Looking for some advice for a trip in Europe starting in London going to Paris. Obviously travelling by train makes sense here. What about the rest of what we want to do? I am open to suggestions as to order we visit places as well. We would like to hike in Switzerland. The more I read, the more I am leaning toward the Lauterbrunnen area but if anyone has any better suggestions I'm open to that. There will be 4 and possibly 6 of us so any suggestions on cheap accomodations for 2-3 nights would be great too as things are so expensive there. Rome is a definite but we would also like Florence and Venice. We would want to fly home to Canada from our final spot. I would have liked Austria but might have to forgo that place.

Book your eurostar tickets between London and Paris as soon as the dates become available to get the best price on www.eurostar.com

Can you provide an outline of your trip so we can tell the order you are thinking of? It's hard to provide details on trains without that.

Also check out www.seat61.com for lots of great train advice.

Generally in Italy it's best to book in advance if you want the best prices on all but the regionale trains. We book on www.trenitalia.it

If going by train check out these IMO superb resource sites - www.seat61.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com - download the latter's free and excellent IMO European Planning & Rail Guide for lots of rail-oriented itineraries and train tips in each country. Score cheap Eurostar (a k a Chunneo train to many Americans) tickets for travel from London to Paris at www.eurostar.com - official site where the early bird indeed gets the worm - book months in advance for deep discounted ticket - albeit ones that cannot be changed nor refunded so be sure of your dates.

In Switzerland a Swiss Pass can be surprisingly cost-effective even if on a few days - check www.swisstravelsystem.com for lots on Swiss trains in additions to sites I mentioned above.

Yes open-jaw ticketing is great fly into London, fly home to Canuck Land from Rome.

You can get fast trains from Paris into Switzerland to places like Basel, Zurich, Bern, etc.

I would agree that the Berner Oberland and Lauterbrunnen and surrounds will offer some spectacular hiking opportunities.

From the BO it is an easy train trip down through Brig and the Simplon Tunnel to Milan where you can change for Venice or Florence or Rome.

Air Canada offers service Rome to Toronto (I just took it a couple weeks ago).

How long do you plan to go for? What does 'cheap' mean to you? Specify an amount of money.

I suggest:
London a week.
Paris a week.
Lauterbrunnen a week.
(Innsbruck if you add Austria a week.)
Venice a week.
Florence a week.
Rome a week.
Fly home.

You mention 2-3 nights in the same breath as Lauterbrunnen. You also mention hiking. You don't plan to do any in the Lauterbrunnen area? You can't be if you are only thinking of 2 nights there. Or were you thinking one half day hike during the entire trip?

If someone says they want to go hiking in Switzerland, I would expect a week or more in Switzerland to do that. If someone says they want to visit London or Paris or Venice or Rome, I would expect at least 3-4 FULL days in each to be worth doing.

So at a minimum, I see your list as needing 5 days London including arrival day which is a write-off. Then 5 days Paris including the day to get there. A week (7 days) in Switzerland including the day to get there. Five days in Austria if you include it. Five in Venice, five in Florence and 6 in Rome including the day to get there and your departure day.

That's a total of 43 days. A bit less than an ideal 7 weeks(49 days).

London - 4 full days
Eurostar train to Paris - 2 hours - full day in Paris
Paris - 4 full days
Train to Lauterbrunnen - 1/2 day
Lauterbrunnen 4.5 days
Train to Venice - 1/2 day
Venice 2.5 days
Florence 3 days
Rome 4 days

that's 24 days at a leisurely enough pace IMO - how long do you have to do this trip?

I don't really want opinions of how many days in each place but rather how to get from place to place and in which order. This is not an indepth trip but a highlights trip. What we we want to do in each place will be covered in the amount of time we plan on being there. It is opinions of the order and trains and perhaps costs needed to get there. I have information on some of that but wanted to see what others have to say.

Caro, you are a new member of Fodors, and welcome.

Like any group of people, some will be most helpful, and there will be the occasional opinionated, rude, arrogant poster who is keen to display their superior knowledge and put you down.

On behalf of the sane and polite posters, apologies.

CarolineF,

I will give you the same advice I gave you on your other thread: Post your questions on the Frommer's message board for Multi-Country travel. You will get precise and detailed help with train information, including timetables and best routings and best pricings for your family.

The culture of Fordor's is mostly about people who judge your trip, judge you and try to make you into the image of themselves, and if you don't accept that, you will be criticized for wasting their time. Peter is nice to apologize, but he is idealist who seems to think this culture can be changed. (There are no sanity clauses, Peter.)

If you want to get on with the practicalities of planning your family trip, CarolineF, ask on Frommer's.

CarolineF,

I will give you the same advice I gave you on your other thread: Post your questions on the Frommer's message board for Multi-Country travel. You will get precise and detailed help with train information, including timetables and best routings and best pricings for your family.

The culture of Fordor's is mostly about people who judge your trip, judge you and try to make you into the image of themselves, and if you don't accept that, you will be criticized for wasting their time. Peter is nice to apologize, but he is idealist who seems to think this culture can be changed. (There are no sanity clauses, Peter.)

If you want to get on with the practicalities of planning your family trip, CarolineF, ask on Frommer's.

sorry for the duplicate post!

Steve, noted. And some things are worth saying twice!

Peter_S_Aus - for whom are you apologizing? If it´s Improviser, I shouldn´t bother. CarolineF may not have intended to offend, but writing that she doesn´t really want opinions on a forum, where all that anyone can really offered is opinion, was curt and thankless.

I completely agree with Improviser´s statement. No one should post a question and then scold a responder for his/her response, which was made with every intent to be helpful.

Again, Sarastro, I was not scolding anyone. I was clarifying what I was looking for. I do want opinions of those familiar with train travel in Europe and who have perhaps done a similar trip and can therefore give helpful advice as to which order to visit these countries, places to stay and anything else pertainent to train travel there.

Thanks Stevewith, I will check out Frommers.

Looking for some advice for a trip in Europe starting in London going to Paris. Obviously travelling by train makes sense here.>

Yes

What about the rest of what we want to do? I am open to suggestions as to order we visit places as well.>

Paris-Lauterbrunnen - TGV-Est from Paris-Est to any Swiss city like Basel, Bern, Lausanne - whatever is cheapest on www.voyages-sncf.com (French railways site where you can book discounted tickets - albeit have to do way in advance as they are in limited numbers and also cannot be changed nor refunded from a specific train - full fare fully flexible tickets can cost a ton.

If having a Swiss Pass use it from the French border station to Lauterbrunnen. Paris to Lauterbrunnen would take about 5-6 hours all told.

To reach Lauterbrunnen you first must go to Interlaken-Ost (East station) and change to the BOB - Berner Oberland Bahn tiny mountain train to Lauterbrunnen (about 20 mins form Interlaken-Ost)


We would like to hike in Switzerland. The more I read, the more I am leaning toward the Lauterbrunnen area but if anyone has any better suggestions I'm open to that.>

Lauterbrunnen is as good a base any any - many prefer Wengen - a short rain ride above Lauterbrunnen

Rome is a definite but we would also like Florence and Venice. We would want to fly home to Canada from our final spot.>

From Lauterbrunnen take the train back down to Interlaken-Ost - change for a train to Spiez, on the mainline to Milan where you have to go to catch trains to Venice - check www.trenitalia.com for fares -= again some nice discounts if booking way in advance -if having a Swiss Pass or Swiss Card, etc use it to go to Domodossola, Italy then have a ticket from there to Venice in hand from www.trenitalia.com.

Lauterbrunnen to Venice should take about 6-7 hours.

Venice to Florence www.trenitalia.com for discounts - should take about 3.5 hours.

Florence to Rome high-speed train 1.25 hours.

You would have no problem booking trains in Italy as you go along but at full fare which is fine if you want flexibility otherwise do the discounted tickets if you can put up with non-changeable non-refundable tickets

<I would have liked Austria but might have to forgo that place> would be a major detour off the route between places on your wish list.

To see your own train schedules simply go to www.bahn.de- the German Railways site that I always use for trains all over Europe - a good way to access the English schedule page of bahn.de is to go to the home page of www.budgeteuropetravel.com and click on the link 'best on-line european train time table' or some such wording and up pops the English schedule page where you just put in From- Paris To: Lauterbrunnen and a date and you'll get all the train links with changes of train noted, etc. - I mention this home page link because it also gives the novice user of bahn.de some valuable tips that may not be apparent at first encounter with bahn.de.

Now I have been riding European trains for decades, made my career professionally writing about them - what other train questions do you have and I'll try to answer things like first vs 2nd class, etc. As mentioned before also check out www.ricksteves.com and www.seat61.com for great European train info.

And I can see only trains as viable for your inter-base travels unless you go by your own rental car but cars are useless in Italian cities and in the Jungfrau Regional where they cannot go beyond Lauterbrunnen nor Grindelwald but must be parked at high daily rates on the edges of those towns.

Thank you PalenQ. This is most helpful!

Here's the thing CarolineF. You don't say how much time you plan to travel for. If someone asks you for directions to drive to the edge of a cliff, do you just blindly give directions or do you ask, 'why do you want to drive there, are you feeling suicidal?' Some people on travel forums argue that those responding should just answer the question asked. I don't agree.

The two commonest mistakes travellers make are packing too much and trying to see/do too much in too little time. If you tell us you plan to do this itinerary in a month, the responses you get will differ from those you will get if you plan to do it in 2 weeks.

You write, "This is not an indepth trip but a highlights trip." Again, you raise red flags as far as I am concerned. The outline PalenQ gave you is one I would certainly consider designed for 'highlights' only. I even think the one I gave is for highlights only.

A plan that includes 2 nights in Lauterbrunnen is not a 'highlights' amount of time. If the rest of the plan is similar in timing, it is a 'tick of the list' trip. Not the same thing at all.

The usual phrase used is something like, 'to see as much as possible'. While everyone wants to do that, where it goes off the rails is when people confuse the word 'much' with the word 'many'. They are not synonymous. The way to see as 'much' as possible, is to spend time IN places, not in BETWEEN places. If half your time is spent just moving from A to B to C, that really isn't best use of time.

I see no reason to be reluctant to divulge your timetable. Doing so will get you feedback/suggestions based on that information. You've come to a travel forum where there are lots of knowledgeable/experienced travellers. Why get just information on train timetables (which in fact you could easily find for yourself), why not get input on your entire plan?

It's your time Caroline, all I am saying is use it wisely. In travel, less is always more. Move less, see/do more.

If you plan to cover all of this itinerary in 2 weeks, your plan sucks. Unless of course it is indeed just 'tick the boxes' you are interested in.

The outline PalenQ gave you is one I would certainly consider designed for 'highlights' only.>

I only tried to answer the OP's questions which if what I think she made clear she wanted.

No, she didn't ask for an outline of time to make the trip PalenQ, which is what you gave her in your second response.

To which she responded "I don't really want opinions of how many days in each place" I took that as referring to my suggested schedule as well as your own.