Europe trip dream list - suggestions welcome!

[ ] Scotland/golf/fly fishing

How long is this trip?

What kind of info are you seeking? Have you scoped out the transport links between your destinations? That would be my first stop, align with cross referencing weather as in some places, that matters.

1. London for at least a week.
2. Mont- St-Michel combined with more of Normandy, Bayeux for D Day sites and Tapestry, then include Honfleur too.
3. And/0r from Mont- St- Michele ( be prepared for a mob scene) head into beautiful Brittany. St. Maloney, Dinard, Dinan, Rennes, Quimper and more! Switzerland, Alps- stunning scenery but no river tour! Austria- Vienna, Salzburg Italy- all of it. Choose north or south for a first visit. Rome, Tuscany, Florence, Venice is a good first trip there. You could do a day trip zPisa of course. Why Pisa? Provence- why put Tuscany here???? It is in Italy between Rome and Glorence( which is in Tuscany)Marseille. Stay in Avignon, Arles,Gordes, Les Baux or other towns. We spent two weeks on our first trip to Provence. Haven't ever been to Marseille, no plans to go there. Week long cooking school. Which country or region? They are offered all over Europe. Tour d’France. Check locations. Côte d’Azur- have spent several trips here based in Nice, Ramateulle, Cap Ferrat. Very easy to do day trips by public transit along the coast, no car needed! One of our favorite places to explore! Greece- suggest Napflion in the Peloponnease, islands: Islands of Naxos, Paros, Crete. If you haven’t been, add a short stay on Santorini, a “one time is enough” place. Athens- has so much awesome history! Give it at least three days. Parthenon on the Acropolis, the Acropolis Museum, National Archeological Museum, Cycladic Musrum, Changing of the Guard. Enjoy eating real Greek food; the fresh fish and salads are amazing.

Stonehenge.
Stay overnight nearby. (We stayed in Amesbury) and do the inner circle access.(Book this well in advance, as spots are limited.) https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/things-to-do/stone-circle-access-visits/

If you have not done so, get a decent map of Western Europe and a high lighter pen and mark on it all the places you list above. You will then be able to see how the various stays lineup. For example, you could fly into Edinburgh and rent a car. Then off to St Andrew’s or another area for golf. Then drive to Alnwick, down to Stonehenge (maybe stopping at York, Bath)and drop the rental at Oxford. Take the train into London. You do not need a car in London, bus, tube or train will work for what you want to do.

Mt Ste Michele is not an easy journey from London. It’s either Eurostar from London to Paris the four hours by train plus taxi or bus. Other option is overnight ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo and the bus or taxi. Have a look at the man in seat 61 web site for full info on these options. River cruise would be relaxing after all that traveling. Tuscany is in Italy so Rome, Venice, Tuscany - maybe look at Rick’s Rome, Venice, Florence tour?

Marseilles, Côte d’Azur, Provenceis a logical progression, maybe train from there to Paris and Mt. ste Michele, and fly home from Paris?

Cooking school? What sort of cuisine? French, Italian? British?

From a rough count of what you want to do, I am guessing you will be away for about two months so Athens might be a bit too much after all this traveling. Athens itself merits at least three nights and if you want to add on a. Island…?

Have you thought how you will get from area to area, car rental, train or flying. Train travel works well in Europe. The German Bahn website would be a good source for route planning.

A trip like this involves a lot of planning and asking questions…coming to the forum is a good start!

To me you've got several trips here!

1 - Fly in to London (for a week), Salisbury (2 nights minimum with a Stonehenge visit on the full day along with the Cathedral and the Salisbury and Wiltshire Museum on the Cathedral Close), Bath for 2-3 nights, up to York. Are you going to rent a car? If so Alnwick Castle (stay in Alnwick...very cool little town) with day trips to Lindesfarne which is a tidal island like Mont Saint-Michel and a day trip to Seahouses to take a boat trip out to the Farne Islands for birdlife. On to Edinburgh and wherever you want to play golf. Fly home from Edinburgh.

2 - France - Fly in to Paris. A week in Paris. A week in a cooking school. Mont Saint-Michel and while you are in the area do you want to see the D-Day landings area? Head south for Provence, Marseilles (Tuscany is in Italy) and Cote d'Azur. Fly home from Nice. The Tour de France is in July - starts tomorrow - and that is not a time of year I'd want to be in France because of heat potential but I'm a wuss when it comes to hot weather. YMMV!!

3 - Switzerland but not on a River tour because the cool part is up in the Alps. Many on the forum love the Lauterbrunnen Valley in the Berner Oberland. It's one of my favorite places! Then maybe one of the River cruises.

4 - Italy - Rome, Tuscany, Venice and as a quick mid day stopover or a day trip, Pisa. Weeklong cooking school??

5 - Greece

Please....don't try to do your whole wish list at one whack! Assume you will return (that is harder to think about after Covid but it's one of Rick's phrases!).

I assume you know not to go in the summer when everyone else will be in Europe. Do the Tour de France trip separately from the other places, since it has to be done in the summer.

From Seahouses you can also do a day boat trip to Lindisfarne (with time ashore) with Billy Shiels boats..

Several operators do the Farne Islands from Seahouses, but as far as I know Billy is the only one to do Lindisfarne.

As one trip this rather overwhelms me looking at it. There must be more you want to do in London than just Harry Potter.

In line with what Suki was doing, I had to group these various destinations to begin thinking about suggestions. Then I thought about what seemed to be an absolute minimum number of nights that people on this forum and in my travel group would want to spend in that location, including the travel days. I hope this will have the effect of helping you think through whether you really can be gone that long. I would begin now to write down any specifics that you think are must-do's in your locations.

Here's my thought for the absolute minimum:
Group 1. London (4 nights to many more), Stonehenge (2 nights), Alnwick (2 nights), Scotland for golfing (4 nights). Sub-total 10
Group 2. France. Mont St. Michele (2 nights = 1 day), Provence/Marseilles (4), Tour de France one town (3), Cote D'Azur and Marseilles (9). Sub-total 18
Group 3 Switzerland/Austrian Alps (5 nights)
Group 4. River cruise (if that's what you mean instead of some type of one-day "river tour" (8 nights)
Group 5. Italy (Rome, Venice, Pisa, Tuscany (14 nights)
Group 6. Greek islands and Athens (9 nights)
Group 7. Weeklong cooking school (6 nights, maybe can fit geographically with France or Italy)

This is 70 nights by my guesstimate method, which would adjust quite a bit plus and minus as you refine your itinerary. Is that something your time, money, and tolerance for uncertainty can manage? If not, step 1 may be to think long and hard about what should be eliminated. To help in that process, I suggest borrowing lots of guidebooks from the public library and buying ones you feel sure you will use.

If you plan to use trains or planes, their routing will influence the order in which you can visit these places quite a bit. Start researching that too.

When you have a very tentative itinerary and have settled on approximate trip length and budget in your own minds, come back to the forum and ask more specific questions. If you want to wander without regard to time, money, or pre-planning, that is a viable approach too, but we would need to know that.

Following on from Nancy, Pam and Suki, you need to think about accommodation and the cost thereof. This is where a site like booking.com comes in useful for seeing what costs are like.

In 2024 the Olympic Games will be held in France in July/August. The majority of the competitions will be held in and around Paris, but several events will take place in other parts of the country. From football in Lille to sailing in Marseille. The Olympic Games will have a serious impact on hotel availability and prices.
The Olympic Games also impact the 2024 edition of the Tour de France. Instead of its traditional finish on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, in 2024 the Tour de France will end in Nice.

I’ve seen the Tour de France on several occasions. My best experiences were on a mountain during one of the climbing stages in the Alps. Yes, you need to be there at the crack of dawn and wait hours and hours before you see the first cyclist pass by. But after this long wait, you will be able to see the cyclists up close as they slowly make their way up the mountain.

Also, please do mind the correct spelling of Mont Saint-Michel. The Mont Saint-Michel is named after St. Michel, a male Saint. In French a female saint is a Sainte, shortened as Ste. So do check your spelling before you inadvertently turn poor St. Michel into a female Ste. Michele.

Buy Rick Steve’s’ European Travel Planning Map. Buy a marker too. This will be very helpful as you plan.

Would add midnight sun or Aurora Borealis in Norway above ploar circle (not available at the same time) and also exploring Norway's West fjords for 3-5 days.

Hi dianneandjimmy, congratulations on your retirement! When I read your post I thought this was your bucket list for traveling the next 10-15 years! Get a map, take your time!

I have never been to Stonehenge, so I can’t compare. But I have a friend that lives in England and she took us to Avebury. Granted, it was about 10 years ago, so I don’t know if anything has changed. But there were no crowds. You could just walk amongst all the stones and get right up to them.

What a lovely list! It does cover a lot of ground. Conceivably possible if you were wanting to spend 3-4 months traveling. Means beginning or ending in Britain so you can maintain the 90 day Schengen rule.

Have the two of you traveled extensively or will this be a first European adventure? If not, this would likely be culture shock if done all at once.

I like what Pam suggested for different trips. @nancycantravel did a nice plan for dividing it if it’s one trip.

Everyone who has posted has excellent information. Getting an atlas and some country maps can be money well spent when planning- distances are deceiving as European roads are often more windy, narrower and busier than our roads may be. Otherwise, train travel on the continent is often the best way to go with car rental here and there.

I agree with thinking about lodging /food and just how much that can add to a trip, unless your personal finances don’t demand any style of budget.

When you narrow down or have more concrete ideas of what the trip could look like, many of the forum members actually put it on a spreadsheet to see what it looks like. Personally, I use a regular calendar I’ve printed so I can put in travel times and days, check in and check out times, any tours I want to prepay and definitely any sightseeing we want to fit into our schedule. It is always amazing to me how I can completely fill 8-10 full days somewhere and we love having free time to just wander!
You have time to plan. Try not to stretch it out too long as the entire world of travelers is doing the same! Makes getting some of the coveted reservations more difficult the closer your departure date becomes.

Planning is great fun and a bit harrowing at the same time. Keep coming back and asking more questions! Enjoy!

We just did Stonehenge/Salisbury/Bath, etc. as another poster suggested and it's a wonderful few days. Then you're an easy train ride to London or even down to the ports like Southampton. You could cruise to some of your ideas or maybe add things you didn't realize were an option. Super easy to cruise from Southampton or Dover, many options (Scotland, Norway, the Northern lights, etc.).

Your Italy/Greece ideas would be nicely accomplished by a combo of some land time in Italy and a Mediterranean cruise. Marseilles is a common cruise port on a western itinerary and Athens will be common on an eastern. Maybe you'd luck out and find one doing both, lol.

I've been pondering a week long cooking school. Have you found the one you want? The ones I've looked at in Italy tend to be a mixture of cooking and touring, which can be nice but is eye popping expensive. I found a school in Paris that does classes that you can buy. I just haven't figured out if I'd pay for my teen to do it as well. I would, but that doubles the cost. Maybe you could situate yourselves so the noncook golfs or whatever while you cook. If you find a great place, report back. I'm definitely looking for an option. :)

You might also look at going up from Venice to the alps. So you could do Rome, take the fast train to Venice, cruise the eastern med to hit Athens, then train up. River tour is a good idea too. Easy Jet goes affordably from Venice to lots of places. You could cruise over to London or Barcelona/Rome, tour, and use EasyJet to connect to your next place. EasyJet has a map that will let you click to see where you can fly to from each place. You might also look at train maps to see how trains connect.

Lots of choices. We have visited 81 foreign countries and 3/4 of Europe.

Italy is my favorite foreign country to visit. It has three fantastic cities to visit that are all different, Rome, Florence and Venice.

Rome has the amazing St. Peter's Basilica with the Sistine Chapel as well as a plethora of ancient Roman places to see.
Florence has two great art museums as well as a city from the Renaissance era. Venice is a special place with its canals. It was founded in the late Roman Empire when the Huns and other barbarians were roaming northern Italy.

Great Britain is my second favorite country, love London, Edinburgh, York and the fantastic countryside.

The Alpine region of Switzerland, Austria and parts of France, Italy and Germany are very scenic and wonderful. Only Norway equals the scenic value of this region.

Greece is great to visit with ancient Athens to see as well as many Greek Islands (taking a cruise and visit many).

Paris is great, as well as Normandy, the Alsace and Provence. Forget Marseilles, there are more great places to see in the South of France.

It is not Europe, but consider two weeks in Egypt or a tour of Israel. Both are amazing.

My tips:

Minimum of two nights each stop. More if what you plan to see (Swiss Alps) is weather dependent. For big cities, 4 nights minimum, preferably 5.

Every time you switch places, you lose at least half a day. Also add in travel time.

Build in a rest day every week or so. Where you literally have nothing planned, unless it’s sitting by the pool.

How's your budget?

This looks like it's a first trip to Europe. Please take the time to explore the Travel Tips on this Rick Steves website for general information on traveling in Europe. Here's the link: https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips There will be links in the various sections to take you to more information. For a trip of this scale, pay particular attention to the Packing Light Tip section and the Packing Forum. You can't possibly pack all you want for the trip and move around as much as you've outlined.

Another very useful source of information is his guidebook, Europe Through the Back Door, for sale from the store: https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/europe-through-the-back-door When you go to that link, you can find lots of other potentially interesting guidebooks for sale.

Getting a European Atlas would probably be helpful, too. BTW, Tuscany is in Italy near Florence, not in the South of France.

I know it seems like you may never go back, but this trip could conceivably use up all the time you're allowed (90 days) in the Schengen area: https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/schengen-visa-countries-list/ The 90 days includes the day of arrival in and the day of departure from any Schengen country, assuming that you are in Schengen countries the whole time. Most people on the Forum recommend to plan a slightly shorter time in case something goes wrong to keep you in a Schengen country. Over staying the time can have significant penalties.

As you work through your planning, you'll need to prioritize what you most want to do, along with when and where you want to do it. This is always a challenge and it's an iterative process with many changes along the way. You may find that some destinations may take much longer and be more complicated to get to and leave from than you expected and not be worth the effort. The Explore Europe section here (https://www.ricksteves.com/europe) can help add some definition to the list you already have.

It's a steep learning curve for any trip to a new place, but especially to places that are so different from what you're used to. It's smart to be starting your planning early.

I skimmed through and I don’t think anyone has mentioned this: the Warner Brothers Harry Potter tickets sell out very quickly. So as soon as you know the dates when you’re going to be in London, book your tickets.

Stonehenge can be done as a day trip from London - get a train to Salisbury then pick up the Stonehenge tour bus outside Salisbury station for the short ride to Stonehenge. Make sure you leave time for Salisbury cathedral, too. But the city also repays a longer visit.

Alnwick is a lovely little town. You can get the train from London Kings Cross to nearby Alnmouth, and then continue on to Edinburgh (perhaps for St Andrews?) afterwards. Northumberland also repays a longer visit - from Alnwick you could also visit Bambrugh and its lovely castle.

Hi Dianneandjimmy, You've had some excellent advice here, I agree traveling between destinations takes longer than you think.

Someone on the Forum once suggested looking at all the time from when you get up in the morning until end of day to see how much time you actually have between meals etc to see stuff, it's a great idea. I quite literally sit down, close my eyes and imagine the arrival. What do you do first? (Get bags, carry on only, grab a taxi or did you book a car?) And then... can you shower at hotel how do you react to jet lag, what do you really want to DO, did you allow time for lunch? How are your FEET?! Lots of cobblestones!! And do you actually want to take tours, go to ALL the main tourist attractions, see the sites or did you just want to stroll and absorb, maybe pop into a church? At this point, are you exhausted and need to put your feet up and BTW what time can you check in & are you doing a hotel or AirbnB? And have you factored in just figuring out how to get around & what / where to eat meals? Good luck with your planning, keep us posted & there are people here who can help with a more detailed plan!

For the Harry Potter/golfer/possible Downton Abbey buff - I would do London for the Harry Potter Studio tour, and maybe another tour of Harry Potter sites in London. Then fly or take the train to Edinburgh as your base for Scotland and a day trip to Alnwick (HP and DT Abbey), possibly with Rabbies https://www.rabbies.com/en/england-tours/from-edinburgh/day-tours/alnwick-castle-northumberland-coast-the-borders-day-tour. Rabbies also offers a day trip to St. Andrews, but no help for actual golf.

I would rather do laundry in prison than go to a week long cooking school. BUT OTHER THAN THAT - You have a lot of wonderful ideas.