Dear all,
I posted here before. Finally able to decide which cities we want to go for our 2nd honeymoon (10th year wedding anniversary). Do you think it is feasible to cover these places in 21D 20N please? Thanks! Appreciate all advices!
Paris France 3N
Swiss Alps Switzerland 2N
Lucerne Switzerland 2N
Salzburg 2N (Hallstat and St Wolfgang)
Vienna 1N
Munich Germany 3N
Fly from munich to venice
Venice Italy 1N
Cinque Terre 1N
Florence Italy 2N (Pisa/Tuscany)
Rome Italy 3N
I find it helpful to organize an itinerary like this:
Day 1 - Arrive in Paris, spend night
Day 2 - Paris, spend night
Day 3 - Paris, spend night
Day 4 - travel to Swiss alps, spend night
Day 5 - Swiss alps, spend night
Day 6 - travel to Lucerne, spend night
Day 7 - Lucerne, spend night
Day 8 - travel to Salzburg (entire day traveling), spend night
Day 9 - Salzburg or Hallstatt or St. Wolfgang, spend night
Day 10 - travel to Vienna, spend night
Day 11 - travel to Munich, spend night
Day 12 - Munich, spend night
Day 13 - Munich, spend night
Day 14 - fly to Venice, spend night
Day 15 - travel to CT, spend night
Day 16 - travel to Florence, spend night
Day 17 - Florence, Pisa or Tuscany, spend night
Day 18 - Travel to Rome, spend night
Day 19 - Rome, spend night
Day 20 - Rome, spend night
Day 21 - leave Rome
With this itinerary, you are clearly doing way too much. Why even go to Vienna, Venice, CT or Florence? You need to understand travel times, the time it will take you to pack/unpack at each hotel, get to each hotel, etc. This would be a nightmare trip for me.
hmm when u write it out like this, it looks like a nightmare huh? hahaha Florence, Vienna, CT not worth the trouble? :D Thanks!
Ah I guess u mean too little nights so why bother going?
Starts out good, then goes down hill. Too many one-night stands. Travel will suck up your time, leaving no time to see the places you are traveling to see. Cut Vienna, Cinque Terre. Fatten up on Venice and Florence.
Yes. For example, why spend 7 hours on a train getting from Salzburg to Vienna, Vienna to Munich for probably less than 7 hours of time in Vienna itself???
Too many places.
A good rule is no one-night-stops, and you have 3 off these. Every time you change location you loose ½ day, leaving only a few hours to "tick the box" to having been there without seeing much. Some will take longer (Luzern to Salzburg is 6½ hours opn a train, plus getting from and too hotels, packing/unpacking).
Do some severe pruning.
Look up train times on: https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml
A suggestion:
I agree with the others you have too many places on the agenda. You have 10 places for 20 nights; that's 2 nights per location. Changing locations eats half a sightseeing day, so you really have more like 1.5 days to explore each place.
For example, Austria is a bit of an eastern outlier, so you could give it das boot and allocate those 3 nights to Italy. Shoot for a minimum of 2 nights per city.
Too many places. One night in Vienna, Venice and Cinque Terre are not enough.
Venice takes about three days to see properly. Florence in two nights is silly as is Rome in three.
I recommend : go to
Paris
Swiss Alps and Lucern
Vienna
Rome.
You could ride in trains from Paris to Switzerland. Fly between the other cities.
Thank you for all the advice. Grateful. First time to Europe. Very anxious actually. If we take away vienna, it will be:
Paris France 3N
Swiss Alps Switzerland 2N
Lucerne Switzerland 2N
Salzburg 3N (Hallstat and St Wolfgang)
Munich Germany 3N
Fly from munich to venice
Venice Italy 1N
Cinque Terre 1N
Florence Italy 2N (Pisa/Tuscany)
Rome Italy 3N
My friend who went to Venice recently said a day is good enough. For Venice, we are actually staying for 2D1N, the second day is a full day and we r taking midnight train to CT. Reaching CT at around 9-10am in the morning. Day trip with a one night stay, take morning train to Florence. On the way stop at Pisa for a few hours and then hop back to Florence. The reason why we are going to CT because it is a Unesco Heritage Site. Hubby is really a fan of UHS. Some of you are right that we are actually ticking off a UHS list.
So to make it clearer, it will be the following. Is it better? :D I know it is crazy. I feel crazy too!
Day 1 Arrive Paris, spend night
Day 2 Paris, spend night
Day 3 Paris, spend night
Day 4 travel to SA, spend night
Day 5 SA, spend night
Day 6 travel to Lucerne, spend night
Day 7 Lucerne, spend night
Day 8 travel to Salzburg (entire day traveling), spend night
Day 9 Salzburg or Hallstatt or St. Wolfgang, spend night
Day 10 Salzburg or Hallstatt or St. Wolfgang, spend night
Day 11 travel to Munich, spend night
Day 12 Munich, spend night
Day 13 Munich, spend night
Day 14 fly to Venice, spend night
Day 15 Venice, travel to CT, spend night in train
Day 16 CT, spend night
Day 17 travel to Florence, Pisa or Tuscany, spend night
Day 18 Florence spend night
Day 18 - Travel to Rome, spend night
Day 19 - Rome, spend night
Day 20 - Rome, spend night
Day 21 - leave Rome
Day 15, huge problem. What I'm seeing is a night train from Venice to Bologna arriving at 2:12 in the morning, then hang around the station until you get a 5:00 am train to Parma, arriving at 5:51, then a train to La Spezia at 6:25 arriving at 8:38, then a 8:55 train to your Cinque Terre destination.
Do you really want to do that?
If you want to take a night train, take the one from Munich to Venice. Leave Munich at 11:30 pm and wake up in Venice at 8:30 am, having spent the whole night in your bunk, rather than a bench at Bologna Centrale.
That takes out a night at Munich that you can add to the Cinque Terre.
That a great idea Sam! I really love this forum!!!
Go to the Deutsche Bahn website, change the language to English and check all the details on the overnight train itinerary you're thinking about:
As for Venice only needing one day, I think that is true only if you just want to see San Marco, the Rialto bridge, and maybe one or two other buildings. I have a strong suspicion that most of the people who say that (your friends do have company) simply plowed the well-worn path between the Rialto and San Marco, which is overwhelmed with tourists. They didn't really see the city of Venice.
Hi, regarding your questions:
I heed Sam's advice and will not be taking night train to CT from Venice with 3 stops. We will take the train in the morning with only 1 stop for 5 hours. As for Munich to Venice, 11pm to 830am, most probably we will upgrade ourselves for a sleeping cabin or something. Hubby and I are in our 30s. I think we can manage to sleep upright hahahaha. We can sleep anywhere to be honest. Having 2 active kids at home, we always fell asleep sitting upright while waiting TV hahaha! The trains in my country is not very advanced. We went through villages from a state to next. It is bearable :) To be honest, it is an experience for us even if we have to sleep upright the whole journey. When u r in a vacation and want to experience things, u embrace all kinds of adventure and feel so excited and fresh. When we were in Perth, we drove from Perth City to Margaret River. It was fascinating 3 hours plus ride. Everything seems so pleasant to us.
Appreciate if you can advice us where should be go to experience the real Venice City please. Ya most probably they only went to touristy locations. Thanks much!!!
If you want to keep all your destinations in play, then I would look at making most of your stopovers of 2 nights duration.
Day
1. Arrive Paris (3N)
2. Paris
3. Paris
4. Swiss Alps (2N)
5. Swiss Alps
6. Luzern (2N)
7. Luzern
8. Salzburg (2N)
9. Salzburg
10. Munich (2N)
11. Munich
12. Venice (2N)
13. Venice
14. Florence (2N)
15. Florence
16. CInque Terre (2N)
17. Cinque Terre
18. Rome (3N)
19. Rome
20. Rome
21. Depart Rome
Day 5 could be great. But what if it rains that day? It does that a lot in the mountains.
If so, you have spent a day getting to the Alps from Paris and a good part of a day getting to Lucerne from the Alps, to spend a rainy day poking around the Lauterbrunen valley or similar.
Hedge your bets with another day or two!
The same principle applies to your other non-urban destinations.
If you want to keep all your destinations in play, then I would look at making most of your stopovers of 2 nights duration.
Adam has a fair point. Consolidation would give you some flexibility. Luzern as a day trip option for an unfavourable weather day. Merging Salzburg and Munich would have similar benefits.
Day
1. Arrive Paris (3N)
4. Lauterbrunnen, Swiss Alps (4N)
-with days to Murren, Gimmelwald, Luzern
8. Salzburg (4N)
-with days to Munich, St Wolfgang
12. Venice (2N)
14. Florence (2N)
16. CInque Terre (2N)
18. Rome (3N)
21. Depart Rome
I like your idea. Since the places are all quite near. Just realize Interlaken to Lucerne is only 2 hrs apart. We can go to Salzburg from Lucerne. And I think Lauterbrunnen is very nice as base for us. Love it!!! TQ so much!
When are you going to do laundry?
Haha I hope there is a laundrymat somewhere!!!
1hr 50min approx for Interlaken to Luzern.
1hr 40min approx for Salzburg to Munich.
yup, and flight to Venice from Salzburg is also 1 hr only! and the price is very reasonable for 2 :D
You are going to spend all your time traveling. What you don't realize is the trains and planes don't necessarily run on your schedule. Tours can travel on this type of schedule because they make their own bus schedule. I think you are trying to do too much and the is a strong possibility that you will be burned out and not enjoy your vacation as much as you would have if you stayed 3 nights in each of the cities you most wanted to see. Despite what your friend says, you should allow 3 days in Venice. If your friend thought one day was enough time to see Venice, they are sadly mistaken. You will have rain during your vacation. It will definitely affect your sightseeing on those days it rains. You have not taken that into account. There is no flex in your schedule.
Yosemite1, after revising, we would have:
Paris (3N)
Switzerland (4N)
Austria (3N)
Germany (3N)
Italy (7N)
I think it is not bad after the final advice. If it rains, we will just go back to the Hotel and cuddle up or to a cafe to just enjoy the rain (and food!). Or we can just walk in the rain. Then I can proudly say my hubby and I walked in the rain in Europe! Can anyone beat that experience??? haha! Then we can quickly go back to hotel and take a hot bath so that we don't get sick. The schedule is not flexible but we are. If we cant make it, so be it. At least we have been there once in our lifetime :D
Haha I hope there is a laundrymat somewhere!!!
There will be, but this is one of those little things one sometimes forgets to consider when planning an itinerary. There should be slack time built in on a long trip to allow you to recharge, do laundry, and so that unexpected delays don't jeopardize things you really want to do or see. After about 10 days, another glorious church or a fantastic museum can become a nuisance if you don't give yourself downtime.
To see the "real" Venice all you have to do is walk away from the crowds. Just start walking in any direction and wander and get lost and you will see interesting things around every corner. The nice thing about Venice is that it is a group of islands and so even if you are lost it is not that hard to find your way back. Eventually you will hit the Grand Canal or the waters edge and can reorient yourself.
I would just caution you to make sure you save time to:
"When u r in a vacation and want to experience things, u embrace all kinds of adventure and feel so excited and fresh"
To really experience all the different cultures you need to spend time "in them" not just running through them. When we have two night stays it feels more like running through- my memories are more faded. By adding just one more night it seems to really change the experience and you get to "feel" the culture not just see it. I know there is so much you want to see and do, and that is always the hard part because you can't see everything.
There are very different styles of travel. My dad also told me that Venice only takes a day. True. Any city only takes a day if you just want to look at it- look at it and then check it off. But, did you experience it? NOPE! Venice is best early morning, late at night, walking all the ally ways where there are no people. If you rush any location you are really taking away, not adding to the experience.
If it is a place worth going to, it is a place worth staying in- at least 3 nights unless it is tiny, but then you have to decide if the travel is worth the time spent there.
I understand that the trains and transport is fun too and part of the experience, but finding your accommodations, checking in, getting settled, then packing up, checking out getting back to the train/airport eats up a lot of time you may not realize. It all sounds fine on paper but I think the experience is much better if you do that less.
Just a thought......
If your friend thought a day in Venice was enough, she certainly cheated herself out of a wonderful experience.
Given you most recent post ( 5-18-17 825PM) shows "7N" Italy, I sure hope that is for Venice , Florence, Rome. I think CT while nice, is one place too many for your allotment of days in Italy
Do not spread yourself so thin that you each get so tired and grumpy that you end up not having a 15th anniversary trip!
