Help with european vacation
 

Can someone please help me with my european itinerary. I'm planning to go to europe this mid-April with my parents and brother. It will be a 2-month vacation starting with Italy. Please help me with what places to visit and where to stay that would be relatively cheap and what would be the cheapest mode of transport. The vacation will start and end with rome. Please help me with my itinerary, and what countries to visit.

Give us some hints. What other countries and places interest your family? There are an infinite number of possibilities one could suggest, and none are likely to be right given how little info you provided.

Good advice from Will.

Whatever you do, don't try to do 32 cities in 8 weeks.

PS,

Does it have to start and end with Rome?

Why don't you, your parents and your brother all have a discussion about the places each of you wants to see while you are in Europe. The opportunity to travel for 2 months is great and you should all have ideas about the places you include. Do you like active, outdoor vacations? Do you like museums, churches and historic sights? A combination? Is it necessary to both start and end in Rome? All of these would help us to help you.

How about you start with an idea of one ``city/region'' per week. Then you can get an apartment/rental for the four of you (many rent by the week), and save money on lodging. Also you can buy groceries and make your breakfast and lunches. You can take day trips from each region.

For a family of 4, probably a car rental is cheaper than 4x train tickets, especially when you count the day trips, but you should check the euro rail plans. If you and your brother are kids, you'll get discount train tickets. You may want train + short-term car rentals for day trips.

Now get a big map and play dot-to-dot.
Here is an example that mixes cities and towns (By week.)

1. Rome
2. Florence. Muesums day trips to Piza, Tuscany, the coast ..
3. Lugano. On the lake in the Alps. Hiking, cable-cars, museum.
4. Paris. Say no more.
5. Munich. Great museums, trips to castles...
7. Salsburg or Vienna.
8. Lazy drive to Rome, with stops in Venice (3 nites) and Ravenna.

Thank you all for your comments. I was thinking:
- Vatican (5 days) we are devout Catholics fron the Philippines, so I guess this will be our first stop
- San Marino (4 days; for the SMGP)
- Florence (2 days)
- Venice (2 days)
- Milan (2 days)
- Austria (Vienna, Innsbruck and Salzburg) 3 days each including travel
- Prague: 3 days
- Germany (Berlin, Cologne, Munich) 3 days each including travel
- Netherlands ( Amsterdam, the Hague); 3 days each
- Belgium (Antwerp, Brussels)4 days
- Luxembourg: 2 days
- France (Paris, Versailles) 5 days
- Monte Carlo - 2 days
- Rome

What do you think?

I would find time to add a day to Venice and a day to Florence. You could do that by eliminating Milan from your itinerary. My preference would be to spend more time in France by reducing the time in other places (Luxembourg, The Hague). I would probably choose some time in Switzerland rather than Austria and Germany.

You are off to a good start and please remember as you plan that those of us who make suggestions are making them based on our personal preferences and not on what you should do or not do.

Hi my,

Whew, I'm tired. :)

> San Marino (4 days; for the SMGP)
- Florence (2 days)
- Venice (2 days)
- Milan (2 days)
- Austria (Vienna, Innsbruck and Salzburg) 3 days each including travel

Oooops,

>San Marino (4 days; for the SMGP)

Are you sure?
- Florence (2 days)
- Venice (2 days)
- Milan (2 days)

Unless you have something particular in mind, I suggest dropping Milan and adding a day each to Florence and Venice. You could visit Siena from Florence as a daytrip.

- Austria (Vienna, Innsbruck and Salzburg) 3 days each including travel
I would take one day from each of Innsbruck and Salzburg and add it to Vienna or Prague

-Germany (Berlin, Cologne, Munich) 3 days each including travel
I don't think that Cologne is worth more than 2 days. I would add the day to Belgium and visit Bruges/Brugge.

((I))

PS,

You might want to consider taking a day or two from San Marino and visit Bologna.

I think you need to trim the list a bit. Realize that any place you say "2 days", you have to check out of your hotel, go to the train station and take a train (or drive), journey to next city, check into hotel... point being that of any 2 days, it becomes really just 1 or 1-1/2 when you take into account you must get between the two places.

Also moving about so much makes things more expensive. If you cut your list in half, and stayed longer in each place, you would save on transportation costs and also possibly could rent apartments (as mentioned above) instead of hotels.