Honeymoon trip destinations: Greece & Turkey or France and Spain
 

Hello,

I was wondering whether you can please help me decide where to go for my honeymoon, which will be from Dec 22nd - Jan 20th.

Right now I've set my mind on Vienna from 22nd to 25th, and then probably will go to Salzburg for 4 days, then to Prague for 4 days and celebrate NYE there. After that I plan to go to Munich for 3 days.

My question is: should I go to Budapest, and if I do should I just go for a day trip from Vienna or should I go for longer?
After Munich, I 'm deciding between going to Monaco, a few French cities, then to a few cities in Spain (Barcelona, Madrid). My other option now is to go to Athens, Delphi Mykonos, and then Istanbul, and then probably to 2 more cities in Turkey.

I've been to Paris, but never been to any other countries mentioned above. We often like to relax when we travel, and I'm especially a fan of good food. Normally I try to go to all of the fine dining places I can find, but this time I'm hoping to be more 'adventurous' and try out local foods. I also want to be able to walk around and see beautiful architecture and sights. I've never been in <6C cold before so I don't know how well I can stand it, but I think I should be fine with warm clothes on.

I wonder whether you can please help me decide between Greece&Turkey or France&Spain for the second half of my trip? Which places would be more beautiful (scenic wise) if we're going in January?

Thank you so much!

If you want to relax while traveling, then I think you might want to slow down and see fewer places.

You don't say where you are starting, so I'm going to guess that you'll lose the better part of your first day to jet lag. And you'll have to assume that you'll give up at least 1/2 day each time you change locations (for the time it takes to travel, check into/out of hotels, get to/from train stations or airports, pack/unpack, time lost to a bit of disorientation, etc). So "just" your time in Vienna, Salsburg, Prague, and Munich really adds up to about 18 days.

Many of us think Budapest deserves at least 3 or 4 full days. Many of us will suggest waiting for Madrid and Barcelona until you can spend more time in Spain. Istanbul itself deserves more like 6 or 7 full days and waiting until you can spend some more time in Turkey might make most sense. Etc - few of the places you list can easily be seen at a relaxing pace in the time frames you seem to be envisioning.

From what you've said, I think thinking more about your options in/around your core destinations (options like Budapest) makes far more sense than spending the time it will take to get to any of these wonderful, but far-flung, destinations.

Hope that helps and happy honeymoon!

Have you taken into account the weather? Central Europe can be very cold in that season. Even Greece and Turkey can be cold, for sure if you intend to visit Cappadocia (a common destination).

If you are looking for warmer weather, you might consider Morocco. We traveled there 20 years ago, visiting the three imperial cities (Marrakech, Meknès and Fez), traveling by train and long distance bus. From Meknès and Fez we took day trips. I understand that a desert outing from Marrakech is common. Here's what we saw in a 12 day trip:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/...70770847/show/

Even just counting the places you've mentioned as already being on your destination list, never mind the ones you're still contemplating, this doesn't fit the relaxing trip definition. In fact, it's quite the opposite, and you'll be rushing around like crazy in some likely terrible weather.

I like the Morocco suggestion. It's a wonderful country and could be combined with a city or two in Spain.

Welcome to Fodor's Tramy. Just a small point Re your post. There's a lot of "I" and not much "we" in your questions. Have you spoken to your fiancé to ensure he/she is on board with your plans?

Is this trip in 2013 or 2014?

Hi,
Thank you so much for your suggestions, I really appreciate your help!
Cathies: Yeah my fiance is on board with my plans. He said that hasn't traveled much so he's fine with going anywhere. This trip is in Dec 2013 - Jan 2014.

Kja: We're starting from Vietnam.

So from your suggestions, I think I should probably cut down on the locations I go to. Do you think I should just go to Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, and cut down on Budapest and Munich? Which 2/3 of these 5 cities do you think I should definitely go to? If I just pick 2/3 places it'll only take around 12-14 days right?

Given that I have around 15 days left for the latter part of my trip, do you think I can do
1. Just Greece, something like this: http://www.fodors.com/world/europe/i...ent-greece-56/

Or just Turkey, something like this: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/turkey/t...-turkey-winter

Or Spain?

Which option do you think is better/warmer? I'm not interested in parties, I just want to go to places where I can see beautiful sights/sceneries/architechtures.

Thanks so much!

Oh and I searched for the temperature in Greece/Turkey in the winter and it's around 5-10 degrees celcius. We've been to NY once and it was around that temperature, we were quite ok with it.

Thank you so much for suggesting Morocco, I asked my fiance about it but he doesn't seem very interested though...

If warmth is important you may consider either the Canaries (Spanish) which is where we are heading to in January, or Madeira (Portugese). Malaga or the Costa del Sol canalso be quite nice in January - Ive never been disapointed with the wearher in December/January in Malaga but I may have just been lucky. Madeira is probably the most scenic of the ones mentioned in my post.