bobthenavigator

I agree, get the car in Nice---too far to drive from Paris.
The best of Switzerland is the Berner Oberland and Luzern is also a highlight. Sounds like fun---good luck !

tower

Ira and Bob the Nav.

....check out the five or six relevant threads that this OP has come up with...all as scattered as this one. Methinks there is a problem here when you piece it altogether (if you want to waste your time doing so...I did and I'm finished with it).. She just joined in November...and there are at least a dozen contradictory points....for example, first it's her DH going with her, then it's a "partner", and then it's a "friend"...she's in her early 20's..I think we've all been had. Strange(I'm going to post these comments on the other threads....and the beat goes on!)

stu

bobthenavigator

Good read Stu !

rex

Your conclusion seems peculiar to me, stu...

There are only _three_ threads that relate to this particular trip: this one, one about Germany and one about Greece. The Greece thread was started the same as this one, and she makes clear that she has dropped Greece from the (too-ambitious) original plan(s). So, really there are just the two.

Segmenting off the Germany questions does not seem suspicious to me.

She has asked only two other questions - - one seems a little peculiar about Sweden; the other (about her mother and friends in England) might have some quirky notions about geography, but nothing else that suggests that "we've all been had".

amwosu

I had similar thoughts but I chose to give OP the benefit of the doubt even if he/she is only dreaming. I'm guessing the OP is young and seems to be a little clueless about traveling on their own.

tower

<i>"we've all been had".</i>

Rex...perhaps a bit harsh..but if you take a close of her other threads, you'll see an irregular pattern. I answered her Swedish thread, then got to thinking...I still don't think it's real.
stu

tower

Rex...should read: "take a close <u>read</u> of her other threads"...it still makes little or no sense to me, Rex.
stu

insouciance

hello stu

i think it's kinda harsh but i'll explain what i'm doing. i'm currently doing a gap year and have one year devoted to just travelling. so basically, end of this year, i'll be doing a trip to paris +italy and then to stockholm (which i've planned and asked started one thread one), and i'm actually doing a whole lot more trips in between, which i haven't asked questions on because i've found answers from other threads.

then my mom n friends are visiting in april, hence the thread on uk since they're dropping by my place first. and then my own huge trip with my partner/friend/bf/whatever u call him in may/june. i'm not sure if it seems suspicious but i was just planning and decided to come up with qns at one go. and i'm not sure if anyone would be so free/have nothing to do such as to waste time asking questions and waste time formulating itineraries which will not be put into action.

i hope that clarifies things a little.

ssachida

don't know if this has already been mentioned, but ...
the cinque terre is most easily reached from monaco as per your itinerary. also, since you are already visiting the french riviera, i might be tempted to substitute a tuscan hill town for the italian riviera.

tower

Insouciance:

Thanks for you partial clarification...<u>but don't you agree that coming out with this information would have avoided any suspicions?</u> There have been too many original posters over the years who have asked a multitude of questions, posted preliminary itineraries, etc, and are never heard from again.

Perhaps if you had answered Rex's list of questions (in one of the posts above), the necessary clarification would have kicked in.

Rex wrote:
<i>But I would also not dare to make any radical suggestions without knowing a lot more about you - - how old are you? traveling solo? motivation(s) for picking any or all of these destinations? been to Europe before? repeatedly? you have (some) connection(s) there?</i>

And you could mention where you will be starting from...country, city, state, region, province..most posters do...it does have a bearing on your itinerary. I'm guessng UK.

It is really none of our business, but you gave further pause when you seem to be unsure about just whom you'll be traveling with, when you write:

<i>and then my own huge trip with my partner/friend/bf/whatever u call him...</i>

...and before that you refer to this mystery person as follows:

<i>drive through the San Bernardino pass (it's non-negotiable according to my DH).</i> Take your choice...which is it? Just pick one and that would not have been an alarm factor.

Good luck, no matter what you finally do..

Stu Tower
(by the way, "insouciance"..good name...are you really that "nonchalant"...?)

travelerjan

You should have made that explanation from the start, so that people as you say who are busy will not waste time carefully formulating itineraries that will never be considered. This would be the thoughtful way to go.

insouciance

First off, sorry if you guys were alarmed about me having 'had' you guys, but i was kinda upset that some of you jumped to a huge conclusion without even posting on this thread to verify. I'm new to this - as said by someone above, so I'm still learning how to post questions on this forum. And from what I read in previous threads/posts, I generally see people disclosing certain details about their trip, and I've used a similar approach in all my threads, by stating my purpose, what i plan to do, my aims, etc - which i initially thought was sufficient, but i guess it's not judging from the posts above.

so for more disclosure and to answer tower: i didn't think the information about me staying a year in europe to travel was relevant initially because i started off asking questions on germany, which was the part of the trip i had problems on. I have been in europe for almost half a year already, and in this amount of time, i've made use of information from the forums to plan trips to paris, oslo, munich, turkey and other places, and you haven't seen me ask questions or opening threads on these places solely because I didnt have problems planning those places and found answers from previous posts.

and it wasn't on purpose that i didn't answer Rex's qns - I'm 23 and the 'problem' or fun thing about my gap year is that I'm basically working part time here in Belgium where I'm located currently and doing trips to places in Europe. I've done some parts of the trip solo, and others with friends - be it two of us or a large group. Instead what I've done is to provide details as to what I'm intending to do for certain legs of the trips - ie, May/June with my partner (I shall stick to this term now given the confusion or 'alarm factor' caused to the rest) and for the Swedish thread, with 3 of my student friends. I also don't have a fixed start off point, I'm located in Brussels, but I don't mind taking a cheap flight out to another place to start off my itinerary, plus my time is really flexible - I can work on any days with advance notice and I can leave for any place any time --> more like whichever place takes my fancy and which air tickets are cheapest and whether i can find company to travel with.

and having said that, i really cannot imagine someone 'dreaming' up going to these places, taking the time to listen to advice, and replying as i have - do you guys encounter many of these people; and hence the 'panic' so to speak? please take this question in good faith though!

alright, and going back to my original purpose of starting the thread - i'm thankful to all of u who have given feedback on the itinerary - i will try to get back with a report, but that'll only be in June. And I'll be taking amwosu's advice to start a new thread on the france bit after i've done some preliminary research on my own, so I hope it won't cause even MORE alarm :/

rex

Way too harsh. "partner/friend/bf/whatever you call him" could easily be synonyms.

She says that "DH" is offering "non-negotiable" advice about the San Bernardino pass - - but does not say that "DH" is going.

It seems almost excessively nosy to delve in to the issue of whether she has BOTH a "DH" (maybe she means it to signify some thing other than Dear Husband) AND a partner/friend/bf/whatever.

Maybe "partner" means "travel partner", not "life partner". Maybe "bf" means "best friend".

She's a newbie - - is this kind of interrogation warranted?

insouciance

thanks rex, and to clarify things more - i thought DH meant dahling and not dear husband, which is what i call my partner shall stick to partner from now on!

amwosu

Sorry for the third degree you've gotten. Please don't let it turn you off of Fodor's message boards which are so helpful. I think the generation gap may just be showing a bit. "DH" is sometimes "dear heart" and as such is interchangable with companion, partner, bf, etc.

It is nice to hear you've used posts from others to plan trips. Newbies frequently get on the forums and ask where to go, what to do and how much it will cost without ever using the search engine to do a little homework.

Apologies for any suspicions on my part about the plausibility of your travels. The red flag came partially because you sound young and started with a very ambitious European stay. You have no history of offering advice to others on trip planniing and had not included details of your own situation. You wouldn't believe some of the "trolls" that have come along over the years that fit into a similar mold. Anyone remember travis?
-Ann Marie

michele_d

Hi insouciance,
We did the Peugeot buy back lease program. Flew from Edinburgh to Paris, did a week in an apt in Paris then picked up the lease car at Orly. Had the car for the next 86 days and dropped it off outside Rome before visiting Rome. It worked out great. It was about $3000. Please be sure to check the minimum age for the lease program.

We toured France then stayed in the Berner Oberland in Lauterbrunnen in an apt for a week. Very beautiful scenery in that area. You can go through tons of film up there.

From there we headed through the Mosel and Rhine river areas of Germany before heading down through Rothenburgh, Augsburg for Oktoberfest, and then finally we headed down to Venice, CT, Tuscany and Pompeii before dropping off the car and visiting Rome.

We had an absolute blast and would do it again in a heartbeat. We did make reservations ahead of time for the entire trip though since it was high season. Worked out great. Even though it was an adventuresome trip I just couldn't bring myself to just go day to day without knowing where I would be staying. That to me is way too stressful, but others love traveling like that.

Michele

tower

<b>Travel Jan hit it spot on with this concise statement..thanks TravelJan:</b>

<i>You should have made that explanation from the start, so that people as you say who are busy will not waste time carefully formulating itineraries that will never be considered. This would be the thoughtful way to go.</i>

and Rex says: <i>She's a newbie - - is this kind of interrogation warranted?</i>

Yes and Yes. Rex, you began the appropriate interrogation and did not get any answers until I prodded further.I think any of us who have been at sea on these threads of hers began to see the light after her answer to my "suspicious" inquisition (per above posts). Because insouicance is a November newbie, I feel she will now consider coming up with clear statements at the outset in her future posts. She has said so much in the more recent posts following my "harsh" but necessary comments. Because of our correpondence she has already offered answers, including where she is located...Brussels...that alone serves to help.

stu tower

insouciance

thanks michele - my partner only has one month to spare for me since he's working and i'm not, so i'm still working around that - but tentatively i'll be sticking to
France (Monaco, Nice, probably Eze/St Paul) - 6 days
Switzerland (Interlaken or Lauterbrunnen, San Bernardino, Luzern) - 5 days (San Bernardino seems a little out of the way since we're making our way up to Germany, but since it's a must go - how should I go about it - Lauterbrunnen followed by a detour to San B and then up to Luzern on the way to Germany?)
Germany (10 days)

This will leave us with another 10 days or so to do Italy (mainly Venice and Cinque Terre) separately. I was initially thinking of doing France - Germany - Switzerland - Italy, renting the car for the entire month because it seems the most logical (route wise - rent from Paris, going directly into Germany, Switz, Italy, with detour to Nice etc, then onto CT), but it seems that the places we want to go in Italy (Venice and CT) are not too car-friendly? (based on the posts above)

Palenque

No city in Italy IME is car friendly - wide swathes of city centres being off-limits to private vehicles. And there have been complaints here about folks receiving tickets in the mail months after their trips for entering the no-private vehicle zones say in Florence (naively entering without knowing it). So for cities cars are indeed a liability - pay to park them and leave nothing of value in them - many hotels do not have parking, etc.

michele_d

Hi insouciance,
Our itinerary only included Lauterbrunnen so we did not go to Luzern. We left Lauterbrunnen and went back through NE France, the Alsace region, and then up to Germany.

We did have our car all through Italy, mainly for the Tuscany region. We parked in the lot across from the train station in Mestre and trained into Venice. We drove to Vernazza, but the road is really twisty turney and many probably would not want to attempt it. For us though it was great having a car. Each person is different.

No matter how you plan the itinerary there will always be another way to do it. I had three itineraries before I came up with our final. Just get a big map out, like I did. Put pushpins where you want to go and then piece it together from there using the shortest routes. It's really a basic way to do it and is easier seeing all the countries together than trying to plan it one country at a time. Take us, we left France, popped over to Switzerland and then picked up another little piece of France before heading to Germany.

The borders IMO are a non issue. I didn't even know we crossed into Germany until I saw a Wilkommen sign. I actually was kind of disappointed as I wanted more stamps in my passport!

Take care,
Michele