My husband and I are planning a trip in mid May 09 from Denmark to Portugal and are taking the train. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice you can give us? We have travelled from England, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France two years ago and quite liked it, but we are a little green. Any help would greatly be appreciated. Barb & Andy

how long a trip, Barbie?

to cover the ground between Denmark and Portugal via Austria, Czech Rep and Greece [the countries you have tagged] is going to take more than a fortnight - 6 weeks would be more like it. Have you looked at a map - they're not even close!

a sensible route between Denmark and Portugal would be

Denmark
Germany
France
Spain
Portugal.

a possible [I can't really call it sensible] route from Denmark to Greece would be

Denmark
Germany
austria
Slovenia
Croatia
bosnia/herzogovina

my advice is - if you want northern Europe, see denmark, the north of Germany, and the Baltic states [Latvia, lithuania, estonia].

if you want sunshine, go for croatia, serbia, Greece.

it's going to be hard to combine the two.

regards, ann
serbia
Kosovo
Greece

Hi Ann,

We were planning on going for a month. Our main goal is to go to Greece, Spain, Portugal. The others would be just passing through and have a look at the country. Thank-you for your imput, it was very helpful, our plans may change as we get more information. Nothing is set in stone yet.

Sincerely Barbie

Travel by train and bus on the Iberian peninsula and find a cheap flight or flights (a transfer point may be needed) to Greece.

http://www.flylc.com/directall-en.asp

Spain is a little bigger than people sometimes think. Things are a bit more spread out and there is lots of stuff to see there. It may take more time to really enjoy Spain. You could easily spend two weeks of your time in Spain. If you are also planning on visiting the Greek Islands, Portugal might make it a little tight, time wise, unless you are going to visit only one area of Spain. IMO, I wouldn't try to see any other countries, even for just a glance.

The most obvious advise would be to decide on your first and last points, and then get an "open jaw" airline ticket, i.e., fly into Vienna, and out of Lisbon. That way you do not need to backtrack. I agree that you are biting off an awful lot for even a month long trip.

By the way, you could ask the Fodor's moderator to remove the "Trip Report" flag from your post. We use that to signal a report of a trip that has already happened.

Happy planning, we will help you all we can.

For info on trains in Europe see seat61.com. For cheap flights also see whichbudget.com. Even with a month you're probably trying to see too much.

Thanks everyone for your input. Barbie

May 09 or May 2010?

(starting my reading for summer 2010, maybe next year I'll finally make it, sigh... )

There are plenty of places in Spain and Portugal to occupy you for a month. but you could do Spain Portugal and maybe Morocco if that is something you would find interesting. good luck