Travel to London/Paris/Rome
 

Need some guidance on how to arrange a travel for my husband and I for our first time to Europe. We are departing from the Washington, DC area. Travel dates are September 30th - October 11th. We are looking for recommendations on how to arrange travel - DC - London - Paris - Rome. In addition, need guidance on where to stay in the cities. Is there a site you all recommend to arrange the travel and hotel? What is the best way to arrange the train travel between London and Paris. We are also thinking of a day trip in Rome to Venice or Amalfi coast. Thank you in advance for the feedback.

Mimi

I can tackle the easy one: London to Paris by Eurostar. You just visit http://www.eurostar.com/ and make your selection. Earlier reservations offer better prices and selection than later. You'll find that morning and afternoon rush hours tend to fill first (but be aware that if you decide for a post-rush-hour trip, it can be disconcerting to navigate to your hotel in a big city for the first time at night).

Beyond that, I think you'll find that everyone here will have different recommendations depending on their travel standards and interests. Personally, I like getting rail passes and traveling from one hostel to another by backpack, but I may be in the minority there.

The Eurostar connection, though, is easy and straightforward, and I'm betting just about everyone here will agree on that one.

Venice is too far away to be practical for a 'day trip' from Rome (train times varying from 3.5 to 6.0 hours each way).

I have only ever arranged my transatlantic flight and hotels for a trip in advance, and done the rest after I arrived. But that doesn't mean it's the best or most cost effective method.

You should fly "open jaw", arriving in London and departing from Rome. On most search engines for flights such as www.kayak.com there will be an option for multiple destinations that allows you to look for flights arriving in one city and departing from another. This will help you avoid backtracking to catch your flight back to DC.

From London to Paris, you should take the Eurostar as mentioned above, but if you are talking about a trip beginning this September, you are probably too late to get the least expensive tickets. Check as soon as you can, as prices go up closer to the date of departure.

From Paris to Rome, you can check for flights on budget airlines at www.whichbudget.com

For your first trip it's best to stay at a hotel in a central location in these cities. If you want hotel recommendations, tell us your nightly budget -- in pounds and euros. And look at booking.com. There the reviews are by people known to have stayed at that hotel. And, if you book through the site, you can cancel up to 24 hours before arrival.

We Fodorites are mostly dedicated planners. You're leaving the planning til the last minute. Get your flights and your train tickets first. Then look for hotels.

You actually do not have as much time as you think to visit three cities, each with a ton of interesting tourist sights. You lose 2 days traveling to/from Europe and lose another day and a half getting from London to Paris than on to Rome. This leaves about 8 and 1/2 days to see these three cities. You have no time for day trips and might even consider cutting your trip down to two cities. London/Paris would work quite nicely with your time. Need a budget for hotel advice.

Flights to and from Europe: I would book these first, flying into your first city and out of your last, then go from there.

London - Paris: As others have said, Eurostar is the way to go. There are good subway connections from both St. Pancras Station (London) and Gare du Nord (Paris) to anywhere in those cities.

Paris - Rome: This is a much longer trip, so I'd shop around for flights. Google for budget airlines and check their sites, or use the major travel search engines for the national carriers. If you'd prefer not to fly, there is a LONG overnight sleeper train (you wouldn't want to kill an entire day on the train I'm sure). I like this tool for searching train schedules http://www.eurail.com/plan-your-trip/eurail-timetable. To buy tickets, try here: http://www.raileurope.com/index.html.

Day trip from Rome: A lot of people won't agree with me here, but it's possible to fit in your schedule if you're ok with a high-paced Italy leg, and you're ok not seeing cities "thoroughly", rather getting just a taste. This is my style to some degree. Venice is too far for a day trip, but you could train there, then fly back home. You only need a day to explore the city if you don't go into museums/glass factories. I've never been to the Amalfi Coast, but I know it's a trek from Rome. You can get to Naples/Pompeii/Sorrento (all nearby, but a little closer) in 1.5-2.5 hours, and can enjoy a slower-paced day in one of those places. Naples would be the transfer point from the national trains to the Circumvesuviana (regional train line - just buy tickets there). Good site for Italian train tickets: https://www.italiarail.com

Location: I'm not familiar enough with the cities to say which locations are better than others, but ideally, you want to be close to some attractions or the city centre. These areas are easy to identify by looking at a tourist map. If you don't find anything there, at least make sure you're close to a subway line.

Hope that helps!

I recently did something similar but in a different order. I went from Rome to Paris to London.

I flew Rome to Paris - an easy flight but arrived at the airport way too early and sat on the tarmac for an hour so I didn't get to Paris til well after lunch after starting the day before breakfast. Then I caught the Eurostar from Paris to London - and yep, easiest thing ever.

With that in mind, I spent 17 nights in total in the three cities (4 in Rome, 6 in Paris and 7 in London). You don't need that much but I would not try to do it all in 11 days. For starters it is much less than that because you have to normally not count your arrival day (depending on when you get in), your departure for home day (usually spent organising yourself to leave and then leaving), plus you have two other travel days if you do the three cities. That gives you one week to do three amazing and busy cities.

I always want to do more than I have time for but there was nothing better than immersing myself in Paris for basically a week and allowing myself to not only do some of the bigger tourist things, but getting to know the city, its areas beyond tourist central and its local people and culture. You can't possibly 'experience' a place in just a couple of days. And that's ok sometimes, but surely not for the whole trip. I would wonder what the point was, but that is just IMO.

For what it's worth, I stayed near Republique in Paris (not as central as Marais but close and so local and so full of culture); near the Villa Borghese in Rome (I walked most of the time in Rome) and in Clapham South in London but that was with friends. If you wanted to stay very central I liked Waterloo.

RT

I'm sorry - but you have left your planning until VERY late and I think you will find that many discounts are gone for transit (esp the Eurostar) and also possibly a flight Paris to Rome (the trsain i very arduous - at least 11 hours and with 1 or more changes).

Also at this point you choice of hotels is likely to be limited (we usually reserve 3 to 4 months in advance and even then often cannot get our first choice) within your price range.

If you give us a specific nightly budget for hotels people can make recos for places in the most central areas, which you will want based on how little time you have for this trip.

An please forget Venice or the AC - neither is a realistic day trip form Rome and you have so little time they don;t make sense.

You really need to lay out your trip day by day to understand how little time you have:

9/30 Fly out of DC
10/1 Arrive London, 1/2 day jetlagged
10/2 London
10/3 London
10/4 London
10/5 Eurostar to Paris, 1.2 day Paris
10/6 Paris
10/7 Paris
10/8 Fly Paris to Rome - 1/2 day in either Paris or Rome
10/9 Rome
10/10 Rome
10/11 Fly Rome to DC

You can play around with the days/cities - but this is really all of the time you have - and taking 1 of your 2 days in Rome to spend all day on the train to Venice or AC for a few hours there makes no sense.

If you decide to take a low cost flight from Paris to Rome do check VERY carefully for the baggage allowance and check-in times - both can be VERY strict and carry-on standards are smaller than in the US.

Suggest you drop London since it is the most expensive and you don't have time for three (you really need 4 nights min for these big cities).

Neither day trip from Rome you suggest is practical but there are many others you could do.

Consider postponing till next year if the flights for September are high (say over $1700).

I doubt you'll like my reply, but will throw it out there. With ten days in Europe, one of them jet-lagged, I would pick one city only: London OR Paris OR Rome. If you insist on two cities, I'd choose London and Paris, to lose the least amount of time traveling from one to the other, and definitely open-jaw tickets. As it's your first trip to Europe, I'd fly into London and out of Paris, although of course you can reverse this. And yes, take the Eurostar between London and Paris, although you're probably too late for the cheap tickets.

I wouldn't do three cities due to losing too much vacation time traveling in Europe.

But it is your trip, and your choice.

I agree with KyraS. But if you really want two cities I would pick London and Paris due to proximity and ease of travel between each other. I loved Rome but I had four nights there and that is the minimum I would give it. What is the point of going to a city and being so tired the entire time because you try to cram a week into three days? And you won't actually 'experience' the city in that time no matter how hard you go. IMO it is the people and culture away from the tourist sites that create a full and genuine city experience and you can't do that and the tourist sites in such a short time. Who cares if you have been somewhere if you haven't actually been there? That's my view anyway!

London-Paris-Rome in 12 days - nothing else is possible and that is really rushing it.
Landing - a wipe out for many - 1 day in London
London- 3 days
Eurostar train to Paris - 2.5 hours
Paris 3 days
Fly to Rome or take all day train or overnight train to Milan then day train to Florence or Rome
Rome 4 days

Nothing else. For lots of good info on planning the train parts check www.seat61.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com.

I suggest like others you settle on London and Paris this time and maybe do one day trip from each - like to Oxford or Cambridge or Bath from London and Chartres, Reims (Champagne tours) or Normandy (D-day beaches).

Leave Italy for another trip.

I posted on your first thread. Others have also.

OR drop London/Rome/AC and just do Paris/Venice.

Those two cities work nicely together & give you a taste of two countries. I've done it, was a fantastic trip.

The OP has started 3 threads about this trip on three different forums . . . And has not returned to any of them.

maybe she doesn't like our suggestions ;-)

She could well be reading all of them - you never know but it would be sweet if folks would at least check in to let us know if it is worthwile to keep responding - but others read these threads so our comments are not going to a deaf mute.