Help planning our dream holiday

Brussels will work better than Lucerne. If you plan three days each for Amsterdam and Brussels, be sure to plan day trips. I would suggest shortening your time in both and adding the time to Paris. Three days is pretty good in both Florence and Venice although you could probably cut Florence to two days and add it to Paris or a day trip in Tuscany.

Hi Eldrick
I suggest that you stay in Brugges rather than Brussels. It is one the most beautiful and romantic cities in Europe and only 1 hour by train to Brussels.You can go to Brussels as a day trip and see the sights of Grand Place,buy Chocolate ,eat mussels and Waffles and go back.You can see Rick Steves book which makes the same suggestion.

Thanks a lot again guys!

Would you recommend flying from Paris to Lucerne/Venice? Not sure how may hours would it take us to reach Lucerne or Venice from Paris if we take the train?

It is obvious your need help but you are really asking us to serve as your unpaid travel agent. That takes a lot of time. Please do your homework first. Narrow some of your own choices and then come back and ask should I do A or B or even C? Good, specific question is a better usage of everyone time.

You do have a lot of questions, and if they begin with asking what are the names of train stations and airports, I think a travel agent would be a very good idea. Good luck!

So Sorry about that.

But, can you please try giving some thoughts? Particularly, with our itinerary? and good site to check hotels in europe? and good site to check flights from the US?

We would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

I like your 2nd itinerary Amsterdamm/Paris/Lucerne/Italy. You can find the names of the train stations and airports buy doing reseach on the internet and/or from travel books. Rick Steves books are great, Frommmer's are good also and there are others that are good. You are able to book a lot of flight/train tickets over in internet.

Thanks a lot Robin!

I am now leaning towards the 2nd itinerary! Can you please suggest good sites for hotels? Also, flight from the UA?

Thank you!

Hi Eldrick,
A good guidebook can answer lots of your questions--I'm partial to Rick Steves "Best of Europe 2009"--it has information (transportation, restaurants, hotels, sites to see, etc.) on most of the cities that you've listed--there are other excellent guidebooks as well. A good website for checking budget flights between European cities is www.whichbudget.com

You can check train schedules on: http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml

That should get you off to a good start with your itinerary planning--that (planning) and the anticipation of the trip are half of the fun!

For flights from the US one website that I use is: www.kayak.com

You should find some good airfares from the NY/NJ airports.

Sharon,

thanks a lot! very informative!

Any suggestions when it comes to hotels/B&B across the cities I've mentioned?

thank u!

I like using www.hrs.com to find hotel rooms. To be honest, I often just type in "cheap hotel" or "B&B" or "pension" and the name of the city into google and see what comes up. You can always go and check the place on Trip Advisor. I also like renting an apt. for my short stays as they are frequently cheaper than a hotel.

I understand. Thanks for your help!

To estimate length of travel time, look the train travel area of this site. There are general maps with estimated train times, and links to actual timetables.

Given that you would spend a significant amount of time getting from one city to the next, even if you fly (factor in getting to the airport, waiting for the plane, flight delays, etc), you should either extend your trip or cut out a city. I guarantee this would not be much of a dream trip--more like a stressful, always rushing trip--given the current itinerary. Italy doesn't really make sense here.

For booking flights, you have to put in the legwork at various websites--airlines, kayak, etc. Figure out where you want to fly into and out of, and go from there.

Christy,

Thank you. I started witk Kayak and found the fare to be ($762-each) open jaw return. Then for eurail saver pass it's ($1050-both of us) for 4 countries.

Now, I will start checking the hotels.

Appreciate your help.

Once you settle on your exact itinerary, I would suggest you check various rail sites for point to point ticket prices. You should be able to cover your destinations for far less than $500 each.

Thanks Norm. I will do that.

eldrick, the first suggestion I'd make is to read the Guidebook Europe Through The Back Door. It's an essential pre-read for first time visitors to Europe (IMHO) and covers a lot of important things like Itinerary planning, Rail Skills, languages, money issues, etc.

I wouldn't bother looking at Rail Passes until you have a more-or-less definite idea of cities and the order of travel. For the few trips you have, P-P tickets might be a better option. Keep in mind that Rail Passes do NOT include reservation fees, which must be paid separately.

Of the choices you listed, Itinerary #2 would be my choice. However, IMO you have too many cities listed for a trip of 12-13 days. You'll lose the first day in flight times and time zone changes and the flight from Paris to Italy will take the better part of a day, so this won't be as easy as it might look. If you visit six cities in 12 days, that's an average of two days each, which isn't a lot of time. Also, don't look at Hotels until the cities are sorted out.

Your best bet for flights might be inbound to Amsterdam Schiipol and outbound from Venice. I'd suggest at least speaking to a TA about that, even if you don't book with them. If I was planning this trip, I'd probably consider travelling by train from Paris to Florence, as I'm sure it would less stressful. It's a bit of a long trip though - there's a train departing Paris Lyon at 07:42, arriving Firenze SMN at 17:39 (time 9H:57M, reservations compulsory, one change at Milano Centrale).

I'd also suggest Bruges over Brussels.

Incidentally, travel photography is also one of my "passions".

Good luck with your planning!

eldrick,

I don't often suggest this, but one other option you might consider for the trip from Paris to Florence would be to take a night train. For example, using an arbitrary date I found a train departing at 19:28 from Paris Lyon, arriving Firenze S.M.N. at 07:13 (time 11H:45M, reservations and Couchette fees required, one change at Dijon Ville).

There are two points to consider with that choice. First, the train departs after 19:00 so not sure if it fits the criteria of the "7 PM Rule" since the only change of trains occurs before midnight. Normally if you're travelling with a Rail Pass, only one day of the Pass is used if the train departs after 7 PM (hopefully one of our rail experts can confirm that). The second point is that the change in Dijon occurs at about 21:00 which is still fairly early, which means that if you're able to sleep on trains you should get a good night's sleep.

Cheers!

Thank you, Ken.
Hopefully other experts can confirm that.

Meanwhile, I'm checking the point-to-point optin. thanks!

Eldrick, A couple of things that I keep in mind when planning the direction of a trip is first of course, the weather (temperature) but also airline departure times going home. For example, most flights for us (usually using Northwest/Delta which is the most convenient to/from our little valley) depart out of Marco Polo at 5:30am--ugh! getting there is a hassle to me. So instead, I arrive in Venice and depart out of AMS. I also figure out train connections and times for the entire trip before I purchase our airfare.
Best of luck!

Darcy,

Thanks for your inputs. Appreciate it. We would like to this trip in May. I think I'll be flying from Florence instead.

I have changed my itineray to:

NJ/NY - Paris - Lucerne - Venice - Florence - NJ/NY

Thanks.