Itinerary for first time in Europe
 

Hi

I would appreciate any comments on our itinerary for Europe in May. We like scenery and historical sites.

Frankfurt 2 nights
Romantic Road Bus
Rothenburg 1 night
Fussen 2 nights
Munich 3 nights
Innsbruck 2 nights (via Garmisch-Partenkirchen)
Venice - 4nights
Rome - 4 nights
Sienna - nights
Paris - 6 nights (including side trip to battlefields near Ameins and Albert)
London - 2 nights

We will be coming from Australia

Need more info. What are your arrival and departure cities, what is your order of travel, and what mode of transportation will you use to get from city to city.

I agree with Degas. Only 2 nights in London and 6 in Paris seems odd to me. There is at least as much to see in London as Paris.

You don't say how you are travelling from city to city - but just in general it looks OK. You are covering a LOT of territory, but at least you are staying several days in most of the places. You wouldn't believe some of the itineraries posted on here

2 nights in London is awfully short though, and it is hard to get a feeling for the city in less than 5 or 6 days. Unless you have already booked your flights home and are leaving from London, I might suggest dropping it and adding those 2 days elsewhere in your itinerary.

And that is coming from someone who LOVES London (more even than Paris) - but to try to rush around that HUGE city in a couple of days - not my idea of a good first experience.

If your flights are booked and London is set in stome - then go for it -- otherwide I'd leave it for another trip when you can devote a week or more to it.

Hi

Thanks for the comments.

We will be arriving in Frankfurt and leaving from London but this is not fixed as flights are not booked. Qantas fly direct to Frankfurt and also to Heathrow. Our total trip is about 4 1/2 weeks. We're not sure what we will like since Europe is so different - we expect to have a few more European holidays over the next few years.

We have just come back from British Columbia Canada and loved the outdoors.

We are planning to visit London in another trip and thought we would just stay a few days to get a feel for next time.

The order is as listed. We are planning to use trains for most of the transport except;

Romantic Road Bus Germany
Maybe plane from Venice to Rome - am also considering the train
Plane from Florence/Pisa to Paris/Brussels
Hire a car in Sienna for a few days
Hire a car in Amiens to see Battlefields (day trip from Paris

I don't think Venice to Rome is worth a plane trip. Because you can catch the train right in the heart of Venice, and the airport is more distance and effort to get to. Plus I believe on the right train (fast not local) it's only a 5 hour ride.

(sorry i'm not much help with big itineraries but will "top" this post for you)

Well - since you must get to London anyway, if it were me I'd do 4 days in Paris and 4 in London.

Paris is wonderful -- but the major tourist sites and neighborhoods are w/i a fairly compact area. You can see a LOT of Paris in 4 days.

The major sites in London on the other hand are spread over a huge area and it takes longer to get around.

so a 4/4 split might make a better wind up for your trip.

I agree with janisj, 4 days each in Paris and London, you can even add one more day to one of those by subtracting a day from Venice.
Should you really run out of things to see in London (not possible really) or want a change, you can always do a daytrip to Windsor Castle or somewhere else.

The only thing I can add to the excellent advice on London/Paris above is this: don't move from town to town first thing in the morning, because it cuts into the daytime, which you should reserve for sightseeing.

Rather, take the <u>last</u> departure that reaches your destination before midnight and is a reasonable trip. By &quot;reasonable,&quot; I mean that if a trip requires three changes and is two hours longer than an earlier through train, you would obviously want to settle for the earlier one.

One last thought: two nights in Fuessen seems like rather much. I'd add one of the nights to Munich and one to Innsbruck, and make Fuessen a day trip, or figure a day in there to take a Rhine cruise between Mainz and Koblenz.

consider either doing a germany, france, holland, uk option or a germany, austria, italy option.

I will split the London/Paris to 4 nights each as suggested.

Sounds like a good idea to catch late train to the next destination so as not to take up time during the day.

i had thought of only going to Italy, Austria and Germany however everyone tells me Paris is great so have decided we would really like to go there.

we did a similar tour of the first portion of your trip (up to venice) and would not recommend two days in Frankfurt...the first day we rented a car and drove straight to Wurzburg and visited the palace and drove to Rothenburg and spent two nights.You could get by on two days for Munich and one in Innsbruck.You could get by with 3 nights in Venice and we spent two nights in Florence instead(a must see IMO for art,history and museums).Im assuming you want two nights in Siena.yes I would fly from Rome to Paris.It's a shame if you like the outdoors you have not included the swiss Alps.you could fly to Geneva and then train to Paris.Give yourself a couple of extra days in London as others have noted..All in all a wonderful overview of Europe.I am assuming you want to rest in Frankfurt because of the long flight?

We were planning to rest in Frankfurt due to the long flight. We might take your suggestion and drive to Wurzburg which looks nice. Will look at your other great suggestions also.

Thanks