Help me with this trip
 

My son is going to Spain for a student interchange. We are planning to visit him in May 2015. He's staying in Madrid so we want to start from there , then go to Paris, London and Amsterdam. Please make suggestions how should we do this. Where should we go first from Paris if to London or to Amsterdam . If by train for air fare? And suggestions on places to go and stay. How many days in each country? etc....

You other thread with exactly the same question is still alive - if it does sink just 'top' your old thread by saying 'topping' and your response will then bring you old thread back up - to duplicate will confuse only.

I would fly from Madrid to somewhere first - - www.skyscanner.net is a great way to find airfares - - you should be looking to pay ~100 per flight, or less - - here are some considerations:

* At Skyscanner you can select from Madrid, to "Everywhere", and then select to see fares for the entire month of May (BTW, flying to London from anywhere tends to be cheap).

* Be aware that the price quoted on discount carriers generally is the lowball fare that does not include checking a bag or a seat assignment, and that the actual cost can be $30 or so higher.

* Some airlines allow you to take 20kg (44 lb.) in your checked bag, some allow 23kg - - another thing to check the fine print for.

* You might prefer to Chunnel London/Paris instead of fly; Paris-AMS is also a quick 3 hours 20 minutes and could be more pleasant than negotiating airports.

Oops guess no Brits or wannabe Brits reading this or dfourth would be chastised for using the dread word "Chunnel" instead of Channel Tunnel! (Americans use Chunnel routinely - Brits seem to have never heard of it - I as an American speaking to an American audience would feel comfy saying Channel - the word most of use seem to use for the Channel Rail Tunnel Link.

Why two posts on the exact same subject? Trying to confuse the Brits, and PalenQ?

The basic point is that the Channel Tunnel (or Chunnel as our ex colonial cousins seem to like calling it, probably because it sounds snappier and slicker) is just a tunnel. The train services that you use to travel in it are the Eurostar (passenger) train or the Le Shuttle (vehicle transporter) train), seems more logical to be specific about which type of train you are going to take than just calling it the Chunnel, which could mean either train.
Anyway the term was first coined by the despised tacky UK tabloids, another good reason not to use it.

Trying to confuse the Brits, and PalenQ>

not very hard to do!

"English Channel" or "the Channel" the wet wobbly blue bit between England and France. :-)

"Chunnel" summit the Daily Mail made up (think Fox News but with a larger brain cell).

Speaking which did anyone see the Fox News solution to Muslim extremists, was the broadcaster on Pot?

It's what's referred to as an "air head", nothing of substance between the ears. An empty void for Rupert Murdock to fill.

Well as I oft refer to some graffiti I saw scrawled long ago on a Fleet Street newspaper facade "Murdoch is bad news!"

Yet bad news as Fox Noise has it here beats the pants off the cable news competition - much as Murdoch's U K papers seem to dominate as well - folks love 'bad' news.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...p-541929-2.cfm

Tere, that's the link to your other thread. I gave you a really good suggestion on that thread. If my suggestion is not right for you, fine, but try to indicate why. You have to give people feedback, otherwise it becomes a game of 'guess my trip' which is going to leave everyone frustrated.

Take care.

I'm sorry that I used the word 'chunnel' because that might be hard to understand for some of you. What I meant to say was "the thingie that was dug underground beneath the English channel that has train tracks where trains can go back and forth from England to France and back." I hope this is easier to understand, for all you sophisticates.

Nothing sophisticated, just the correct name, much like me using "pavement" to mean sidewalk in the US.

When I was a kid in the US, we called it pavement. I've since learned that's the British term. I've been wondering whether "pavement" was a local Philadelphia usage, or whether it was just my family who used it, given that my parents were Irish.

It's not hard to understand for anyone here the word Chunnel but is hard for our British and wannabe Brit friends to stomach.