First time to Europe, advice needed
 

This fall, I will be studying in Lyon, France. I'll be there from the beginning of September - December 22nd, and need advice on where I can travel to. I will be traveling with a friend of mine.

I am looking for ideas of weekend trips. Any suggestions on where we can go? We will be able to leave Friday afternoon and come back late on Sunday. Where can we go that we won't spend all our time on a train/plane?

Is a Eurail pass going to be the best way to travel for us? Any suggestions on that?

Finally, we have the last week of October off and want to spend that week in Italy. Is it feasible to also go to Greece? We want to spend some time in Rome on our break, but if you have any other suggestions for places to go during this week, I'd love to hear them.

Sorry there are so many questions, I was just accepted and it's both of our first times in Europe, so I'm a little overwhelmed. Thank you!

Do you have a good map of France and Europe? This should be a good start for you to get ideas.

The high-speed trains in France make it easy to get lots of places in a couple hours from Lyon. You could easily go to Paris for the weekend from there, it's only a few hours -- as well as south to Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Nimes, Arles, etc. I don't know how much time you are willing to spend on the one-way travel, it makes a difference. But I certainly think you could go to Nice or the other way (Montpellier, and beyond).

I don't think a Eurailpass is a good idea in your situation. Those work best for people who want to do a whole lot of train travel in a month or so, and expensive trips for long distances. If you are only traveling a little on weekends, and mainly within France, it won't pay. There are other ways of getting cheap tickets on the French railroad, anyway, and short trips don't cost that much for a regular ticket. So I'd forget about those rail passes.

Thanks, Christina. We're not really picky on how long we spend traveling, we just don't want to spend thw whole weekend traveling, and not get to see the place we're going to. We're not really picky about much of anything, we just want to be able to experience as much as we can while we're there.

Besides Christina's good comments, I think trying to do Greece and Italy for that one week is too much. There is enough to keep you occupied in just Rome for a week, much less other places in Italy, so I'd make Greece a separate trip.

I was starting to feel like that's what would be our best bet. Thank you! So, it'll be 9 days in Italy (including travel time). Thank you for your advice!