22 Night Itinerary: London-Paris-Munich-Berlin-Amsterdam

I see it so much on these boards, itineraries with way too much to see in too little time.

Four nights in London and you want to see London, York, Bath, Stonehenge and more.
You can hit the high points just staying in London, but even London alone needs more time.

All the other places are great, but going to York, even for a day trip would be a very long day. We spend three nights in York and were very busy the entire time.

Same with Paris. You have 6 nights, but will be occupied for part of that time for the French Open. Forget going to Normandy, that would take a couple of days minimum. Look at a map, did you take geography in school. Do you know how far it is from Paris to Nice? Forget that idea.
Perhaps you can visit Versailles, you can take the RER out there and spend about half a day.

Same with Munich, four nights you can take in the city, perhaps one day trip, but Rothenburg ob der Tauber is too far to do on a day trip.

I say, skip Amsterdam or Berlin (perhaps both) and spend more time at the places named already.

Sit down and plan your trip, transportation (train or car), tours or do it yourself. For example, London, do you want to see the Tower of London, Westminister Abbey, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, take a Thames river cruise, go to Hampton Court or Windsor Castle?
Use Things to Do on TripAdvisor, it will help.

I have looked at a map and yes geography was taught in my school. Thank you very much.

"Any suggestions/tips would be appreciated"

Hi Mexitokyo,

What is your tolerance for a long day trip? Are you thinking a two-hour train ride, four hours touring, two hours back? If so that will answer your questions about day trips - many of your suggestions are further than two hours away. But if you really really want to see something (in my case, the Tank Museum 2.5 hours from London by train) then do it anyway and plan light touring the next day to recover.

Here's what works for me: as I develop the itinerary I put in the hours of travel moving from one location to another. Then I make ruthless decisions so that I'm not spending too many days traveling. My last three week trip looked like this: London to Bayeux (Normandy) to Amsterdam to Berlin. I flew into London and home from Berlin. Three days "wasted" on trains gave me a chance to read, write up my travels, process photos, etc.

After I have a rough "framework" I figure out how many days to allow in each location based on what I want to see and do there. When I'm travelling with my husband and adult children everyone gets a few days when they are in charge of the planning and we coordinate our choices so that not every day is spent at Versailles (for example).

I hope these suggestions help you put together a trip you will enjoy. You won't see everything, guaranteed. I tell myself that I'll see those places I had to skip when I make my next trip.

I am reading that "DT" as singular, not plural, and the places mentioned are the options from which to choose.

So from London, either Bath, Stonehenge, York OR the coast, not all four.

But with only three full days for London, I personally would not do any daytrips 2+ hours out of the city. Maybe Windsor or Kew if you have a keen interest in castles or gardens. But there is so much to see in London---maybe save York, Bath, etc. for another time?

For Paris, I see you have listed Nice/Cannes/Monaco as possibly giving this area 1-2 nights, taking those away from Paris itself. Counting days rather than nights, I see five full days for Paris. If you use two for Roland Garros ( May 24 and 25) and two for The Riviera, that leaves one for Paris sightseeing. That may seem like a travesty to some, but personally I would be fine with that. Paris is a "been there, done that" place for me, somwhen we went to the French Open a couple of years ago we took the Eurostar from London solely to spend two full days at Roland Garros, with no extra days in the city before returning to London.

IF you have little interest in Paris other than the tennis, you could fly straight to Nice from London and spend 2 nights in the area before heading up to Paris by train on the 22nd.

What is your plan for the Open? Do you have tickets or grounds passes already? When we went, it was the opening rounds ( like you) and grounds passes ( purchased online when tickets sales opened tohe public) worked out fine. Really well, in fact, as by sheer coincidence a young friend of ours made it from the quallies into the main draw, and was scheduled to play Wawrinka the second day of our visit. He gave us passes to sit in the players' box with his family and coach. We also got to enter the players' lounge and wait for him after the match. It was a wonderful experience.

I will let others to comment on the rest but I will say I prefer the first itinerary, without Prague.

I suggest you look at train times on bahn.com. Some of your suggestions may be impractical. Some of your ideas require train changes or may not even been accessible by train.

Paris - you will be at RG presumably for 2 days 24-25. You will close to 1/2 day of the 20th getting from London to Paris. That leaves you 3 full days for sightseeing and day trip/s. Normandy is impractical as a day trip. An overnight anywhere means using close to or more than 1/2 day in each direction for travel. That would leave you 1 day in Paris at best.

You can take it from there on your own - be realistic about how long you have in each place and how long it will take you to get there. For instance, Eurostar from London - you have to be at the station an hour before departure, it can easily take 1/2 hour to get to the station and another 1/2 in Paris to your hotel. You lose 1 hour due to time zone change. If you take the 9.22 train, you have to leave your hotel by 8 at the latest and when you get off the train in Paris it's nearly 1 pm.

Redid my 22 nights. I leave May 15

3n London
3n Amsterdam
6n Paris (first 3 days of Roland Garros)
3n Interlaken
5n/4n Munich
2n/3n Berlin

Can’t decide on nights in Munich/Berlin, but I have 7 to play with.
I want to go to Nuremberg, Dachau, Rothenburg, Garmisch-Partenkirchen which is why I’m using Munich as homebase.

You posted:

Redid my 22 nights. I leave May 15
3n London
3n Amsterdam
6n Paris (first 3 days of Roland Garros)
3n Interlaken
5n/4n Munich
2n/3n Berlin
Can’t decide on nights in Munich/Berlin, but I have 7 to play with.
I want to go to Nuremberg, Dachau, Rothenburg, Garmisch-Partenkirchen which is why I’m using Munich as homebase.

I wish you a great holiday travel experience. You have a lot of travel in your itinerary. I suggest you plan your movement each day, tours, how to get there with whatever transport you use. You will be in large cites, except for Interlaken. Interlanken is wonderful, you might have a chance to relax a bit. Take a boat ride on the lake and go up the Yungfrau. It is a beautiful area.

As for Munich, Dachau is an easy day trip from Munich. Nurenburg, you can take the train for a day trip. Garmisch and Fussen, if you want to see the castles, will require more than just showing up there, consider finding a tour, since the castles are away from the city. Going up to the top of the Zugspitze is nice, if you are interested. You probably need two days in Garmisch, so consider spending one night there. The Fraundorfer Hotel is nice.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a bit longer trip to get there. It is worth the trip, there are other great walled medieval cities on the Romantic Road as well. You could start with Augsburg, then go up the road, Dinkelsbuhl and Donauwurth are nice. Still, for that you would need at least 2 days on the Romantic Road. If you do all that I have listed for Munich, you still haven't seen Munich. Consider skipping Berlin for this trip.

With respect to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. I’m actually not into castles, I’m into natural beauty like Zugspitze and gorges. That’s why I’m looking forward to the launterbrunnen valley.

I suggest that you drop London and Amsterdam and spread these days around your other locations. I had 6 full days in Berlin without any day trips and we didn’t see everything.

Not sure if you purchased your air tickets yet. The reason I asked is because the months of June and July is when it rains in Berlin averaging 3”. Although you may not be affected since you’ll be there earlier in the month.
I spent several days in June and it rained so hard my sister stayed at the hotel while I took a bus to see some sights. I was so wet that my clothes and shoes did not dry overnight, so it might be good to add a day to the Berlin portion in case you decide to stay indoors one day due to torrential rain.

I already purchased my plane ticket. I’ll be in Berlin either June 4 or 5 thru the 7. I plan on seeing Bradenburg, Holocaust Memorial, Berlin Wall, Reichstag. That’s why I think 2 nights is enough for these big sites. It’s 4 hour train from Munich so I only have day and a half. My return flight departs at noon. So if I need to wake up early and sneak in one quick thing I will.

What’s good about your itinerary mexitokyo is the gate, memorial and Reishtag are in the same area. If you have to skip one make it the latter. The East Side Gallery (wall) is well worth seeing. Afterwards, enjoy a cold brew at Volkspark Friedrichshain where everyone fits in.

On a scale of 1-10, Prague and London rate 15. Munich and Berlin -10, Paris -4, Amsterdam 0