Europe in a month - how many citys?
 

Me and my girlfriend are from the UK and are planning to travel through Europe with the month long rail pass and are just starting to plan the trip. We should be comfortable money wise as we have been saving for a while but I think we may have been to ambitious in our number of destinations.

Belgium, Holland, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey.

We intend to visit mainly the major citys and sight seeing will be the main draw. We will fly to one of our destinations so the pass will only run from when we leave that place, then we will finish somewhere we can relax on the beach before flying home.

Are we nuts? Any advice?

&quot;<i>Are we nuts?</i>&quot; Yes

&quot;<i> Any advice?</i>&quot; lots

&quot;<i>I think we may have been too ambitious in our number of destinations</i>&quot; You want to visit 12 countries (and who knows how many different cities) in 4 weeks! And they are spread over the entire continent from the Netherlands to Croatia to Spain.

Even taking lots of night trains, this is a nearly impossible plan. I'd sit down w/ your girlfriend and decide which 4 or at VERY most 5 countries you want to visit. Then pick one or two cities in each country. Even that would be a really hectic itinerary -- and you will need beach time to recover.

I think you are being too ambitious. My advice is to cut back - cut WAY back! Good luck!

Hi Matt - Which cities do you intend to visit in each country - and how long do you plan to stay in each?

We need a few more details before we can help, I think ...

Steve

Yes, you may be.
I would cut the countries to no more than 5 and drop everything SE of Italy. I would also spend half of my time in cities/villages of less than 100K population---some less than 10K. Think Brugge, Garmisch, Salzburg, Siena, Luzern. I would also drop Spain. Italy takes a month by itself---as does Spain.

If it's Tuesday this must be Belgium honey!

Hi, UKMatt!

No, you are not nuts. Actually, you and your girlfriend are quite sensible in planning such an ambitious vacation so far in advance.

You could easily visit 2 cities each week, enabling you to visit 8 cities in four weeks.

Your first week could be split between Amsterdam and Brussels, your second week split between Prague and Budapest, your third week between Venice and Rome, and your fourth week between Barcelona and a beach town on the Costa del Sol.

Enjoy your travels! Tell us what you decide.

I don't think you are nuts. I had a friend go to 10 different countries in 10 different days. This might not be the best way to do it, but he took overnight trains every night so he would wake up in a different country each day. You could always try some varation of overnight trains and normal trains. There is a ferry that travels overnight from bari, Italy to Greece.

Answer: Depends on your goals.
1. If your goal is to step foot in as many cities as possibel in 30 days, you could get off at each stop (be sure to take local trains, not an express), step onto the ground, and immediately reboard the train. You might be able to visit 100's of cities that way.
2. If your goal is instead to experience the best of Europe, heed most of the advice above (and below).

By no MEANS are you nuts! That's imminently doable! Let's see, last year when I spent over 5 weeks in Europe I went to 13 different cities in 3 countries-it was like nothing, and I did not have a Eurail pass-heck you should do ALL OF THOSE, AND PACK MORE IN, IF YOU CAN.

Why not? You're only young once, and you should see as much of the different cultures of Europe as you can, while you can, you never know what will happen in the future, and whether you'll ever be able to travel to these places again, right?

My first thought was that it was too much. Spent almost 2 weeks in Romania alone and honestly, we short changed it.

But the truth is, I wish I could have done one of those marathon moving trips when I was younger. Not sure how you're going to get to some of them though unless you also slip some budget flights in or cut some countries. I'd draw a line on a map from closest to home to furthest. Whatever doesn't fit along a reasonably straight line probably isn't going to work.

the OP is not talking about 3 countries and a few cities in each one. He wants to visit <b>twelve countries</b> and an unknown number of cities in each, over most of the continent.

3 countries geographically near each other (or w/ cheap flight connections) and a few cities in each would be eminiently doable.

But those 12 countries by rail in a month (?) - nigh on impossible w/o spending almost every night in a sleeper. absolutely nuts IMHO.

Well yeah. It'd be way too much for me. Especially since at my age, I like to hang out and get a rough idea of where I've been and sometimes not even go &quot;see something&quot; on the odd day.

But if you're young, you're allowed to be a little nuts. It's in the fine print.

Hey, they are from the UK, cheap and short flights...and they can come back again quite easily :) So if they want to do a quick overview it's ok. Anyway, for make things a bit easier with logistics, I would drop Turkey and Greece. They are a bit out and would make the trip more expensive and difficult in terms of time needed (even when they are not expensive countries on themselves).

30 days total. Minimum of 12 days travel between the 12 countries you mention. That leaves 18 days for 12 countries or a day and a half per country. So if you really want to just get a whizzing glance of Europe, pick one city in each country and make that it. There aren't enough days to spend two days in each country after travel!!

kenderina: True -- IF they were going to fly between places. However the OP stated they are using a rail pass. So - nope really not realistic.

Janis, you are right , my mistake :)
Anyway, I know people who has done similar things..they just arrived in the morning to a city and left in the evening on a night train. And one even says that he would have left in an earlier train if it wasn't for his friend !! So there are likes for everything,I suppose :)

Hi Matt,

It sounds like too much to try and do in a month though I did do crazy travelling when I was much younger. I've learnt over years of travelling, it's better to take it slowly, you get a lot more out of it.

If it were me, I'd get the Eurostar to Brussels and also visit Brugge in Belgium then have roughly a week each in Italy, Croatia and Greece. That's it - your month is up.

Happy travels.
Kay

Another way to look at it is that one night only in a city is really just a sleeping stop. Assuming you had a pretty major distance to get there and will have a major distance to go the next day, it leaves no time for seeing the place you're &quot;sleeping in&quot;. So that means two nights for any city you really want to even begin to &quot;see&quot;. I tend to feel that unless it was a very small town, three nights is minimum for really starting to explore the city. But even assuming just two nights for each city, that makes a total of 15 cities. You have mentioned 12 countries. You do the math from there.

hi, matt,

here's a Uk perspective on your proposed trip.

Belgium, holland, france, germany and even italy and spain are reasonably easy and cheap to get to from the UK, so can be done in short trips.

Croatia, greece, hungary, romania, turkey aren't. [well not so easy anyway, and definitely further away]. they have the advantage of being somewhat cheaper than &quot;western europe&quot; too.

so my suggestion is to head for croatia [rave reviews from everyone] and see how you go. The rough and lonely planet guides have lists of hostels and cheap lodgings.

regards, ann