Husband and son finally decided what they want out of his 16th Bday trip. Total time will be about 9 days. They want to go to France, probably Paris, and then travel (how do you recommend they do this) to another country either Italy or Spain for the second half of trip and then come home to Boston. Should they drive between countries so they can see places along the way? Please excuse any naivite as we've only been to Europe twice. Any advice would be helpful. I should mention this will be son's 1st trip to Europe and Husbands second.

You have lots of suggestions on earlier posts; I don't think I can add a idea that hasn't already been suggested. With 9 days, especially since your son wants to practice his French, I suggest staying in Paris and taking day trips. If they really want to visit another place, London would be great. Fly in to Paris and out of London or the reverse.

Molly - With such a short holiday it would be better to fly IMO - otherwise you'll lose a day travelling.

You might want to check out flights on the budget airlines, which offer very cheap flights if you book well in advance.

For Italy ...

MYAIR fly Paris (Orly)-Venice
http://www.myair.com/docs/cust/en/index.shtml

RYANAIR fly Paris (Beauvais)-Rome
www.ryanair.com

EASYJET fly Paris (Orly)-Naples
www.easyjet.com

Hope this helps ...

Steve

Hi molly,

With only 9 days, I also suggest staying in Paris with 1-2 daytrips.

Your son won't be able to practice his French in Italy or Spain.

Thanks everyone, but last night I tried to pin them down and son says he really is not going to practice his French, he says that's my issue, can you stand it? They both really want to go to two countries, and Rome and Spain kept coming up.

What month?

I'm a little confused. For the last couple days you've been receiving lots of information about the all important idea of where your son can practice his French. Now your son says that isn't the goal at all. At the risk of sounding obvious, perhaps it's time you sat down with your son and your husband and asked what THEY want to do. There must be some reason you son has said he specifically wants to go to Europe. Perhaps your son has ideas of what he wants to see or do. It seems pointless for people to make random suggestions of where they should go when we don't have a slight clue about what they are interested in doing.
If the whole idea is some father/son bonding then actually I think the driving idea is good. Perhaps a possible plan would be to spend 4 or 5 days in Paris, then get a car and do the Loire Valley and/or Normandy.

Patrick certainly has hit the nail on the head...if it is the father and son trip, I think they are the ones to decide what they want to do. 9 days is a very short time..hopefully you mean 9 days there, not travel days.
The suggested Paris, and a drive to the Loire and/or Normandy for the father/son camaraderie trip sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Enjoy....

Ryanair Beauvais-Rome flights are currently less than € 20 on some dates in Feb.

Steve

Molly - I agree with the others that 9 days is not much time but I also remember when I first started traveling to Europe that I wanted to see multiple countries, and if that's what husband/son want to do then they should. While Italy and Spain are "big, important" countries, and while they do border on France, they are not very easy to get to. Even with cheap, short flights, it will still eat up most of a day when you consider getting to airport, waiting for flight, etc. So, my suggestions are:

1) go to a country that is easier/faster to get to from Paris such as Holland or Belgium. Both can be done via train in less than a half day. Amsterdam is very interesting and will very much like a different country from France. London is also a "very easy to get to from Paris" destination and is frequently paired with Paris for a short trip.

2) If they are really set on Italy or Spain take an overnight train. That could be fun for a 16 year old and will preserve a sightseeing day.

Are you also going on this trip or is it just the guys?

Fly into Venice, stay 4 days, take an overnight train in a private sleeper cabin to Paris. Stay 5 days Paris fly home from there.

Or similar with Amsterdam and Paris (but day train or flight between).

To put a better spin on the situation in his eyes... you won't be there, he will use his French in Paris because it's the smart thing to do rather than "practicing his French" because his mother told him to.

But if they really want to go to Italy and Spain as the 2 countries they have chosen... why are we still taking about France?

To your original question, I recommend they travel by train.

You can fly from Venice VCE to Paris Orly on www.myair.com

Both Spain and Italy border France, I don't see why they can't do what they want--which doesn't seem to have anything to do with Amsterdam or London, for example, and it is February. Why not go somewhere at least a bit warmer and maybe brighter.

Paris sounds like not even what they've said they want, since it's mentioned as a probably. YOu could fly into Madrid or Barcelona and go across southern France and see the coast and Nice, for example (and fly home from Nice). YOu could even take the train to Genoa, Italy easy enough from Nice, or down to Pisa and see some of that NW coast of Italy (flying out of Pisa) instead of adding the Spanish segment. Say, fly into Marseille.

I really think Christina's on to something. We are all posting away, doing our best to think up good plans, making suggestions in reply to what Molly has in mind. But it sounds like Dad and Son have something fairly specific and totally different that they want to do.

So my best suggestion at this point is to send Dad and Son to the public library, have them get a pile of European guidebooks and let them figure out the trip for themselves.

I suggest you sit father and son down in front of the computer, get them logged in here, leave the room and let them play around on this site. Son will think of all kinds of things to search and I guarantee they will have more than enough things to do when they get there.

Extrememly good idea from diddl_maus.

Best wishes,

Rex

Boy is this a travel web site or a travel therapy lounge. My husband and son are perfectly happy to have me help them plan this and you all have crunched more brain cells than they have combined over this...but thankyou I must because you are all so thoughtful to take the time...so I will talk to them and get back with you. can I remove my other posts so they don't confuse anyone?

You might consider Molvania. French is frequently spoken there. Being by the Meditteranean, it would be a nice contrast to Paris.

People keep mentioning Northern Italy and someone mentioned February.

FYI: The Winter Olympics will be in Turin; this site shows dates Feb 10-26.

http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/torino/index_uk.asp