3 Months in Europe: Trip Itinerary help

I take it that you will have about a month to see the places other than London and Valencia.

1) Staying in London for 4 weeks should allow you to take day trips out to Canterbury, Cambridge, Oxford, Blenheim Palace, Windsor Castle, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Bath, the Cotswolds, Winchester and more. Consider staying overnight in the Cotswolds.
2) I have been all over Spain, but just not Valencia. Spain is a large country and your options for travel out of Valencia for day trips will be limited. Consider breaking up the four weeks in Valencia to spend some time in Barcelona, Seville, Grenada and Madrid.
3) Visiting Greece, Switzerland and Italy is doable, but you might consider taking a cruise out of Barcelona that stops and Med ports, especially the Greek Islands. Also, there are cruises out of Athens, Venice and Rome.

4) I would try to go to the Med, including Valencia in June, since it gets very hot in July and August. If you don't take a cruise to the Greek Islands, you may need to take air to get to Greece, then Italy. One possibility would be to fly to Greece first, in June, then move on to Italy, and Switzerland, then Valencia and end up in London.

5) Take care your itinerary meets the EU rules. https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/go/schengen-fact-sheet.html
6) For Italy, travel between Venice, Florence and Rome is best by train.

Since you are pushing the limits of the Schengen zone be absolute certain you get clear entry and exit stamps from the Schengen zone and know where those stamps are in your passport.

Given what you state, I would order like this ...

Week #1 - Athens, Greece as well as a Greek island vacation
Week #2+3 - Italy (stops in Rome, Florence and Venice)
Week #4-7 - Valencia, Spain
Week #8 - Glacier Express train trip in Switzerland (fly in to Zurich, fly out of Geneva)
Week #9-12 - London, England

However, I am not sure London and Valencia are the best choices to base yourself for an entire month.

I can imagine filling up 4 weeks in London without a problem, there are so many things to see and do and maybe a dozen good day trips too. But Valencia for 4 weeks? After a week, you'll have seen just about everything there is in the city, then what?

If you are in Europe for 3 months, 1 of which is UK, why do other posters think that you will be in breach of the Schengen rules? The UK isn't in Schengen and therefore you will only be in the zone for c 60 nights.

From a climate point of view, you are better starting south and working north, so end in the UK.

Athens isn't that attractive a city, so if you have to go there, I suggest that you limit your time there as much as possible. I also wouldn't recommend Santorini - there are many more islands where you can experience a better, more authentic Greece.

You are going to have to fly between London, Italy, Spain and Greece, so you may as well fly to Switzerland too. Therefore, it doesn't really matter what order you do them in, as the flight times aren't going to be that different, once you allow for getting to each airport, 2 hour check in and an hour to get out of each airport. Within Italy, you could fly, drive or take the train.

Use rome2rio.com to plan itineries and skyscanner.com for flight prices. Many airlines such as Easyjet haven't released flights yet for next summer. I think they are released in September. Book these as soon as they become available for the best prices.

@dip_syd: if London and Valencia are not right, what would you recommend? We intended to spend a year in Valencia because our kids are learning Spanish.but it didn't work out. I assumed we could train to Madrid and Barcelona and then I'd like to go south and perhaps to Morocco. I assume from London I could do Paris Ireland Germany. If you have other recommendations please share! Thanks to everyone for helping me out.

Good morning -

I would recommend flying into Greece, then continuing in this order: Italy, Spain, Switzerland and England, from which you could fly home. Of course, if you prefer, the reverse order would work as well logistically, although I would think you might prefer the English weather to the Greek variety for August.

As to trips from Valencia - which is one of my favorite cities in Spain - a must see cite is the town of Cuenca. It can be done as a day trip since it is only an hour by train from Valencia. I prefer it as at least a one night stay, however. A day trip would not allow you to do a whole lot more than see the famous "hanging houses", and perhaps the cathedral.

For the London portion of your trip I highly recommend a visit to York. It is perhaps too far for a daytrip from London - three pus hours by train - and there is so much to see that it merits at least a two night stay of its own. depending on their ages, your children might enjoy the great train museum there. Other closer in daytrips from London might include Bury St. Edmonds - for the Abbey if nothing else - and Lavenham - of the Crooked Little Man fame.

Enjoy your trip!

We spent a month in London two summers ago and had NO problem filling the entire time. Not only can you travel and sightsee at a relaxed pace, you also have lots of time for venturing out of town. Bath, Stonehenge, Oxford, Cambridge, Canterbury, the Cotswolds...the list is endless! We also took several longer trips...Lake District, York, Devon and Cornwall, Wales. All very doable in a month's time.
The Schengen Rules aren't an issue since England isn't a part of the 90 day limit...you can stay there as long as 6 months (assuming your citizenship is American). The rest of your trip is only 60ish days so you aren't even close to the 90 day limit.
My suggestion would be to fly open-jaw so that you aren't backtracking to your city of entry. To hedge your bets on the weather in England I would fly into Spain or Italy and the, at the end, fly out of London to take advantage of more sunny days in August. Get out a map and mark all of the places you want to go to see the most direct route with the smallest amount of backtracking...that said, if you're flying it won't make much difference. If you're taking the train it will save you time/money to not backtrack.

Regarding you planned month in Valencia. I would break that up. The travel time to Madrid or Sevilla is just too much.
Spend a week in Valencia, then either to Seville or Madrid. From Valencia you may be able to visit Granada.

While in Madrid, you can visit Toledo, Avila, Segovia and the sites in Madrid. Sevilla is worth 3-4 days with perhaps a day in Cordoba.

I suspect that the rail connections between Valencia and Seville may not be so great. It may be that going via Madrid is the way to go. I know the Madrid-Seville connection is easy.

I agree that spending the entire month tied to lodging in Valencia will cut you off from a lot of wonderful destinations unless you want to pay for two accommodations on some nights.

The thing about the Spanish rail system is that a lot of the lines radiate out from Madrid. Trips from Madrid can be surprisingly fast, whereas many other trips involve a change of trains in Madrid, which lengthens the trip and drives up the cost. It's always smart to check for bus service when you see that the train route takes you way out of your way through Madrid. Seville is more than 4 hours from Valencia, surely not practical for a day-trip.

In addition to the possible side-trips from Madrid already mentioned (though I was happy to spend two or more nights in Toledo, Cuenca and Segovia), I can recommend a couple of interesting smaller towns that are close to Madrid and reachable by bus or local train in roughly an hour or less: Alcala de Henares and Chinchon. This is in case you decide to base yourself in Madrid for part of your stay in Spain. Incidentally, Cuenca is on the fast AVE train line between Madrid and Valencia, so it can be reached fairly quickly from either base; the trip is actually faster from Madrid.

For the UK I would look at a Week #1 in London, then
Week #2 in Cotswolds, with the possibility to visit ... Bath, Stratford upon Avon, Oxford, Blenheim Palace, Hidcote, Stonehenge, Salisbury, Bristol, Cardiff, Wye Valley, Gloucester, Highclere, Warwick Castle, Stowe.
Week #3 in Chester, with the possibility to visit ... Caernarfon, Conwy, Llandudno, Snowdonia, Anglesey, Liverpool, Manchester, Stoke Potteries, Peak District, Chatsworth House, Biddulph Grange, Kedleston Hall.
Week #4 in York, with the possibility to visit ... Castle Howard, Fountains Abbey, Whitby, Durham, Harewood House, Yorkshire Dales, Harrogate, Leeds.

In Spain I would spend a week each in Barcelona and Madrid, then depending on your preference, choose from Andalusia, Valencia, Basque Country (with Navarra).

I'm in northern Spain right now and haven't had a single too-warm day yet after about 15 days in the area--as opposed to several 85-degree days in late May in Castille and Extremadura. The northern countryside is lovely, especially in the Basque Country and Cantabria. It would be a nice break, weatherwise, after more southerly Spanish locations. It wouldn't be my choice for a first Spanish destination after Englad, purely from the weather standpoint. I'm not seeing much sun, though I think summer is deemed to begin on July 1 in this area, so perhaps the situation will soon change.

not a reply but a request.

My daughter and I are looking to do all this between July 9 and July 30:
please suggest or offer advice.

Venice, 2 nights; Milan, 2 nights; Nice, 2 nights; fly to Greece - 4 nights; fly to Morroco 3 nights; fly back to Rome, Pompeii, leave from Florence back to Dallas.

I don't think 4 weeks in London is too much, but I agree with David that you can see a lot more of the country if you change hotels. If you don't want to move around a lot, spend 2 weeks in London, and choose 2 other places for 7 day stays, or 3 places for 4-5 days each.

Spain will be pretty hot in the summer. Barcelona's climate is better than the interior where temps of 100F are not unusual. Catalonia's first language is Catalan but Spanish is spoken everywhere. There's lots to do in Barcelona and easy day trips. If you want a more relaxing time, spend a couple weeks in a small town with a car and explore, before or afterward. Barcelona is close to the Pyrenees - you may want to spend about a week in the mountains. You could also venture into southern France.

Sil: please start your own thread, so your answers will not get mixed up with the OP's, and so you'll be notified by e-mail when someone responds in your thread.