I think I am going to go with my 2nd itinerary, Paris looks like an amazing city but I want to go there just to go to that city. I will have to save it for another trip. I am traveling with my husband and it's our first time to Europe. We are in out late 20's and we want to experience as much of the cities as we can. Paris seems like we could spend at least a week there and still not see everything so I think we will stick with our Venice/Rome/Barcelona plan. We love live music, which is why I think we must keep Barcelona. The question is, if we drop a day from Venice because we can see it in two days, where should the other day go? Rome? London? Barcelona? Madrid? Its a hard choice! As far as luggage goes, we will be traveling pretty light. Only carry-on, and we will have a day pack to bring with us. So carrying our luggage around wont be much of an issue. Once we have a set schedule we will look into where to stay, we honestly love the ideas of B&B, and if we go the hostels route we would have to get one that will let us room together. We are open to any suggestions!

Isabel I loved your pictures, I can only hope to capture ones like these to take them back with me!


I have a lot more research to do now that I have pinpointed the cities, we need to create itineraries of what to see and do. This new trip is a million times better than my initial plans and I am so excited to keep planning!

Now its time to figure out where to stay and what to see! I will look at the internet itineraries to get ideas but I have looked in a couple of different places and I have to be realistic with time frames. Frommers had one for 3 days in London and I saw on this site that they were crazy to pack so much stuff into one day so I will need to be careful with that as well.

I am definitely learning so much and I have all of you to thank for all of your guidance. It has been an amazing experience speaking with all of you! Thank you again for all of your help!

Hi guys! I wanted to give you a post trip update! First and foremost thank you so much for helping me make our trip incredible! It could have easily been a nightmare with the initial itinerary. The days in London passed by very quickly so we definitely want to go back. We saw a lot of the sights in London with the 3 days but there was some things that we missed that we really want to go explore. It was a really nice transition from London to Venice, we got to explore everything in Venice and catch our breath. We relaxed much more in Venice because it was smaller and we didn't miss out on any of the big sights, plus we had time for gondola rides. Next we went to Rome for three days. We were very ambitious with exploring as much as possible but we took the time to picnic and truly enjoy Rome. We will be going back to Rome..In Barcelona we took a much slower pace and didn't get to explore as much, but we saw the gothic quarter and the Montserrat. We will be going back to Barcelona, it was a fascinating city! Even though we discovered a lot of Europe we had a taste and now we are planning our next trip back. So I may need more advice, but it was a phenomenal experience and I want to thank you guys. Truly thank you!!

Sounds great. Next trip you'll have to add Paris and the French Riviera with a bit of Switzerland or a return to Barcelona. I think most first time travelers plan as if it's the only trip they will take. They don't realize they will start plotting a next trip while they are still on the first trip.

So glad you had a good trip and are planning to go back! There is so much to see in Europe...

thanks for coming back to let us know how well your trip went, c-i.

I'm pleased you had such a good time, and benefitted from the great advice you got here!

Thanks Curious! Great to see that you had such a good time.

It's natural to want to stack as much as you can into your first trip. And hard to imagine how much time travelling to, getting lost in, and the snafus getting to places can consume. I'm sure lots of people seeing our suggestions to cut out or cut down, imagine geriatric tortoises crawling around ;) Mostly though, we're trying to save others from the mistakes we've made ourselves. And it helps us relive & remember some great (and gruesome) places we've been.

Isn't it funny though - its the snafus & getting lost events that make the most hilarious post-trip stories?

Thanks much for letting us know. Glad you had a great trip!

So glad you had a great trip! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for coming back to let us know how things turned out. So many people don't. This is really fun to see!!