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Europen Honeymoon-Reccomendations

Posted by (Orangevale, CA, USA) on

First off, I have never asked for a recomendation for a place to visit, but I am at a loss. This will be our 3rd trip to Europe, but it will be our honeymoon late May 2009. We will have about 17 days and would like about 5 (or more) days in Barcelona, but can't really think where else.

So far we have been to most of Germany, Salzburg, Paris, Normandy, Brugge, Milan, Venice, and Sorento/Naples. I would like to avoid going to the same places. The places don't need to be especially romantic. We are not big into churches or museums with the exception of historcal museums. We like to 'do' things as we both have high energy although 1 or 2 days of down time is welcomed. We like architecture, history, especially WWII, like outdoor activites, and I LOVE Dali.

Any ideas or advise would be appreciated.

Posted by
6788 posts

How about Andalicia (southern Spain)? The white hill towns...the Alhambra...Madrid...tapas....

Lots to see/do/like there.

Posted by
671 posts

If it were me, based on where you have already been- I would stick to near the water. Just checking a map, some suggestions are: Monaco, Cinque Terra, Rome, and maybe even finishing up with Greece.

Posted by
12313 posts

If you know you're spending five days in Spain. You could turn it into a loop of several Spanish cities with a few stops in between.

Maybe Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia (Something along that line), with time for some smaller towns.

In 17 days even including Portugal would be a lot of travel.

Alternatively, you could do a stretch along the coast. Start in Barcelona, visit Nimes, Nice and end in Genoa with some small town stops. Even that would be a lot of travel.

My planning rule of thumb is to travel on average only every other day. On travel days, I limit the time in car or train to three (or max four hours) so it doesn't become a dawn to dusk ordeal. If you fly, I'd limit it to one or one and 1/2 hour flights for the same reason. I use via Michelin or train schedules to see how far that will take me then build a route.

Posted by
473 posts

If you're into WWII, then the Ardennes Forest area of Belgium and Luxembourg, where the Battle of the Bulge was fought, are great destinations. Off the top of my head, there's a great Bulge museum in Diekirch and a wonderful restored castle in Vianden, both in Luxembourg. If you're interested, send me a PM and I can email you some web sites. Plus, that area is very conducive to down time.

Posted by
269 posts

Consider venturing over to Portugal for a few days. It's a beautiful, exotic country with lots to do. If you're looking for a few days of relaxing down time, I'd try out the Algarve (southern coast of Portugal, Salema in particular). You could visit Sevilla, which is a magical city, then bus over to Portugal for a few days.

Posted by
225 posts

We went to Provence. Specifically, we rented an apartment and car just outside of Aix en Provence and did little day trips all around including St. Tropez, Avignon, Marseille, Arles, etc. Aix has lots to see and markets to shop at. We had a great time.

Posted by
632 posts

In Barcelona I recommend staying at the Hotel Colon. Great history here...

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187497-d190823-Reviews-Colon_Hotel-Barcelona_Catalonia.html

http://www.hotelcolon.es/eng/hotel/index.asp

We stayed for a week in 2005 and found it to be a memorable experience in best sense...right across from the Catedral of Barcelona and adjacent to the local Dali museum. In the heart of the Bari Gotic, near the Ramblas but slightly removed from the madness of that fun stasse.

Posted by
9 posts

We just did 5 days in Croatia and totally loved it. Split is a very sweet town and you could take a ferry to some of the islands around there. There are hardly any Americans, everyone speaks english and it is very laid back. Dubrovnic is a special place with lots to do. We stayed at a hostel in La Paz ( not recommended for your honeymoon) but there were a zillion great looking hotels there, close to the bus line to get to old town and just a great sea side village. We will return to Croatia for sure. Then we took the big ferry across to Bari Italy and rented a car and explored eastern Italy. No americans there either. Went to Vieste ( I see that rick is adding that to his new tours) which is a sea side resort town. Loved that too.m It was an excellent experience. Kathy

Posted by
125 posts

Thank you everyone! There are a lot of great ideas and at least now I have some idea of where to start. I guess the hard/fun part will be to narrow it down.

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