Hi all,

My boyfriend and I are in our early twenties and spent our junior years of college in London and Paris, respectively. We are both dying to go back and are starting to think about a trip to return to those cities and explore a couple new places this summer (probably in August). We'll have about 2 weeks, and as recent college grads, budget is at least a bit of a concern.

He loves history and big cities; I enjoy them too, but also love exploring smaller places and doing active things like hiking/biking/etc. We've narrowed down our possible destinations quite a bit, and as of right now, I've got 3 or 4 potential itineraries I'd love to bounce off people. In each case, we'd plan on about 3 nights in each place:

#1: London - Paris - (Strasbourg?) - Berlin
(I'd love to visit Strasbourg, but it's currently a "maybe" because making that stop would add significantly to our costs and travel time - Paris-Strasbourg-Berlin would mean about 15 hours of travel time and 200E in train tickets, as opposed to a quick flight from Paris-Berlin that runs about 20 pounds on EasyJet!)
#2: London - Paris - Dijon - Grenoble
#3: London - Paris - Grenoble - Geneva
#4: London - Paris - Marseille (or Aix) - Nice
(I've always dreamed of visiting the Cote d'Azur, but I know it will be HOT and crowded in August, so I'm not sure how I feel about this one.)
In any of these cases, we would be flying round-trip from the US to London (we'd fly EasyJet from our final destination back to London and probably spend one more night there before coming home.)

Any insights? Which one would you recommend and why? Also, ideas for day trips (accessible by bike or train) from any of the places I mentioned other than London and Paris would be VERY welcome.

Sorry for the length of this post, but hopefully if you've made it this far you have some ideas to help me narrow this down! Thank you so much!

sounds like a great time. i've heard great things of berlin but have yet to go. to be honest, as far as germany goes, this is my third trip. no matter where i go (austria, switzerland, italy) i either fly into or out of munich and spend at least one night there. there is so much to do there that it is almost overwhelming. then of course there is salzburg ...but that's another post. good luck..

If I were making your decisions for you, I would have you start by making a decision _between_ London and Paris... and not include both (I might choose Paris - - but then, why not some other "big city" you've never visited before?)...

The lakes and Alps of France (but other countries as well) make for great August destinations. And you could see some of (the best of) Germany and make Strasbourg your endpoint.

I'd encourage the rental of a car for eastern or Alpine France and/or Germany.

Best wishes,

Rex

Hi La,

With two weeks and London and Paris apparently your focus, I suggest a week in each.

zobtraffic - I think I am going to follow your model of Munich on each trip We went to Munich (among other places) last summer and loved it. For our next trip to Europe, I am thinking of flying into Munich so we can spend some more time there and then flying out of another city, depending on our itinerary.

Thanks to all for your suggestions!

Ira - thing is, since he lived in London for a year and I lived in Paris for a year, I'd say they're more the "common theme" than the focus. We want to go back to each place for a couple days to visit friends, but would rather spend the bulk of our time exploring somewhere new. I'd be willing to nix Paris (as long as we were visiting other parts of France!) but would rather not...I miss it!

We traveled to a lot of major European cities while we were both abroad, but I didn't explore France nearly as much as I would have liked (only really got to Normandy and Chamonix) and would love to visit some of the smaller cities and towns in other areas. These itineraries are what I came up with so far, (and Rex, I think you're right that the Alps are a better August destination than the Cote d'Azur) but I am certainly open to suggestions for other "must do" French locales! I think smaller (but lively) cities with potential for day trips to villages/natural wonders/etc. would be ideal and a good compromise for the two of us. Other suggestions, anyone?

Zob - in all the traveling I did while living in Europe, Munich was my absolute favorite city! Another thought I had was London-Paris-Strasbourg (with day or overnight trips to Frankfurt and Heidelberg) been to either of those places?

Hi L,

>Ira - thing is, since he lived in London for a year and I lived in Paris for a year, I'd say they're more the "common theme" than the focus. <

What's better than visiting a new city in the company of a companiable tour guide who not only knows the city but is friends with some locals?

Ira, - Agreed wholeheartedly However, we were already a couple back then and visited each other quite a bit...so London and Paris aren't new to either of us. Probably should have made that clearer!