6 Week Honeymoon trip. First time in Europe outside of Ireland

I, too think you can do LOTS better on your own. There are plenty of day tour companies for the special things that you can book with ahead of time or once you arrive. We've been to the UK lots of times (more than 40) and Amsterdam once. So I can only make suggesstions related to those locations. In London, get an apartment. Plan to do several day trips by train. If you are interested, private message me with you email and I'll send you an article I wrote about doing that. With an apartment you can save some money by fixing your own breakfasts and some of your other meals. I'd put London as your first city so you can get in and out before the Olymipcs. In looking at the rest of your preferred destinations, Amsterdam seems a bit out of the way. It just does not "fit" logistically to me. What about this: London- 7-12 days Eurostar to Paris- Paris 5 days, then one other French location for a more rural feel (maybe a beach location?) Train or cheap flight to Italy- not sure what you want to see there so can't say- but start north and work your way south. Spend 1-2 weeks Finish in Greece- The problem with this is that you'll be hitting Italy and Greece at the hottest part of the year- and the most crowded.
Something to consider.

Just did a little more thinking- First congratulations! I forgot to say that in my first answer. My son is also getting married this summer at the end of June. Second- Tell your soon-to-be-wife that you REALLY DON'T want to spend your honeymoon with a large group of people on a bus for 39 days! You'll want some time to yourselves. That is another reason getting apartments in some of your destinations make sense. Also- as much as I love London, you may want to re-think that. The Olympics are going to make prices even higher (possibly). What about another UK destination? Edinburgh or Inverness or Dublin or the Dingle area of Ireland or the Snowdonia area of Wales? Or just save the UK for another trip. Also- I'd really think about the heat in the south in July and August. Just want to be sure you know what you're getting into. Are there other European locations you've considered? Austria? Norway? Germany..... Some of the Baltic countries? You mentioned Amsterdam. From there you could move east and or north rather than south and explore some wonderful areas.
If you could pick 3-4 major destinations (plan to spend a week to 10 days at each) from which to do day trips, then throw in 1 or 2 smaller places as transistions between those (spending 2 or 3 days in each of those places) I think you could plan an amazing trip.

congratulations. I would suggest you do the trip on your own and I would start with some good guide books like RS. If you are limited to travel in July that will present some challenges, the Olympics in London and the general heat and crowds in Europe.
13 countries in 39 days is crazy, but you can do a lot in 6 weeks. Do some research and decide which locations sound most interesting to you and start with that.

Approximately 40 days in Europe sounds like a lot but you will be surprised when you are actually in Europe that it will go much more rapidly than you imagined. I agree with the poster that you will NOT want to spend your honeymoon with 40 people on a bus. To begin, you'll be tired when you arrive, so start with several days in a romantic, restful spot and catch your breath after all the excitement and a long flight. I would probably make it at the farthest point of your travel, perhaps Santorini or Venice. Where you begin will determine the pattern of your trip but in general you want to work your way to the west - SLOWLY. With 40 days I would spend 20 days each in one of the following: Greece, Italy, France or Spain. To help with selections buy all the RS guide books for the countries you might consider (check Amazon.) A word about money. You should be able to do a wonderful honeymoon with 40 days and $13,000 CAD. After the air costs, you should have about $289 CAD per day. With planning that will work. My very best wishes!

Here's my advice: be it ever so confusing, there is no substitute for your own research. I know that is the opposite of what you want to hear, but I won't lie to you. And it's not so hard. Crack a few guidebooks and see what jumps out at you and your bride. Talk it over. Then come back here with questions. We are really good on logistics and not so bad on other kinds of advice if you can be specific or at least tell us what you think is a good travel experience for you. I can tell you that with 6 weeks there is no way to be happy doing all the same thing all the time. Mix it up. Go from city to country. Vary the tempo. See a lot one week, then rent a flat or an apartment in one place for a whole week. Pace yourselves. Look for contrasts, which will create vivid memories. Do lots of different stuff. Try everything. By the way, Rick Steve's Europe Through the Back Door is a great place to start.

I would definitely not do a 39 day tour with a bunch of other people... however, since you have so much time, is there a place you might want to go and not be on your own. If you want the ease of a tour and not worrying about logistics, how about a week or two on your own, then one of the RS My Way tours where you will be carted around but have your time free to see what you want and enjoy each other, yet have some other people to maybe have a dinner or two with, then finish up with a few weeks on your own. French countryside can easily be done on your own with a car and staying in some wonderful villages.... Greece could also be on your own and you might look into Italy for a tour if you want to visit the cities, otherwise you could do Tuscany on your own with a car.

I don't like to make disparaging remarks about fellow Aussie tourists, BUT Contiki tours are very popular with the younger Aussie travellers. Have heard some nightmare stories about Contiki tours. They just see the whole 39 days as a chance for one big p.ss up. Personally not how I would like to spend my honeymoon or experience the sights of Europe.
Rent apartments in places you would like to spend a bit of time and take organised day tours or public transport and do your own thing. Check into the Visitor/Tourist centre of each town and get suggestions of what to do and see from them.

Bobby, First of all, congratulations! I most definitely agree with the others, that a Contiki Tour would NOT be the most appropriate travel method, especially for a honeymoon. I've spoken with a few people in Hostels that have taken them, and the comments in the previous reply by Judy are spot-on (ie: a "party tour" with copious quantities of liquid refreshment). Covering that many places in such a short time seems like the "if this is Tuesday, we must be in Rome" travel style. Given the fact that you'll be travelling in July, you may want to avoid London on this trip. The Olympics will be on at that time, and I've heard that accommodation prices have already increased substantially. As an alternative, you might consider Dublin or Edinburgh (although Edinburgh tends to be "pricey" in the summer also). Other alternatives would be to postpone your honeymoon by a month OR start at another location and end in London. In order to determine an efficient travel route, it would be helpful if you could list the places that you're most interested in seeing in each country. Are there any specific historic locations you want to see? I agree, you'll have to compromise between city and country locations to provide a nice "balance". Using open-jaw flights would absolutely be the best idea. Have you booked flights yet? I'm assuming you'll be departing from Toronto / YYZ? It would be very easy to incorporate day tours into your Itinerary. You could also use a "combination" approach with a short multi-country tour along with self-guided travel before or after the organized tour. As someone else suggested, the My Way Tours would be good to consider. Click the "Tours" tab at the top for details. Good luck with your planning!

there are advantages in taking a tour- no worries etc, but also disadvantages in that you cant stop at places that interest you. You may want to take one of the approx 12-day tours around europe (or britain) and then take 5 day visits to cities/areas that interest you. if you do this after the tour you will be a little acclimatized to Europe, have seen some of the "obligatory" sights and cities and then be able to linger in areas that particularly appeal to you, without feeling a rush to move to the next city

I tend to agree with Brian, take a short tour see some of the basic sights, then go off on your own to a few places the rest of the time. You will probably have to plan this ahead of time though and book soon for the summer.
I also agree that you should read guidebooks and decide on what you want to see and do! You want your honeymoon to go smoothly and be enjoyable for both of you.

Hello Bobby. For a Honeymoon trip, forget the guided tour with a group of people. If you will be over there six weeks, I recommend : the first two weeks be at a place where both of you can relax and enjoy the natural world. That could be at an island of Greece (at the Agean Sea), or in England or Wales. After that two weeks, go to some cities, and a variety of places and environments (ocean coast, farm land, quaint small town, ... In the last four weeks, the number of days that you stay at each destination is for the both of you to decide. And, plan to have one unscheduled day in each seven days. Rick Steves recommends doing that.
If you want suggestions of what places to go to, you could read the "Sightseeing Priorities" that is in the INTRODUCTION chapter in a Rick Steve's travel guide book for a country. But I do not like the "Sightseeing Priorities" that is in the books "Rick Steves GREAT BRITAIN" and "Rick Steves' ENGLAND". I do not recommend doing any of the suggested Itineraries (21 days, or 22 days) that are in the INTRODUCTION chapters in those books, because it is too fast, and you can plan your own travel route.

Great advice so far; I'd just add that you don't have to spend Every Waking Minute attached at the hip (even if it's your honeymoon)! Go off in different directions for a morning or an entire day, then meet up for lunch/dinner and share your experiences. You don't want stress in your vacation trip, and certainly not in your honeymoon! Read "Europe Through the Back Door" for the nuts-and-bolts of European travel; in fact, both of you read it so you're on the same page (so to speak). Also, if you're looking for destination ideas click on the 'Rick on TV' tab at the top of this page to watch his travel shows on YouTube. (cont.)

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, im going to take a few days to consider them and see what i can come up with and ask for more details when I narrow down my plans! More to come soon! ( P.S, showing her this thread, has convinced her not to do the contiki tour, but i must present our own itinerary soon for her to completely agree on doing it our-selfs ) Thanks again.

(cont.) ARRRGGGGGHHH! I just killed the second part of my response! (banging head on desk) I'll try to recreate my wonderful masterpiece 8-O OK - I said something like...On our first European trip, my husband and I spent a somewhat whirlwind 5 weeks. We were much younger, and very wide-eyed at everything...My absoutely favorite trip, too. We went to Paris, Versailles, Colmar, Bruges/Brussels, Cologne/Rhine river, Rothenburg odT, Munich/Dachau, Salzburg, Venice, Florence, Siena, and Rome. We had railpasses, but for most people railpasses don't make much sense anymore. Besides, you can get great bargains by purchasing your train tickets online months ahead. Also, don't spend too much time in transit - that eats up much more time than you'd think! Of course, some places only 'deserve' one night, but keep those places to a minimum. It takes time to get to Greece, so if you have the strong desire to get there then by all means go. Otherwise, leave it off for this trip. As already pointed out, 6 weeks sounds like a lot of time, but I could plan a great introductory trip for you in 45 seconds that uses all of that time up. But, it leaves a whole lot more out 8^(
(cont.)

(cont.) Depending on the location, it can be harder/take more time to get to "the country" than the cities. Some smaller towns are much harder than others to get to, especially if you're trying to avoid driving a rental car. Some are quite easy...The two of you should watch some travel videos together and do some reading/research to decide where you'd like to go. Yes, it's a difficult decision sometimes :-) Spend some money on guide books - it's an investment. You may decide not to go 'there'...but it was still a good investment. Since weddings can be exhausting, spend a few days at your first location - get some rest. The flight alone will be tiring. Then the rest of your trip has some legs to stand on, AND nobody's temper is short! Be sure the two of you each gets what you really want - some days you'll have to "see a lot", while other days she'll have to "experience culture and relax" LOL! Compromise.

Hello Bobby. The procedure for using Rick Steves' material is : 1) Read, in a Rick Steves book on one country in Europe, the information about some places that you might be interested in going to. 2) View a video of Rick Steves at a place that you read about, and that interests you. Rick Steves' video travelogues, made for Public Television broadcasts, are intended to supplement the Rick Steves travel guide books. His books do not have photographs of all the places that he talked about in the books. (Rick's original concept for his travel guide books included the decision to have no color photographs, and no or few small black and white photographs, to enable the retail price for the book to be a low price, and to enable the book to be small - it could be put in a pocket of a jacket - and of light weight). After reading about a place, if the reader is interested in that place, the person could try to see a Rick Steves video travelogue that includes that place. Most of his videos do not have much beauty, but seeing places in his videos can be of great help. 3) After you decide what places you want to go to, read, in a Rick Steves travel guide book on that country, the information and advice for travelling to and at those places. Note the days of the week when a museum or mansion is closed. 4) Read more information about those places, and information about other places in that country, in other travel guide books (Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Cadogans Guides, ...).
5) Before planning all the details of your trip, read much of the first half of the book "Rick Steves' Europe Through The Back Door". That book has information and wise advice pertaining to various aspects of traveling in Europe, including riding in railroad trains. The book need not be the most recent edition of that book.

...6) As Rick Steves suggests, when you will arrive at a city or town in Europe, immediately go to the local Tourist Information office (T.I.) : ask for the times when museums and mansions, ... are open to the public, and what is the latest time when visitors can enter.

If you are interested in a railroad train pass for a country in Europe, read about Rail passes at this website. If you decide to buy a Rail pass for a country in Europe, I recommend buying it from Rick Steves' business. I think he offers lower prices than what you would pay for a rail pass at your local travel agency, and he may give you some extra items, for free (a good map of Europe, etc.). A local travel agent who can sell Rail Passes probably does not have knoweldge of Rail passes. That is, if you ask for a specific Rail pass, the travel agent may not know what you are talking about. Rail passes can be ordered from Rick Steves' business, via Telephone. (An employee there is a Rail Pass specialist)

You can read opinions of some hotels and B & Bs at Europe and Britain, at the internet website of Trip Advisor.
Incidently, a writer of a Lonely Planet travel guide book on a country in Europe was accused of recommending hotels that were not good. That writer recommended a hotel, in the book, in exchange for his getting free accomodation at that hotel, or other favors. Rick Steves does not do that.

Bobby, don't be surprised if the two of you have your trip all planned out...then you change EVERYTHING about it!!! It happens...and hopefully the 'new' trip fits your 'old' flight schedule...;-)

While you're researching, a great country that you didn't mention is Croatia. As much as I love Greece, Croatia might be a good alternative. It's more easily accessible (from either Italy or Slovenia) and has lots of countryside (look up Plitvice Lakes) and islands (check out Vis, Korcula, Hvar). It's also relatively inexpensive. I would start the honeymoon here, because European islands of any sort get very busy in August. You are very lucky to have the option to start your marriage with this wonderful trip!