DonnaHart

In early stages of planning a first trip for my husband & self to Europe next fall for about 3 - 4 weeks. We will fly out of SFO and our trip will end with several days in Prague visiting friends who live there so will fly home from there. We'd really like to visit Paris, Normandy, Venice, Rome and possibly Florence, Amsterdam or Munich. I realize none of those make logical sense for then ending up in Prague, but we'd probably fly into Prague from wherever we end our European tour or possibly take train depending on time/distance. . We are thinking 5 days Paris, 1 -2 Normandy area, 2 days Venice & 3 -4 days Rome. That leaves several open days before heading to Prague for the last 5 days or so. Flexible on time but don't want to be overly ambitious on what we try to cram into our time. Any tips on absolute must sees and input on where best place to fly into and the order of the cities we visit. Thanks!!!

Andrew

With that much time, I suggest you see more than just the big cities. Try to visit some small towns, too. For example, south of Prague is the cute town of Cesky Krumlov. Prague is wonderful but mobbed with tourists. Cesky Krumlov can be touristy too but when I was there in September a few years ago, it was far less busy - a nice relief from the tourist mobs of Prague.

I suggest you plan Paris - Normandy - Amsterdam as one section of the trip, the Italy portion as another section, and then figure out how to get to Prague from there. How much time is left? Maybe not much.

You can probably fly easily between Paris or Amsterdam and Italy and maybe find a cheap flight from Venice or Rome up to Prague. There are budget airlines like easyJet, but they may not have their schedules set for next September yet.

You can take the trains between Paris and Amsterdam and within Italy without renting a car. You may want to rent a car in Normandy - driving there is easy and it's beautiful countryside (in addition to the D-Day beaches). You can take the train from Paris up to Normandy (to say Caen or Bayeux) and rent the car there if you prefer, without needing to drive out of Paris.

Try to open jaw with your flights: fly out of Prague and into either Amsterdam or Paris, probably, unless you find a better option to fly into Rome or Venice or something, then do Italy first, then fly to Paris or Amsterdam from Italy, then fly to Prague.

DonnaHart

Thanks Andrew for your response and tips. We will be in Praque area about a week with our friends and will be doing extensive sightseeing from that point including the areas you mentioned. We are just trying to put together the plan for the the first three weeks before we meet up with friends living in Praque.

Andrew

I'd first start by checking open jaw flights into Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, and Rome and out of Prague. This is far too early to actually purchase a flight, though, in my opinion. But you can get an idea of the connections from SFO (which airlines may work better than others). I'm sure from SFO you have a lot of options such as direct flights to most or all of those cities, which is what I'd prefer.

If you have three weeks before Prague, then I guess you could say roughly 9-10 days in France-Amsterdam and 9-10 days in Italy. It's common to see Rome, Florence, and Venice connected by train. You might consider cutting out Amsterdam and devoting more time to Italy in my opinion, but that depends how much your heart is set on Amsterdam. But if you did that, you could spend a week in France and two weeks in Italy (not counting travel days) and slow it down a bit.

janisj

3 or 4 weeks makes a HUGE difference. If it is three weeks and you want a week in Prague, then Paris, Normandy, Venice and Rome would be plenty to full your other 2 weeks (You need to allow for travel times - to get 2 full days someplace means staying 3 nights)

If you do end up w/ 4 weeks than you have enough time to add another city or two or region.

sandralist

You can fly non-stop to Paris from SFO, and that is what I would recommend if you can afford it. If you need to end your trip in Prague, then Amsterdam, Munich and Rome are all good places for catching a flight to Prague, so making one them your next to last stop is perfect, but you should also check out the possibilities for flying to Prague from Pisa, Bologna , Florence and Venice airports.

Also, if you want to go to Munich or Amsterdam from Italy or vice versa, flights on Lufthansa or Transavia can be very cheap. You can also go from Venice to Verona by train and get a 5 hour scenice train ride to Munich.

You don't say what you mean by "fall" when it comes to what time of year you will be traveling, but I would enjoy an "all-city" tour of Europe during most of autumn, and would hesitate to visit some countryside destinations, or rent a car, due to risks of poor weather in "fall". A lot of scenic tourist villages aren't a lot of fun in the rain, but the cities still sparkle with things to do.

DonnaHart

Thanks for your input sandralist and since we are in early planning stages, it is much appreciated. We are planning to travel September of 2016 for about 4 weeks which includes the final week week being spent in Czeck Republic and flying home from Praque.

PalenQ

Trains are best for visiting mainly cities where cars are rather useless - In Italian towns vast swathes of city centers are now off-limits to private cars, train are so so fast and modern. For lots of great planning tips check www.budgeteuropetravel.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.seat61.com. For schedules for any European train the easiest site I have seen to use ifs the German Railways pan-European train schedule: www.bahn.de/en.