Your Europe for all Seasons
 

Often there are posted questions (including one of my own) about the merits or demerits as the case may be of different locales at different times of the year. I would love to hear your ideal travel calendar. For those of you who've been all over Europe that may cover a lot of geography or maybe for specialists it means small pockets of distant lands. If you'd like to share, I'd love to hear . . . . .

Yes, please me too. We are hoping to go for a 6 month trip and the very same question was about to be my next post, so I will tag along here too.

My list is based on the facts that I live in Bavaria, Germany (so I do get more or less the regular 4 seasons), and that I try to avoid the masses (but will not trade that in for really bad weather)

January: Andalucia/Costa de la Luz
for a bit of springtime in winter

February: Austria/Southern Carinthia
Snow and Sun

March: Ireland
friends live there and it already looks greener there than in Bavaria (how stupid is that)

April: Any major city like Rome or Madrid
not hot as in summer, so lots of walking does wear you out.

May: Toughest month for choosing since almost every destination seems to be great. Probably Switzerland or Austria since also higher elevation get spring bloom.

June: Sweden, Baltic states, for midsummer.. endless days

July: Norway (if you can afford it, try the Hurtigrouten "cruise", and ride the train from Bergen to Oslo), or
Provence (lavender blooming), and the Haute Provence in Vaucluse does not really get that hot.

August: Northern Spain, the coastline, the cultural highlights along the camino de santiago

September: Again, another great month to go on vacation. Hard to find a place not to go to.

October: Something wine-related.. Wachau/Austria, Toscana/Italy, and some parts of Germany are also not that bad.

November: Guadaloupe or La Réunion ;-)
(Okay, that's a bit cheating, but it's France. If I don't get away with it, I'll settle for the Canary Islands)

December: Not my favorite month to go on a real vacation. Mostly daytripping to the Christmas Markets of the region.

Thanks for the reply Cowboy - now you've sent me off researching the never before considered prospects of Andalusia and Norway!

Thanks Cowboy, your list is great and gives me somewhere to start.

We went on the Hurtigruten cruise in May this year, had amazing weather. We saw Nordkapp in sparkling blue sunshine but 1/2 an hour later the sea fog came in and you couldn't see a thing. We only a one really bad day of wet weather during the entire trip. Looks like its the Lavender for us in July then, sounds wonderful.

Thanks again.