Analyzing and Disecting a Rick Steves Itinerary!

I only have expirience in Madrid. I went with school and we used Renfe(the rail system)/the subway and city buses for EVERYTHING! The people on the trains are very nice.
I would use Renfe lines for you're day triping, that's how we got to Toledo. Fast. Which by the way, is an awesome city. I bought a(i'm going to spell this wrong...) Damasquiat(hand hamered 24k yellow gold into black designs) pocket knife for my dad. Can find almost everywhere there. You can watch them do it in person.
Check weather.com for b4 you leave for average temperatures. I learned that lesson the hard way. It gets cold there, in MAY! (Oops) Reina Sofia is AMAZING! Prado was really neat but my first half was in lecture for class so it wasn't as much fun as Reina Sofia for me which I went to for fun. And the Prince was getting married so I missed the Royal Palace :o( Go to the Plaza Mayor at night. There are cafe's everywhere. Sit down outside and people watch, menu's available in english. Sangria,amazing

Hey Al, I'm not sure what your question is about this itinerary. Rick knows how to move around Europe seamlessly and so it looks pretty good. Honestly the hardest part of this is getting to a new city and becoming oriented. I've "wasted" more time walking the wrong direction on a street when I get off the bus or out of the underground that it takes about 2 days to really have the transportation figured out. The trains in Europe are easy and pretty consistent (less so in Scand.) This itinerary doesn't leave much room for missing the train or finding out that the night train doesn't travel on Saturday night, but if you do your homework before you go and build in a little flexibility I think it is a good variety of big and small and certainly all the biggies so you know where you want to go "next time." Most of the time I would say the transport between places is the easy part.

This is a bit dated but the idea is probably still ok. I would highly recommend you get his latest version of Europe through the back door - that also explains in lots of detail each stop on that list. If youre on a budget - try the librbary for at least the 2006 if you dont want the 2007 version. Amazon online is also cheaper (20%) but as Rick says - a 30$ investment in a new book can pay for itself in one day! The great places of Europe are not going anywhere - but the hours or operation may catch you off guard!

I am sure it is doable....but I would not try it. We spent 8 weeks in 8 countries. I believe we had a couple of times where we were in one place only 2 nights. The majority of our stays were for 3-4 night in one place...Lauterbrunnen 6 and Paris 5. When you travel for a long period of time you must have time to catch your breath at least once and week and have a very slow paced day. At least I did when I was 64.

Thanks a lot for the help! I´m still checking and learning names of places that were unknown to me before. I am certainly doing my homework on this one. I am gonna buy Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door 2007: The Travel Skills Handbook. Is that the one you´re referring to? Also, I will make a more concise question about the transitions once I finish my research, by saturday. The tip about Spain´s Renfe rail system is great! Do they participate in the Railpass? And yeah, gotta fidn time to catch my breath after all the hard work. I am currently planning to stay an extra month after the 61 day journey ends, possibly a week or more in the places I like the most. Any other information is welcome !

We leave Spetember 4th for 66 days and are following pretty close to this itinerary. It is in the 2007 version of Europe through the back door. We did alter the itinerary a bit to give us a few days to play with. We removed London and the Hill Towns and added Krakow and Budapest. We now have 7 extra days that we can use when we find places we want to spend more time in. I've had a few friends do 45 to 60 day trips to Europe and they tell me that this is definitaly a doable itineray.

If you will travel during high season, the best thing to do w a RS itinerary is to use it as a guide and to stay in places other than those mentiooned. In this way, you will likely avoid hordes of RS enthusiasts who are travelling to the cities recommended.

I already saw some places to add, and some places I could displace. Now all I´ve got to do is make it flow from country to country again. I am still figuring out how to include crossing into Greece from Italy, although I think my chances are slim.

There is a highspeed ferry that goes from Bari(the port directly across Italy from Napoli) to Patra(Athens). We bought tickets online at superfast.com but as it turns out our Eurail pass is good for this as well. I'm not sure on all the details persay but I know you can use it. Might I recomend you buying your Eurail pass before you set your itenerary in stone. I'm finding that we could have saved time traveling by switching some cities into other slots on our map. Learn as you go, oh well. Hope this helps!