Never been to Europe before. Two recent college grads traveling before starting graduate school. Flying round trip to London. Staying with traveling companion's grandparent's at their house in London. We have friends to stay with in Munich and Florence. Planning on buying a EuroRail Pass, working on the number of days. So far we have:

f nights
3 London (flight to Munich)
3 Munich (day train to Venice)
3 Venice (train to Florence)
3 Florence (train to Rome)
4 Rome (train to Cinque de Terre)
2 Cinque de Terre (flight from Pisa to Barcelona)
3 Barcelona (either day train to Paris or flight)
6 Paris (train to London)
3 London
1 extra night to put somewhere along the way. We are leaving July 3rd and returning Aug. 4th, 2011. This is a spur of the moment trip, hence the need for suggestions. We are able to figure out the must sees, but would love to know places to stay on a low budget without resorting to hostels, but need to stay in that price point or close to, if at all possible.

And also would love advice on other interesting things to see and do along the way. Friends have recommended from their trips a biking trip in the countryside of Florence and hiking in Cingue de Terre. We are also planning a side trip to the WWII memorial and cemetery for the D Day Invasion which our grandfather was a participant and also a visit to Dachau as he was a part of the liberation forces that first entered there.

Trying to get an overview of Europe. We know we can't possibly see everything this trip, if ever, but will allow us to see enough to plan other trips in the future, if that makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to read and perhaps comment with suggestions.

Christine

The force is strong in this one.

This looks nice for the time you have and what you want to see.

The day train to venice will eat up most of one of your Venice days, so you might want to consider adding the extra day in there. The same thing happens Barcelona to Paris but you have more days to play with.

One thing to consider - day trips like cycling in Tuscany, or D-Day Memorials take up the better part of the day so you have to consider what that takes away from the city you are visiting. For example

Day 1 - Train Venice to Florence, arrive mid afternoon
Day 2 - Florence
Day 3 - Cycle Tour
Day 4 - Train Florence to Rome

That is really only 1 full day in Florence and part of a couple of others - essentially an afternoon and an evening, presuming you leave in the morning for Rome. That might also influence where you want to put the extra day.

You pretty much have to hike to see the Cinque Terre so don't worry about that one.

Close to hostel prices are going to be.....hostels. You may find some private rooms in homes that approach them.

For trips between European cities, I would first check with low-cost air lines like Ryanair http://www.ryanair.com/en.

DDay Memorial is really worth a visit, IMO

Well with that type of itinerary some type of railpass could be a great boon - probably a flexipass where you buy 10 or 15 days of unlimited rail travel to be used as you want over a two-month period - you should strongly look at the Eurail Select Saverpass (two or more folks traveling on one pass that gives a discount over two single passes of about 20% - anyway Select Pass valid in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and France.

Great sites for planning a European rail journey and pick out passes and investigate alternatives to passes - though on such a wide-ranging trip with several international trains the pass may be the best option and especially since it gives you the chance to chose any train you want to take as you go along and not have to book weeks in advance in perhaps unchangeable and not refundable tickets - www.seat61.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com - for schedules I always use the Wunderbar IMO German Railways web site that has schedules for nearly all European trains - www.bahn.de.

I would suggest you consider getting an "open jaw" airline ticket so you do not need to backtrack. They usually cost little or no more. Into London, and out of Rome, for example, would could save you some time and money on land transport, if you are willing to adjust your itinerary a bit.

Thanks, Aramis, PalenQ, and nukesafe. I appreciate the tips. I am thinking about adding days to Venice and/or Florence. We are scheduling around our hosts in Munich and Florence, the need to be there during a weekend for one and weekdays for the other.

I have seen a few hotels on this forum in Rome and Venice, that when taking in account 2 people paying the cost of the hotel room is just a little bit more than each getting a hostel place and the location is better. Still looking for places in Paris, Venice, Rome, Cinque de Terre, Barcelona, and Paris. Looking for personal recommendations on places to stay, eat, and interesting or special attractions in all the above cities.

So far we are looking at a 6-8 day rail pass, one of of is officially a student, and we are under 25. We would use the rail pass to get from one city to another and buy city passes for the local transportation. Looked at Ryanair for flights between Pisa and Barcelona and Munich and London, quite reasonable.

We are willing to shuffle around the cities, but have our round trip tickets to London in order to spend lots of family time with grandparents that live in London.

Working on listing the must see sights for the cities, and trying to find out other special stuff to do and see that might not be on the top 10 list. We want to try to fit into our city trips quality time seeing the sites, but not doing a whirl wind just to see everything.

Any other comments and suggestions would be really welcomed.

Christine

You are going to lose many days traveling. For a month I would concentrate on two conuntries. If you are young you will heading abck sooner or later.

The choice is personal taste. We travel with the thought we would rather see a few places well than many poorly.

Your strip is right at the start of high season, so get some rooms booked

Pick up a Let's Go Europe book. There are some every good hostels in Europe if you do your research and book ahead. You can also check venere.com and filter on price to see if there are any decent, lower priced hotels. But beware, because kind of hotels tend to be in out-of-the-way locations.

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www.eurocheapo.com

Also, check/post on travel forum of Lonely Planet. May find others who have planned similar itineraries on 'ThornTree'.

Venice will be tough to do at a hostel rate.

Many people stay in Mestre, just across the causeway and train in. Padua, about 35 minutes away by train is nicer.

In Venice the HI hostel, lovingly situated in an old canal-side edifice on an island smack opposite Saint Mark's Square, may be your best bet at limiting costs - save the 'camping' sites at Mestre that rent out places in caravans (trailers) or tents.

My daughter (college post-grad) and her brother (college student) have just about completed 3 weeks touring in Europe. They weren't interested in staying in hostel dorm rooms but they were able to find affordable 2 or 3-person private rooms (their cousin joined them for part of the trip) in hostels. They had to share a bath in some cases, but they had the bedroom to themselves. My daughter found all these places on Hostel World.

They are in Venice now and that's the one place that the rooms were expensive. The Biennale art festival is going on there through October and I think that's where they are today. There was a good write-up in today's Washington Post in the Arts Section and you can find out more about it from the Biennale website: http://www.labiennale.org/en/biennale/index.html

I was recently in Barcelona and stayed 4 days in an apartment I found on Homelidays:
http://www.homelidays.co.uk/

I used a lot of hotel brokers (like booking.com)to look for something not expensive, but found better offers on the homelidays site.

In Barcelona:
If you like sea food and want to be the only tourists around, I recommend "O'Retorno",Comte d'Urgell 168, phone: 934531104. Very simple decor, great food, very popular with the locals.

also, since you have six days in Paris I would recommend a day trip to Omaha beach. We drove up, but there are organized trips from Paris like for ex:

http://citysegwaytours.com/paris/tours/d-day-beaches

havn't tried that one myself, there are probably others organizing similar trips if you google paris-omaha beach.

very moving regardless of your nationality.

if you can you should try to work in Amsterdam in your schedule. 1 1/2 - 2 days is enough to get a feel for the city of Amsterdam on a trip like yours. Visit the house of Anne Frank since you are on that theme (get there early - long line to get in)

Hey Christine congrats on your trip

Www.santafosca.com best cheapest Venice hostel

Pass bad value for most when you figure pass cost per day plus surcharges

Seat61.com good discussion on this www. eurolines.com pass cheapest best if shoestring budget

Even works in the UK unlike eurail pass.

Backpackeurope.com eurocheapo.com hostelz.com best budget sites

Onebag.com for packing columbusdirect.com for insurance have fun,

Otel.com gets me close to hostel price point on cheap hotels

Also now fiva per cent cash back and ten per cent facebook like discont with them

Www.hotelpausania.it 59 euros and www.hoteldelfino.com 40 euros

booked with them in May when I was there.

Worth a bit more to do this than hostels for me

I think you will have a problem to get travelling during high season aligned with your necessity for budget accomodations.
Especially in places like Venice, Rome, Cinque Terre, and Paris. Barcelona is also not exactly the cheapest place to stay.

Have you thought about extending the stay at the places you can stay for free?

For example: take the night train from Munich to Venice, stay one night in Venice, and continue onward to your friends in Florence. Extent stay in Florence -- there is lots to see and do to fill a week, e.g. Siena, Pisa, in addition to your bike trip. If accomodation in Rome is a problem, even that could be a day trip from Florence with trains that need just 90 minutes each way.
Rome is definetely worth more than just a day trip, but you picked the most expensive places to stay, so there is probably no very easy solution to your problem.

Whooopee, thanks for all the great suggestions, am searching frantically. Grendel we definitely going to the WWII D Day museum and sites. My grandfather landed and fought there, along with the Battle of the Bulge. He also was one of the first Allied soldiers to liberate Paris and to liberate Buchenwald, all places I want to see. He will be 93 in October.

Christine

Tell Grandpa Aramis says he ROCKS!