cherylmwp

Hi guys,

I would need some help on my Europe itinerary. I am going with my boyfriend for approximately 3 weeks. Both of us haven't been to Europe before, but we sorta collated the cities we'd like to visit.

We will be flying in from London.

Amsterdam: 19th Dec – 21st Dec (19th and 20th night in Amsterdam)

Berlin: 21st Dec – 25th Dec (Morning flight) (21st to 24th night in Berlin)

Krakow: 25th Dec - 28th Dec (25th and 26th night in Krakow) 27th night leaving to Prague

Prague: 28th Dec – 2 Jan (29th to 1st night in Prague)

Munich: 2nd Jan - 4th Jan (2nd night in Munich) 3rd night leaving to Venice

Venice: 4th Jan – 5th Jan (4th night in Venice)

Rome: 5th Jan – 8th Jan (5th to 7th night in Rome)

Paris: 8th Jan - 10th Jan (8th and 9th night in Paris)

**We have a budget of 3000 pounds (For 2 pax)

Accommodation: Airbnb

We are just unsure if we should take flights or trains from city to city.

Sorry if it's really messy, we are open to all opinions/views, thank you so much in advanced!

swandav2000

Hi cherylmwp,

I won't comment on your itinerary, which is far too fast-paced for my taste (goodness, only one full day in Paris for your first visit!!), but I'll make some other comments.

First, be wary of using Airbnb in Paris. While it is illegal for anyone or any agency to rent apartments short-term in Paris (unless you live in the apartment for at least 8 months of the year), the focus for the crackdown on illegal rentals is on Airbnb. You should do a search here about illegal apartment rentals in Paris. This could also be a problem for the other cities. So, you may want to shift your focus and start looking for inexpensive and wonderful hotels in your cities (Paris has a lot of wonderful 2-star hotels).

As for whether to take the train or fly, you need to do a bit of research. First, find out how long each of the train trips would be (use www.bahn.com for this). I personally really love taking the train, and a train trip has to approach 10 hours before I'll consider flying. For others, a train trip of 6 hours will have them looking at flights. Remember that a train journey will take you from city center to city center, so they can be very convenient.

When you start to research flights, find out exactly where the airport is in relation to the city, and how long it will take you to reach the airport. Then you need to take a realistic look at how long each flight will take you. It could be something like:

1 hour transport from city to airport
1h30 security/waiting at airport
1h flight
20 minutes getting luggage
1h transport from airport to city

So, a simple 1-hour flight can actually take 5 or 6 hours from city center to city center.

Hope you get lots of good information -- and have fun as you plan!

s

fourfortravel

I second swandav's comments about sitting down and realistically looking at transit times to better map your itinerary.

Also, as you are planning travel over the Christmas holidays, keep in mind that 25 and 26 December are major holidays in Krakow. We spent this past Christmas in Krakow, and by midday on 24 December the city was a ghost town; any place that had opened at all was closing. We had an apartment and could enjoy the Christmas holiday and dinner, but you may feel differently stuck in a hotel room.

sandralist

I think you might find more open in Amsterdam over the Christmas holidays, so if you can arrange your trip that way you might find it more fun.

You should not use plan on using AirBnB for Paris or Berlin.

You said you are open to all suggestions, so I am going to suggest you pick warmer destinations in Europe! If you are very keen to see to the places you have mentioned, then by all means, bundle up and go there. But if you have never been to Europe and a curious to learn more about it, I suggest skipping some of the more frozen cities in favor of destinations in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece. None of them will be summer weather, but they will be a lot warmer by comparison.

Wherever you choose to go in Europe, the combination of holidays + shorter daylight hours + risk of bad weather all impose limits on what is "doable" as a traveler during your time frame. Unless plan with all that in mind, you could end up not seeing hardly anything despite going through at lot of hassle to get to places.

Fortunately you have a long time to think about this...

scigirl

The temptation on a first trip to Europe is to behave as if it is the only and last trip you will ever make. 5-7 days per stop, including transit time, will give you a much better trip. So, maybe a maximum of 4 cities/locations that you can see in 3 weeks. You lose a day to travel getting to/from Europe, and close to a day (at least) getting from one location to another. Given that, you have for some stops only a smidge more than 24 hours to see things, and you do have to sleep at some point. Rome to Paris is a long trip, flight or train. I think the train may be close to 24 hours to get from one to the other. Amsterdam to Paris is over 3 hours on high speed train, 8+ of regular train). And it costs a lot of money to get from one place to another. Would you rather blow your budget on low-cost airfare that eats up your travel time or would you rather have some sumptuous dinners, a few treats while shopping, and money to take you to the top of the Eiffel tower?

Europe will be there, and since you have the gumption and wherewithal to get yourself there once, you will most definitely be able to manage it again (and hopefully many times).

Kathie

Like others, I think you are trying to cover too much ground. Choose your 3 or 4 must-see places and leave the rest for next time. I also agree that cutting the farthest north destinations makes sense. Others have given you ideas about travel times. Remember that if you want three days in a place, you need to stay there four nights.

I think your budget is ok. And you won't have to deal with jet lag coming from the UK. You might want to consider hostels rather than Air BnB (or in addition to it).

Spend some time with guidebooks to help you decide which places to go this trip and what you want to do/see/experience in each location.

suze

Are there any cities you would be willing to cut from the list? That is an extremely rushed schedule and covering an awful lot of territory.

I know everyone's different in the pace they prefer, but I'd personally leave out Krakow, Prague, Munich... and split your 3 weeks between Amsterdam, Berlin, Venice, Rome, Paris, giving you approx. 4 days in each city. Still not exactly "slow travel" or anything.

nytraveler

Sine the OP and her boyfriend seem to be from England (even though they say they've never been to europe - I know some people in England seem to think it's not part of europ) because they are using pounds as their currency - they will have a million chances to go to europe. It's only an hour away by air.

Agree that they are trying to get to way too many places in too little time and not allowing for the fact that many things will be shut on the afternoon of the 24th, the 25th and New Year's Day.

And agree that they really need to check train times versus the (presumably) budget airlines they are thinking to use - which often fly into airports at the end of hell and gone. IMHO for anything less than a 6 hour train ride planes make no sense. They have plenty of time to sort this out and buy the super discount train fares.

To me 1.5 days in Amsterdam and 2.5 days in Paris (just my assumptions since I don't see where they have accounted for travel time) is realy just a waste of time to get there.

I would consolidate into no more than 6 cities (not 8) esp given all of the holiday closings.

But only the OP can decide.

Suggest they lay the trip put day by day, listing where they will start what travel is that day (and how many hours) and where they will sleep

I think this exercise will show how little time they have in most places. But if they think that is enough time to see the sights they want - then go for it. But there i no way I would try it.

As for 3000 pounds for both of them - that is 1500 pounds for 21 days - or 71 pounds (about 80 euros) per day, including all the planes and trains between cities. Looks to me like a low budget (hostels or couchsurfing, picnic meals or cooking (in an apt if they can afford one) no shopping and limited nightlife. And ignoring the more expensive sights, which can blow this budget out of the water.

traveller1959

This trip will make you experts for train stations and airports.

Be aware that daylight hours are short this time of year and that you might like to warm up in a café after a few hours of walking through town - this will reduce the time for sightseeing in cities further.

Also be aware that checking in and out of a airbnb apartment may take more time than checking in and out of a hotel and that the apartments may have more remote locations so you will lose more time for transportation within cities (unless you take taxis, but you do not have a budget for taxis).

So, overwhelming arguments to cut several destinations out of your itinerary.