travel52

We want to spend a week in England. Haven't exactly decided where, but thinking around London, SW England. We then want to check out Oslo, Norway for a few days to see where my husbands family was from. We love Italy, and just can't think of traveling that far without spending time there. I think we'd start in Milan and then go to Tuscany and Umbria (perhaps 3 weeks total in Italy). Is this trying to do too much? I need suggestions on how to easily get from London to Oslo and then Milan. Once we're in Milan, I figure we can take the train into Florence, rent a car and then I'm on familiar ground. It's the beginning of the trip that has me confused. Help experts !

WillTravel

www.norwegian.no or www.ryanair.com from London Stansted to Oslo (norwegian.no gets you closer to the center of Oslo, but the shuttle bus from Torp for Ryanair is no big deal).

www.norwegian.no to Pisa .

WillTravel

To start with, either get a roundtrip ticket to London, or an open-jaw arriving in London and departing out of an Italian city.

Go to Oslo and Italy as described.

If you opted for the roundtrip London ticket, then you could either get a low-cost carrier flight (EasyJet or Ryanair) from an Italian city back to London.

travel52

Thank you. In checking Ryan Air and Norweigen.no, it appears less expensive to get a round trip ticket London-Oslo and then either fly to Milan or take the train. Which would be the cheapest? This trip is still a year or so off, but I'm just trying to see if it is even a possibilty money wise.

WillTravel

I'm not sure what you're saying.

For me, departing from YVR, this combination method would almost certainly be cheapest:

Roundtrip YVR-LON ticket at cheapest price possible
One-way ticket from London Stansted to Oslo Torp on Ryanair
One-way ticket from Oslo Gardemoen to Pisa on Norwegian.no
One-way ticket to London Stansted from one of several Italian cities (e.g. Milan, Rome, Venice, Pisa, Bologna, etc.) on Ryanair or EasyJet

But for you, depending on where you are leaving from, there might be a cheaper way to achieve what you want.

Other options to keep in mind, other than those mentioned:
http://www.flybmi.com
http://www.easyjet.com
http://www.scandinavian.net
http://www.snowflake.se

Since the trip is far off, it's impossible to say what method will be cheapest.

Singletail

When you consider using flights on carriers within Europe please don;t forget to factor in the luggage weight restrictions usually imposed which would allow you considerably less weight than on your trans-Atlantic segments. Good luck.

Gardyloo

A couple of useful planning tools.

First, look at www.whichbudget.com for a very comprehensive list of cheap euro airlines, sorted by origin/destination. Also when contemplating using RyanAir, EasyJet and their ilk, factor in that getting to the secondary airports can be very expensive and inconvenient in places, so be careful your flight savings aren't neutralized by train or cab connections.

Second, if your transatlantic travel is via a member of one of the global alliances like Star (United, Lufthansa etc.) or OneWorld (American, British etc.) then you can use their "discover Europe" (or some such) intra-Europe coupon programs, which allow you to use mainline carriers and airports for a fraction of the cost of buying separately, often way less than the budget airlines will charge. Go to www.oneworld.com or www.star-alliance.com for details.

Need a new car anyway? Look at Volvo's overseas delivery program; they often have a free air ticket program which, when added to the significant savings on a new car, can really make for savings, plus you can drive to Italy in a new rig and not have to pay humongous rental car or insurance fees. Even if you sell the new rig when you get home, you may still end up net ahead, and have had a ball on the autostradi in the process. I know, an idiot's paradise I live in, but hey...