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First time visiting Europe, 7days but dreaming to see Paris, London and Venice.

Hi Everyone,

As I was serching for my tour guide, found this nice forum and joined after reading suggestions of all you friendly people.

We are newly married and want to visit Europe by 2016.

What I have in my plate, are:

Destinations: Paris, London, if possible taste of Venice

Duration: 7-10 days, including journey days and visiting & relaxing time

People: 2

Starting from India

Now please help regarding:

Cost of tour?

Which is the best time to visit?

What to visit in each places, so that I can get max in min time.

How to start planning my journey?

Shall I contact a travel agent or plan myself.

It would be really helpful.
Thanks
Nandita

Posted by
4730 posts

With the amount of time available, 3 cities are WAAAAY too much. Best plan is spend the whole time in 1 city and really do that city well. Next best is 2 cities -- perhaps London and Paris for ease of moving between the 2. Afraid you will regret trying to do too much in too short a time.

Posted by
15678 posts

Hi Nandita -
Congratulations on your marriage!

First off, three places are too many in 7-10 days, especially if you're including travel time to-and-from India. Or did you mean just travel time between these three locations? No matter: still too many, and you'd have very little "relaxing and visiting" time. Are you planning on seeing family during this trip?

At most I'd only do London and Paris, and 10 days (10 nights) is much better than 7: you can easily spend a week in either and not see everything. If you are not counting your travel time to-and-from India, this would give you roughly 4.5 days in each:

Arrive in London on Day 1: figure on 1/2 day dealing with the airport, getting into the city, getting settled
Day 2 to day 5 in London
Day 6: take the train to Paris. figure on a little more than 1/2 day travel, getting settled.
Day 7 - 10 in Paris.
Fly home from Paris

We enjoy traveling in the fall when the summer crowds have thinned just a little but late spring can be very nice as well.

For where to stay and what to see in each city, the best start is to get yourself a good guidebook or two. Your interests, budget and accommodation preferences may not be the same as someone else's so the books will help you decide what's best for you. Additionally, you will find help on this forum once you've narrowed your choices at little.

It's very possible to plan your entire trip yourself but it takes time and energy. Some of us enjoy making our own plan and traveling independently (I do) but others prefer to the company of a group and tours which arrange a lot of the details for them. A good travel agent will also be able to work up an independent plan for you but I'd be cautious there: some agents are better than others. But whichever method you decide to take, there's no right or wrong way as long as it works for you.

Rick Steves - the website you've just joined - publishes printed travel guides AND offers group tours, should you be interested? You may explore tour itineraries, prices and dates here:

https://www.ricksteves.com/tours

And here is the online shop for guidebooks:
http://travelstore.ricksteves.com/catalog/index.cfm?fuseaction=catalog&parent_id=10

There are too many other types of tours offered by too many other companies to list so it's impossible to give you an average price: they can range from very expensive, custom-arranged luxury plans to budget-level, large-group escorted tours. I might suggest deciding whether to go solo or with a tour FIRST plus how much you'll have to spend as it'll help you narrow the scope of your options.

So, I hope this gives you some good ideas on how to begin!

Posted by
8570 posts

You are definitely trying to see too much in too short of a time. If you a really want to join a tour look at the costs on this website for the RS sponsored 7 tours of Paris and London. Virtually everything is included with the exception of airfare. I've done Florence and Istanbul with an RS tour. Both were great and I arrived 2 days earlier than the starting date of the tour and see things that the tour wouldn't cover.

If you intend to plan yourself you need to decide which one city or two cities are absolute musts to see. Please note London is not a cheap city to visit, fabulous city, my favorite on the planet but a lot of homework needs to be done to establish a good budget. I would travel in late Spring or early Fall after the massive hordes of tourists have ebbed a bit BUT not Paris in late September, early October when it Fashion week.

Sit down again and chat and figure out where you truly want to go for these 10 days. Rome, Florence and Venice could be seen in that time frame although it would be a hurried journey.

Posted by
117 posts

I think your plan is quite doable if you like to just hit the highlights in each city. I like to travel this way. The train system in Europe is great. You could land in London and stay 2 to 3 nights. Take the TGV to Paris and Stay 3 nights in Paris. Then take a night train to Venice. Stay 2 nights in Venice and fly home. We took the night train once. We got on in Geneva at 11pm and arrived in Venice at 7am. It was quite an experience. We still laugh about it today and that was 12 years ago. I would recommend reserving a seat and not a sleeper compartment. There was 6 of us in a teeny tiny compartment. We had gone at the end of September but it was still hot. The only air was from the open window. Needless to say, The rail noise was awful. Here is a link on eurail.com night train Thello from Paris to Venice. http://www.eurail.com/trains-europe/night-trains/thello-night-train.
Enjoy!

Posted by
4324 posts

it's your honeymoon, hire a good travel agent and just enjoy the trip.

Posted by
141 posts

Congratulations! I just got done with my honeymoon and I started off as you did, wanting to see several countries in 10 days (but I ended up just visiting one). I would recommend getting the Rick steves guidebooks to each of the places you are interested in, and also one other guidebook series for a different perspective (I liked the rough guides) and you will get some better ideas of what you want to do and see. You can then double check your plans & ideas on this forum....The advice of everyone here is invaluable!

Posted by
1174 posts

There are two websites you need to explore. Check out www.tripadvisor.com, which is specific for cities rather than countries, and type in London (or Paris) travel forum for example. The other is www.seat61.com that will have all the answers and tips about train travel anywhere in Europe. The high speed train between London and Paris is the Eurostar, with tickets on sale 6 months prior to your travel date and are VERY inexpensive bought then, very expensive bought on day of travel. We prefer to arrange our own travels from our home in the US, usually to London for a few nights, then onto Paris. We then take local tours in cities we visit and enjoy day tours, usually by motor coach to outlying sights like Stonehenge or a train trip to Versailles. A day trip from Paris to Brussels or Amsterdam is very easy using trains. Like other posters, I think you will have plenty to enjoy in both London and Paris with day trips or tours thrown in.