How many days? Ireland, Scotland, Norway and Denmark
 

Beginning stages of planning. Is it possible? Our interests include art, history and some family heritage? My worry is we will spend too much time moving from point to point...but my man wants to hit them all... How many days would you block out as a minimum for each country?

>>How many days would you block out as a minimum for each country? <<

It is impossible to answer that question.

How many days do you have? Where is the family background?

You could spend a month in just Scotland for example and barely scratch the surface. Or - if you are ONLY interested in say Edinburgh - 3 or 4 days might be enough.

Ireland - just Dublin? Then 3 days. The scenic west coast? 2 weeks. The scenic west coast AND Dublin? 2.5-3weeks

London - a week minimum.

And so forth. How many days do you have???

Around 21 days. We have family heritage in Ireland, Scotland and Denmark. I would love to hear "don't spend the time getting to this place... Unless you have x number of days. Or... with 21 days i would stick to a,b,c and leave the others to your next trip. I just think that would help us set priorities. Or... If we want to do it all we need to find 10 more days and the budget to go with it. Thanks for the input!

Anything in Scandinavia will need "the budget to go with it" considering that cruddy hamburger-and-fries lunches will cost you nearly $30 per person.

Stick to Ireland and Scotland on one trip and take a Scandinavia trip at some other time or vice versa. If you can't figure out a 9-night itinerary for Ireland and 12-nights for Scotland, you're lacking imagination - both would be surface-scratches. Plus, it's bad enough dealing with two other currencies (euro, GBP), not four (euro, GBP, two kinds of krone).

As for your interests: "history" is broad, what history? Neither Ireland nor Scotland nor Denmark nor Norway are art capitals of Europe (I'll await the other posters who will surely jump in and tell you about all the fabulous museums in those countries but the reality is that not one of them has a Prado, Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Tate, National Gallery, British Museum, Uffizi, etc.), so what exactly are you looking for?

Denmark is not too expensive and I'd assign 5 days to it.
Ireland (N&S) I'd give 7 days and Scotland another 7 and you could get to see some Islands in that time.

If you want to include even a bit of England and Wales in the trip then you need to take a load of time from others since London itself needs about 5 days to get a good overview while the rest needs another 15 to get to a few major cities and sites.

Denmark has some interesting Viking art and mummified bodies/ships etc all over but near bogs etc. Dublin has at least one reasonable art museum. Scotland between Glasgow and Edinburgh has at least 4 but London just swamps you with art/ museums many of which are free.

I spent four days in Oslo several years ago, and had a wonderful time. There may not be any museums the caliber of the Louvre, but I paricularly enjoyed the Viking Ship Museum and the Norwegian Folk Museum, the latter having a stave church and over 100 buildings reconstructed from different parts of Norway. Other things to do in Oslo: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractio...rn_Norway.html

Norway is expensive. I once heard a story about an American couple who stayed in a 5* hotel, but tried to economise on meals by eating at TGI Friday's. They ended up spending over $100 on hamburgers and cokes. :-))

Thank you! Exactly the feedback I needed! My husband is a sponge for history... I'm sure he could exhaust a listener on any number of subjects. My art interests are fine to folk and I'm a painter, so I'm thinking I can plunk down and paint while he reads every plaque and sign!

If we can extend to include 5 days in London .... Does anyone have a link or list of " 5 fantastic days in London?"

Really appreciate the feedback!

Hi 4,

I've been to all but Ireland.

I would give the UK (Scotland Ireland and Wales) at least 3 weeks, 2 weeks to Denmark and at least a week to Ireland.

I think that a rushed trip to Norway would be about 5 nights.

((I))