europefirsttime

Hello,

We are planning our first vacation in Europe starting either early March or early April 2016.

We’re looking to spend around 40 days. We’ll take a flight into Paris and then, rent a car. The countries that we’re planning to visit are:

- France
- Spain (just Barcelona and/or Madrid may be sufficient)
- Switzerland
- Italy
- Austria (just Vienna may be sufficient)
- Germany
- Netherlands (just Amsterdam may be sufficient)
- Belgium (just Brussels and/or Antwerp may be sufficient)

Information about us:

- We’re a married couple in our forties
- We both like traveling and seeing new places
- We enjoy photography of natural landscape, cityscape, wildlife etc.

We need your help with planning an itinerary to cover the above countries.

We also want to take the scenic train ride in Switzerland.

If possible, can you please also recommend any hotels for each place of stay? We’re not fussed about luxurious hotels - just clean and comfortable ones. No AirBnB

In addition to the above, we would like to spend another 10 days touring the Scandinavian countries. Could you please provide any recommendations? Our initial thinking is not to drive because of the distances.

ribeirasacra

We cannot unfortunately plan anything for you as we do not know too much about you and likes and dislikes. Your post is also a bit to general too.
Having said that we can give you tips on how to plan.
On-line::
Hotels: http://www.booking.com
Route Planner: http://www.viamichelin.com/
Car Hire: Can also be done via the hotel website Booking.com
I think you can search for national tourism websites for each country.

Other comments:
Weather is a difficult one as it is not predictable so it will be hard to give you any information which will help you plan the trip
Do this as a round trip to save drop off fees for the car.
Some countries will require an IDP for each driver if you are non European. Check with that.
It is said that cars are not required for cities. So it seems from this itinerary you are mainly visiting cities. Have you considered flying, training or bussing the journeys?
$0 days is not too long, If you cut down journeys and stayed in locations more you will end up seeing a lot more. It is also said to be more relaxing.

ribeirasacra

just found you have answers here too. https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntr...ary-for-europe

StCirq

40 days divided by 8 countries is 5 days per entire country. Even if you only hit upon one or two major cities in each, that would be a forced march, especially taking into account the days (probably at least 5-8) it will take you to travel between each of them and between cities within them. As noted, a car is pretty useless in cities, and parking is very expensive. To cover these distances, you'll want to use autoroutes - tolls and gas will cost a fortune. And if you're contemplating picking a car up in one country and dropping off in another, count on a whopping extra drop-off fee.

It's way, way too early to be contemplating accommodations, especially since we have no idea what your budget is.


It doesn't sound like any fun at all to me.

Tulips

Just a few remarks;
Early March is still winter - you could be faced with snow and difficult driving conditions in many of these countries. If you have a choice, go in April. You may still find snow in the Alps then, but weather is likely to be better.

If you want to visit Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels; these are so well connected by train, and a car will be useless and expensive to park.

I don't know where you are from, but take into account petrol prices, tolls, vignettes (for Switzerland) and parking. Sometimes you can park outside of town and take public transport to the centre (as in Amsterdam).

Learn the local traffic rules; you will likely pick up a few fines. Italy has some strict rules about driving into town, France, the Netherlands and especially Switzerland are very strict when it comes to speeding.

If it was my trip, I would combine renting a car in some areas (ie countryside) with public transport (for cities). And I would stick to less destinations, you are covering a lot of ground.

www.rome2rio.com is a useful planning tool.

Whathello

I've read somewhere about leasing a car instead of renting one.
It is much less expensvie an solves the issue of a drop off in anouther country, which can become quite expensive.

For the rest, I'm like the others : buy yourself a map, and pinpoint your itinerary.

If you are more into software than paper do it on viamichelin (not googlemap) this site gives better driving times.

vincenzo32951

If you want hotel recs, you're going to have to provide a budget.

I'm not sure I understand why you're renting a car for the whole trip.

janisj

France, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium is not an itinerary - it is a laundry list. Four times you say >>(just xyz may be sufficient)<<, which indicates you want multiple destinations in the 4 other countries.

Reality check -- to get even 2 days in a city requires staying 3 nights and every time you move it eats up between 1/2 and 1 full day.

You say 'around 40 days' -- but let's use 40 days exactly to calculate. 40 days - 2.5 days travel to/from Europe leaves 37.5 days. Then take your 8 countries as just one stop in each (2 in Spain) and subtract approx 5 full days in transit between places you are down to 32.5 usable days. 32.5 days for 9 destinations nest you three days per <i>country</i>. And IF you do want even just 2 stops in each country you will eat up 8 or 9 days just in transit. Leaving you about 1.5 days per city . . .

janisj

Oh - and meant to add -- if you do drive, it is even worse because your transit times will be significantly longer. Then most of your moves will eat up an entire day. Trains and/or budget airlines are faster/more efficient for city-to-city travel. Cars are better for most rural areas.

doug_stallings

While you will certainly want a car from time to time to do daytrips into the countryside, I'm not sure it's worth the hassle and expensive of renting one for 40 days for this trip, which will put you primarily within major cities where a car is more of a hindrance than a help. Once you plan out your itinerary, I think you'll have a better idea, but it will likely be cheaper and more hassle-free to rent a car only for a few days at a time when you need one. But I agree with everyone who says that while you have a lot of time, your list of countries is still a bit long. It's not undoable by any means, but it's a bit long.

nytraveler

When thinking bout this you need to take into account both weather and special events. For instance, you should plan on being in the Netherlands when the tulip fields are at their height. And there may be other activities you want to build around.

Now - as to driving. We have done numerous road trips in many parts of europe and loved them - but the simple fact is that a car is a nonsense in most larger european cities. You can't use it as transit since there is no place to park and center cities are often pedestrian only, so it will sit in a garage at 40 euros per day (plus rental cost) while you pay for public transit. (It's like trying to tour by car in Manhatten - expensive, useless and very frustrating.)

So you should plan on using trains or planes between major cities - and renting a car when you want to spend time in the countryside or between smaller towns (although it doesn't look like you will have much time for either one).

If you lay out the trip day by day, listing where you will start, what travel you will do and where you will sleep you will be ble to see how little time you will have anywhere based on your laundry list.

Yes, it is possible to do it. But IMHO is would be a very long, expensive, and frustrating blur by the time you get home.

Now, as to budget. Do you have unlimited funds? If not, have you put a sample budget together? Have you considered which countries are modest, moderate or extremely expensive (Switz and Scandinavia for the latter).

40 days plus 10 in Scandinavia is a LONG trip - and I fear may end up costing much more than you have planned.

As for hotels are you looking for budget, modest or moderate. And what are you expecting for that. Do you require private baths and elevators versus stairs. Any other amenities that are musts? would a budget of $200 per night work for you? If not - what are you planning on?

Once you have done some work and come back with more detailed plans people can help guide you to make the trip as enjoyable as possible.

europefirsttime

Hello,

Thank you everyone for your helpful responses.

It sounds like an overwhelming NO to the idea of driving. We hadn't realized that it will cost Euro 40 / day for parking. Looks like that idea is out the window.

We had originally preferred driving because we enjoy doing it and it really gives me the flexibility to see places at my own pace. Typically in the past, when we went to a place and enjoyed it there, we'd simply extend my trip by another day or two without having to worry about making changes to travel bookings etc.

From the sounds of it, we might be better off going to certain cities and renting a car there to go to nearby countryside or towns.

As regards the countries, we want to spend most of our time in Germany, Italy and France (in that order). Also, we definitely want to explore the Glacier Express or some other scenic trains in Switzerland. Other than that, our reason to have a short visit in countries such as Spain, Austria, Netherlands and Belgium is: (a) We want to experience the culture, food and language (We realize 1-2 days is not enough, but we can plan for a subsequent longer visit based on our experience).
(b) The countries are adjacent to other countries that we're planning to visit anyway.

Also, we have looked at some tour companies that take you around Europe in 19 days. Those are pretty expensive and the tours felt like a lot of rushing around. Instead, we thought of doing this DIY tour.

In terms of budget, we're looking at spending around Euro 6000-7000 (excluding the Airfare into and out of Paris from Australia). We typically spend anywhere between Euro 63-95 / night here in Australia for a clean, comfortable 3.5 - 4 star hotel with private bath. Although, we have spent many times more in some expensive places such as Yulara (near Uluru in the middle of Australia).

Hope that gives a perspective into our thought process.

Any thoughts on Scandinavia?

Fussgaenger

"...we want to spend most of our time in Germany, Italy and France (in that order.)"

I see Belgium and Italy are also possibilities.

For reasonably-priced travel I'd look into the German Rail Pass sold by German Railways (DB.) I know... you aren't going only to Germany... but the GRP has evolved to include not just all train routes in Germany but also certain routes into neighboring countries and is very reasonably priced. The foreign routes are accomplished by DB's InterCity Bus system. I've used them myself between Zagreb and Munich recently and found them comfortable and efficient. Below is a flyer with a map of the additional bus routes.

http://www.bahn.com/i/view/mdb/bahni...flyer_2015.pdf

http://www.bahn.com/i/view/USA/en/pr...railpass.shtml

nytraveler

63 to 90 euros per night will not get you a 3.5 or 4* hotel in any major cities in europe unless you try one of those services where you buy hotels blind - and perhaps not even then.

That budget is for the cheap and cheerful - more like 2* for the upper part of your range and likely you will not be in the center but will have to travel to and fro, although you will get a private bath. And if you are talking Switz or Scand it will be more than that.

And don't assume you can cover as much territory as a tour. The tour has a professional driver and guide who know all of the roads and cities like the back of their hands and move much faster than you ever could. Plus the tour brochures are very deceptive in terms of what sights are actually seen. In brochure language "view" means seeing the sight out of the bus window as it drives by, "stop" is a 5-minute photo op in front of the sight and only "visit" means you will actually go inside. So - looking at the tour itinerary does not give you any sort of realistic sense of how long it will take to actually visit the sights they have named.

Strongly suggest you look at bahn.de, which has train schedules for all of europe, and will give you an idea of time between cities (almost always at least 1/2 a day from hotel in city A to hotel in city B).

And do remember that each time to go to a different country it is a different language, different culture, different transit system, different meal times/habits and orienting to a different city. (Tours protect people from all this another way they can cover so much ground). But dealing with this is what will at least begin to give you a feeling for each country/culture.

Your trip is coming up quickly so I would do some fast reading of guide books to get an idea of your must sees. And to get the best train fares (which are nonrefundable and usually mean you can;t change times) are usually sold 90 days out from the date of travel. If you don't get these your train costs can easily double or triple.

Once you have done this people here can help you string them together.

Sorry - as for your budget IMHO it is VERY tight and will mean a lot of picnic meals or food from markets and the cost of major sights - which can easily be 25 euros per person - can really break your budget.

StCirq

nytraveler has pinpointed all the potential problems with your plan. Your budget is going to require VERY careful planning for meals and accommodations, and you are VERY late in planning. I would dump Switzerland and Scandinavia with your budget - you will be shocked at how incredibly expensive they are.

<<) The countries are adjacent to other countries that we're planning to visit anyway.>>

"Adjacent"does not in any way mean "close." I sense you don't have any realistic idea about traveling around from country to country in Europe. I live in the SW of France, which one could say is "adjacent" to parts of Spain, but it takes me around 6 hours or so to get there, depending on where I'm headed, and that's with no stops. You need to really study, and understand, maps.

Advance train tickets are a must - from 3 months to 120 days out, depending on the country and type of train. If you don't get on this now, you're going to lose wads of money.

hetismij2

My thoughts on Scandinavia are that it is expensive. Are you including those 10 days in your budget or do you have another budget for Scandinavia? Where do you want to visit?
If you do a search on booking.com or similar for hotels in say Oslo I think you will be shocked. And that is just the room. Food is also really expensive.

Whathello

Germany is one of the cheapest place to stay in hotels.
I paid as low as 40 euros per night on towns and certainly below 100 in cities such as Dresden for nice hotels.

I once slept in a hotel in Paris for 40 euros a night. I think all the other clients paid per hour.

thursdaysd

Besides bahn.de for schedules I recommend spending time on seat61.com for general train info and tips on buying tickets.

I agree that your budget seems low. I just spent three and a half months in Europe, a trip which included over a month in Scandinavia and three nights in Zurich, plus the UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain. (Click on my name for the TRs.) I came in at a bit over $200/night, staying in two to three star places, mostly with AC and all with en suite bathrooms, but mostly without things like pools, room service, concierges, or often restaurants. That was a solo trip, you should add at least half as much again for two.

That said, Germany is certainly cheaper than Scandinavia and Switzerland. This, for instance, was my Berlin hotel: http://www.motel-one.com/en/hotels/b...ipziger-platz/

I lay my trips out on blank calendar pages, including transit time. If you have not visited Europe before I recommend reading "Europe Through the Back Door", which has a lot of good planning tips. Or "The Rough Guide to First Time Europe".