Fodors forum said went well for their children in Paris and London. If you ask me I can e-mail them to you.

Welcome to Europe

Ben Haines

rome at christmas is great. the weather is not too bad and the lines are non- existant. i would highly recommend it. we are going to paris this year. email me with any questions. [email protected]

Go in March to either London and Paris or Rome and Venice. Try to get an open jaw ticket to avoid backtracking.

Make a decision soon and don't drag it out with endless reviews of multiple travel options and city combinations. That will just frustrate you and make reservations difficult.

March is really not that far away.

Lots of good options here already! If I were to ask my kids (who were in Paris/Amserdam, ages 9 & 12, and around Italy ages 10 & 13 in March), I'd say they'd pick Italy. Very kid friendly with a variety of things to see to meet everyone's interests. March is a nice time to travel but weather could be iffy. We found Italy warmer (80s in Rome, 50s in Venice) then Paris & Amsterdam (damp and chily), but that's unpredictable. This year (in April, not March), we're doing London and Madrid.

funny, I just noticed I already responded to this thread a few weeks ago!

JennieW, have you narrowed down your list yet?

I think London and Paris at Christmas time would be very nice and festive. I've read that Florence is very nice for Christmas, also, although I haven't been there.

However, I would probably recommend your Spring Break also, mainly for cost reasons. You are concerned about the budget, and hotels and air fare will be a lot cheaper in March than around Xmas/New Years. Also, that isn't Easter holiday time next year, so there won't be as many tourists as there will be early April for that holiday. Daylight savings won't be in effect, though, until March 28th.