shortyb_17

My family and another family were looking to go to Europe for about 2.5 - 3 weeks from mid-June to early July.
There are 4 adults - ages 35-41
Two teenagers - 14 and 18
Two kids - 4 and 7
We are all really good friends so we are up for just about anything.
We werent looking for too adventurous a trip with things such as hiking and stuff but a few tours wouldnt be bad.

Here was our proposed plan:
We would fly from Toronto to Paris.
Stay in Paris for 4 days/4 nights.
Drive to Barcelona on the 5th day. (about 9 hr drive)

Stay in Barcelona for 3 days/3 nights.
Drive to Milan on the 4th day. (about 8 hr drive)

Stay in Milan for 3 days/3 nights.
Drive to Berlin on the 4th day. (about 9 hr drive)

Stay in Berlin for 4 days/4 nights.
Drive back to Paris on the 5th day. (about 9 hr drive)

Fly back to Toronto when we get to Paris.

I how would this work? Is it fitting too much into too little time? Should we cut some of it out?

We DEFINATELY want to go to Paris and Berlin.
Would doing a France (driving through France) and Germany (driving through Germany) trip be better?

I need as much information as possible.
Also, what about cars? Would the train be a better bet? Where can you get good deals on rental cars?

Anybody know about hotels?

THANK YOU!

Michael

Your driving times are way off in my opinion. You need to add at least three hours to each leg. Other than that, if it's Tuesday, it must be ...

Dayle

Hi Short,

Your proposed itinerary is very different from what people usually propose on this site. My personal opinion is that I would NOT want to spend 4 full days driving to such scattered destinations. Especially when I would be watching many wonderful towns and sites passing by through the car window.

Have any of you been to Europe before? If Paris and Berlin are your top priorities, how about planning your 3 weeks as a driving tour between the two?

I also don't really get the Milan thing. There are many wonderful places to visit in Italy, but Milan is not on most people's list as a top destination. It's fine if you are flying in/out of Malpensa, but again, not a top priority.

You are on the right track here with the Fodor's forums. Posters here are great and very experienced. You'll get lots of excellent suggestions.

Buon viaggio!

nytraveler

Several points:

Your estimated driving times are too low. The raw driving time for each leg of the trip is longer than you have listed. When you add time for meals and gas/potty stops each day will be at least 12 hours. Do you really want to be stuck in a car with a 7 and 4 year old for 12 hours? Four times??? (This will be hell for them - and I'm sure they will make it hell for you!)

Agree - that I don;t understand Milan. there's nothing wrong with it - but it's about # 27 on the list of places to go in Italy unless you have specific business.

Also, you seem to have picked four fairly large cities at random. Don;t you want to see any smaller towns? Any of the countryside? You are missing most of the things that make europe different from NA. You are also losing one of the major benefits of a road trip - serendipity (look- isn;t that cute - let's see what it is! It may be nothing - or it may be something great and you want to spend an hour or two.)

We do road trips in euope all the time - and except for an occasional day when we need to reach a specific place (no more than one such day per trip) we never plan on more than 5 hours driving - usually spending the middle of the day/lunch at a cute town we want to see along the way. Otherwise you're just doing the 24 hours of Daytona.

caroline_edinburgh

Which aspect of this trip do you think the children would enjoy ? Wouldn't renting a villa with a pool, in nice countryside, & taking a few day trips be better for them ?

nytraveler

ttt

TransitBuddie

If you don't want to spend 10 hours in the car each leg, you can also fly on the low - frills, low cost airlines such as EasyJet (fly from Paris to London for 5 &pound, www.easyjet.com, or RyanAir (Dublin to London for 99 cents), www.ryanair.com). Just be careful with RyanAir because they fly to airports far away from the center such as Paris- Beauvais, where you have to take a charter bus for 1 hour to get to the center, then take another train. The airline that I used to fly based in Milan with extremely cheap fares is now out of business, but might get approval from the Italian government to reopen (www.volareweb.com). I also agree with everyone who has posted messages on this forum; your driving times are a bit off. I would truly recommend taking the train or the plane from one side of Europe to the other. Me as a teenager (15), I always found alternatives to driving like the train and plane with extremely cheap flights with the low cost carriers I stated above. Also check out: www.germanwings.com for cheap German flights. Iberia has some flights at 100EUR round trip to and from Spain and Lufthansa Deutsche A.G has flights around 100 EUR from Paris to Berlin also, but the low cost carriers always have better fares.