We are headed to Europe for eight weeks next summer and are finalizing our itinerary. We discovered we have two extra unaccounted for days in my plan, and my husband and I were talking about possibly doing a one night stopover in a city between some of our longer routes and seeing a bit of another place.
Here are the longer routes I'm considering putting a stopover into:
Rome-Ljubljana
Ljubljana-Munich
Munich-Paris
I'd welcome any suggestions!
What is your plan for transportation? If you are taking trains, I see a stopover as a somewhat good idea. If you are flying, then just go straight through and add your days to one end or the other.
We haven't booked transit yet. If we want to do a stopover, definitely a train. Otherwise, we would consider flying- would just depend on which ended up being easier/more affordable.
We are going other places, too, that I didn't include here. I have other places to use these days, but I am curious if anyone would recommend stopping at a city on these routes. I saw that from Munich to Paris, if taking a train, we could stopover in Stuttgart or Strasbourg. On the Ljubljana-Munich route, for trains, we could stop in Villach.
There don't seem to be any day trains on the Rome-Ljubljana route [OOPS--not true, but the day itineraries are very long trips, each with an anomalous leg by bus or taxi], so if you're planning to use ground transportation, I think you're already going to be piecing together some sort of itinerary that involves a cross-border shuttle, a bus leg, or a taxi. I think it would be best to figure out how you plan to manage that, and then consider overnight possibilities. Trieste is probably an option.
Ljubljana to Munich is faster by bus than by train, and I believe the bus makes no stops except for one or two toilet breaks. The train hits a long series of small Austrian towns, none of which I've visited.
Between Rome and Ljubijana, you have Florence, Bologna Verona and the always popular Venice.
Between Ljubljana and Munich, you have Villach and the favorite Salzburg.
Between Munich and Paris, add a day to either Munich or Paris. You have only Lufthansa and Air France flying to and from these great cities--no budget air carriers.
Rome to Ljubljana ( there are indeed day trains), my choice would be an overnight in Trieste, with bus from there to Ljubljana. But the train from Rome to Trieste is 6-7 hours, so you may want something shorter. Good options would be Bologna, Padova, and of course Venice.
Between Ljubljana and Munich, the direct train stops in Salzburg, so this would be an easy overnight stop.
Strasbourg is lovely and the notion of Trieste is a good one between Rome and Ljubljana.
Thanks so much for all the recs! I will start researching the places mentioned.
In addition to the suggestion to take a bus from Trieste>Ljubljana, another option is the shared GoOpti shuttle service. Prices start at €10. We plan to use the service from Venice>Ljubljana. Convenient drop off at the main railway station. GoOpti.com.
