First Europe Trip - Itinerary advice please
 

My DH & I are embarking on our first trip to Europe after many dreams of our exciting adventure. Ideally we would have liked much more time for this trip however this is not possible due to work commitments.

I'd really like some advice on whether our itinerary is realistic, best transport options between our destinations & any must do tips for the cities we're planning to visit. We're 28 & 30 y.o's travelling from Australia.

The first week of our trip is a little hectic however this is due to DH driving the Nurburgring on 3&4June (not negotiable) and returning to Nurburgring on 8&9 June for the Rock am Ring Festival (also not negotiable). So far all that has been booked are the international flights, Nurburgring (self drive & ring taxi), Rock am Ring festival & Wimbledon tennis tickets.

Itininerary:
Flight Sydney - Frankfurt
Frankfurt 2 days
drive to
Nurburg (Nurburgring) 2 days
train/drive to
Amsterdam 3 days
train/drive to
Nurburg (Rock am Ring) 2 days
flight to
Munich 4 days (Romantic road self drive from Munich)
flight to
Paris 3 days (day trip to champagne region)
train to
Bordeaux 3 days
flight/train to
Rome - depart on 5 day organised "Emerald Tour" Rome-Naples-pompeii-Sorrento-Capri-Amalfi (return) 1,015euro pp tour inc all day trips meals & accomodation
flight to
Venice (depart Rome) 2 days
flight to
London (Wimbledon x1 day) 3 days
Flight London - Sydney

The entire itinerary sounds hectic and rushed to me. You don't seem to have accounted for the time it will take you to transition from one venue to another.

You're rushing through many of Europe's major cities, most of which deserve a good deal more time. And it's going to be really expensive to do all this.

Only 3 days in Paris, and one of them you're going to Reims? Sorry, doesn't seem reasonable at all to me. You can drink champagne right in Paris.

And why Bordeaux? Not a "normal" first trip to Europe venue, and not that exciting, either. Now, a week in the Dordogne would be sublime.

You're young. You'll go back. Slow down!

I'd take out Bordeaux, add those days to Paris. Then take out Venice, add those days to London.

My reasoning is this: For a first trip to Paris you need more than you've currently allocated, an "A" list city, not Bordeaux as StCirq has mentioned.

Two days isn't giving Venice it's due, do it another time, and you need the days for London.

Then it begins to look like fun rather than a forced march. To improve it further you could leave out Amsterdam for some quality time in the area around Nurburg between commitments. And I'd go from Germany to Rome, then Paris and the Eurostar train to London. Much better now.

Sounds like your doing a 5 day whirlwind organized tour of Southern Italy when you get to Rome, leaving no time to actually see Rome. Rather than sit on a bus for five days, why not just stay in Rome and enjoy the city? Much of experiencing Italy is about enjoying its food and wine, while sitting in a cafe and watching the world go by. You will miss the best part of Italy if you are rushing around too much. Slow down and see all the many wonderful sites Rome has to offer.

I also like StCirq's & MmePerdu'schanges. Much better paced and gets you time to actually see anything in Paris and London.

I personally wouldn't take that 5-day coach tour, but it doesn't sound horrible (as long as the hotels are decent)

I would also omit Amsterdam and substitute a German destination or destinations, just because you'll get better bang for your buck. Possibilities? The Rhine gorge (Koblenz - Mainz), Aachen, Cologne, maybe Luxembourg or Maastricht. Maybe even stay in Koblenz and radiate out from there. Tiny Prüm is not far away either, good for a short stop, if you have time. But you'll have a long drive there and a long drive back if you go all the way to Amsterdam when there is quite a bit to see in the districts around Nürburg.

Lavandula

Drawing all that together, you would have this:

Flight Sydney - Frankfurt
Frankfurt 2 days
drive to
Nurburg (Nurburgring) 2 days
tour Rhine 3 days
train/drive to
Nurburg (Rock am Ring) 2 days
drive to
Munich 4 days (Romantic road self drive from Munich)
flight to flight/train to
Rome -5 days [you could get train to Venice and then train to Rome, if you borrow a couple of days here and there]
flight to
Paris 6 days (day trip to champagne region)
train to
London (Wimbledon x1 day) 5 days

i agree that's much better.
Flight London - Sydney

A vote for the proposed changes from me as well. I note the interest in wine has appeared twice in the OPs list. If that is hobby or career driven and therefore important you could add

1) The Rhine & Mosel have some great wines though you need to go up to the Ahr river (not far) to get reds though even these will be a little light. Riesling is a significant Australian product now-a-days so worth visiting its home and getting to enjoy semi-dry or even sweet versions.
2) If you want to do a day out you could still drop down to Reims from your Mosel/Rhine situation
3) as (2) but visit Alsace for those Gewurtz and Pinot Gris specials
4) While I understand there is drinkable white wine in Italy (seldom tasted but often spoken of) they do make a considerable proportion of the worlds great red wines in the country so I'm sure a day trip is very possible to a winery.

Thanks for your suggestions and advice. After much debate and careful consideration we have ended up going with the following itinerary & can't wait for our adventure to begin!

3 nights Nurburg
3 nights Amsterdam
1 night nurburgring (RockAmRing)
1 night Frankfurt (before an early morning flight -I couldn't take two nights camping at a music festival without shower amenities!)
4 nights Munich
3 nights Paris
4 nights Rome
2 nights Sorrento
2 nights Venice
5 nights London
Transport will be flights, except between rome & Sorrento- we'ver arranged car hire & sorrento to venice we'll be taking the overnight train.

marking

You really didn't take much of the advice offered. Your trip will be very rushed. Why not at least take a day from Munich and add it to Paris? Paris has much more to offer than Munich IMO. And you are already spending a lot of your time in Germany.

I guess you didn't think anyone here had much in the way of valuable suggestions. Enjoy your tour of the airports of Europe.

Two nights in a city equal one full day of sightseeing. So by that reasoning you have alloted two full days to Paris, hopefully without a daytrip anywhere since 2 days in Paris is hardly enough to eat a crossiant.. You have allowed one full day in Venice and Sorrento.

I have no idea what you are doing, but it will be a lovely tour of train stations and airports.

I really don't understand why Paris gets only two full days and places like Munich and London get more, I like London but would split time a bit more evenly myself. I would dump Sorrento and Venice since you are only doing a whistle stop there ( and yes, Venice is beautiful to visit, but you just don't have that much time)

yes, korky, you seem to have come away from the revised itinerary that you posted some time ago, and gone back more towards the old bitty version.

your trip of course, but you're really piling on the miles [or should I say kms?] for relatively little reward.

Just "amening" what others say in the latter posts--you didn't seem to care for what we suggested.
Paris deserves more time. Sorrento? Meh. Even 4 nights in Munich?

sigh :(

This will be an excellent learning experience, if not an excellent traveling one. But maybe, having nothing with which to compare it, it will seem very nice to them. They are, after all, 28 & 30 and can slow down as they get older when they have no choice. And like mine, their best trips may be after they're 50.

Good advice. Thx

KOrky--even if you don't take all the other good advice above ( and I really hope you do take it), please reconsider Amsterdam. When I first read this, I thought that stuck out from the itinerary.

Rhine and Mosel Rivers are both beautiful and easily doable by car from Nurburg. It'll make your first week a lot more relaxing, unless DH is all "driven out." In which case you could probably get a cruise down the Rhine to Amsterdam which would be relaxing and let you see Amsterdam if you must.

If you keep the above places to visit, I'd go from Munich to Venice to Rome and thence to Paris and on to London. Otherwise, you're taking much longer flights than necessary. Munich and Venice are pretty close, as are Paris and London. Any reason for jumping around Europe like that?

Thanks for all of your suggestions and advice. Your travel experience and willingness to provide advice is invaluable to help with planning travel adventures.

We have thought long and hard about the trip and though a few comments have been that we'll be back so no need to rush around, realistically we won't be back to this beautiful land for at least another 10 years.

While I agree with the fact that spare time will be scarce, we have formed the view that while we're there we won't have a huge amount of down time but we do have enough time to visit & experience all of the not negotiable "bucket list" activities. Most of which have also already been pre-purchased given the tight schedule.

I disagree that 2 days is hardly enough time to eat a croissant in France, I seem to have no problems demolishing one in about 2 minutes! ;) We have taken the advice offered and crossed day trips from France off the list.

We have given ourselves roughly double the time in each of the cities that the standard "cookie cutter" under 35's group tours allocate(which many friends have experienced and still came home with amazing life experiences, beautiful photographs and stories to share). We are just trying to make the most of the time we have.

I wish we had more time to enjoy the regions we plan to visit, but I am certain that following this trip we will have a good idea of where we'd like to visit when we do eventually get back to visit again and will most certainly will be stopping to soak it all in.