HELP! Two weeks in Germany/France/Spain

Skip Brussels. Nothing wrong with it but on your itinerary it sucks up too much time that you could otherwise allocate to Spain.

The Paris-BDX rail line is really fast and in the right direction. If you are into wine Bordeaux is great. It's not a bad looking city in the center. But to visit vineyards a car is handy, or a tour. Tour you can drink some wine.

Welcome to this newsboard with your very first post. Can you imagine another trip to Europe, say in the next five years? How do you plan to get from Bordeaux to Spain? Why did you pick Santander? Please come back and explain.

Brussels is the wrong big city to add. Cologne if you must, but I'd go right to Paris. This trip has endless hotel checkins and checkouts, and trips to the train station. If you insist on a second stop in France, I'd pick a place more on the way to Spain.

Have you read our host's train travel suggestions, top left blue menu?

Thanks for the responses!

Tim, to answer a few of your questions:

Can you imagine another trip to Europe, say in the next five years? Yes, I think we would go for another trip within the next few years. We are finally at the financial point of being able to afford trips like this one.

How do you plan to get from Bordeaux to Spain? Our original thought was by train, although I know that to be difficult. We do like wine, but it abounds throughout France.

Why did you pick Santander? We picked it because I did a research project on the northern coast of Spain, and this was one of the cities included in my research in college. We are not tied to this, especially knowing that the weather is not favorable for beaching. So we are completely open to somewhere else in Spain (and France).

Thanks again for the help, it's quite overwhelming for a first-time traveler!

Since you are planning to return to Europe again within a few years, my recommendation is to see your friends in Frankfurt and then take an Easy Jet cheap flight or similar to Madrid. Spend the remainder of your time exploring Spain, going to Toledo, Cordoba, Sevilla, etc. or fly to Barcelona and then explore Spain. You could take some wine tours in Spain, although I’m not sure how they look in April.

Save Paris for your next trip when you can explore so much of the wonderful areas in France. Remember that every hour on some type of transportation or waiting time is lost time that you could have been out exploring & having fun. So, try to minimize moving too far between locations. I’ve been to Europe a dozen times and usually go to one country but occasionally two adjacent ones. We just travel by train and did a few buses (they were nice ones), too, in Spain.

Frankfurt>Paris>Barcelona> Madrid. You’ll find good wine everywhere.

What Bets said.

Skip Brussels, it is not a first tier city to visit.
Also, you have an overloaded agenda, cut something else out.

Sorry, but your plan to arrive in Frankfurt and depart from Madrid was a poor choice, largely due to wasting so much time traveling.

Yeah, this is why I came to the forum, to get opinions of people far more knowledgable than me. Unfortunately, seeing family in Frankfurt and seeing a friend in Madrid is what's dictating our flight choice.

I do think Frankfurt/Paris/Barcelona/Madrid seems much more doable than the original itinerary.

From Frankfurt, after visiting family, I'd just take a plane directly to Madrid, save France for your next trip. I think since it is important for you to spend time in Spain, you are doing the country a huge disservice by only spending 2 nights there. April is literally the perfect time to visit the Andalucía region, which can easily be explored from Madrid via the AVE high speed train system, you would basically do a loop. I'd recommend this:

fly in
Frankfurt (3 nights)
fly to
Madrid (2 nights)
AVE train to
Sevilla (3-4 nights)
AVE train to
Cordoba (2 nights)
AVE train to
Granada (2-3 nights)
AVE train to
Madrid (1 night)
fly out

Hope this helps :)

I also think going from Frankfurt to Brussels is a waste. You want to see Spain so see Spain. Honestly, Brussels is probably not in my list of top ten cities in Europe. Spend most of your trip in Spain and fly home from there.

I also like Bets' itinerary, because we try to stay three nights in a city. These are all very rich destinations, you can't even see everything in three nights. (Remember your first night is on the plane, and your last night is a bit of a bust.)

I don't really approve the (thoughtful and helpful) Spain itinerary, but if you really adore Spain, it is a reasonable response to your personal needs. I think Bilbao is over-rated, but if you want the north in April I'd vote for Santiago de Campostella. But you really need to cut down your travel time. This is not like taking a cab across Kansas City. There is no substitute for Granada, although Barcelona gets all the love on this newsboard.

If you have not done so, you should make a list, and use Google maps to enumerate the mileages. Then go to the train company websites for each country (or be lazy and just use Deutsche Bahn) and see what the travel times (and number of changes) can be. Remember that advance discount tickets are like air travel - they cost more in the last month before travel, and they usually cannot be changed, cancelled, or refunded.

Thanks again for the thoughtfulness in all of the replies. This is immensely helpful.

It seems as though a great trip can still be had via Frankfurt/Paris/Barcelona/Madrid. That should cut down quite a bit on travel and allow me to satisfy a few things:

• Seeing family in Frankfurt
• My wife's request to visit Paris
• My desire to experience Spain & see a friend in Madrid

You're latest plan makes a lot more sense, giving you more time in the main destinations and less time moving around. If you didn't need to include Paris, I'd pare it back further to just Frankfurt and Spain. With Paris as a given, and with due respect to Barcelona, I'd suggest just Frankfurt-Paris-Madrid, with enough time in Paris and Madrid to really enjoy them and maybe take a day trip or two. And I'd suggest flying between those cities, given your time constraints and the distance. Orly might be a better choice than CDG for a Paris airport, it's closer to the city and connects to lots of European cities.

Hopefully this will be only the first of multiple trips to Europe, including a return to Paris, elsewhere in France and Spain, and more time in Germany. Then there's Italy, the UK, and the list goes on. Have fun planning this and future trips!

You can take a direct train from Frankfurt’s main (Hbf) station to Paris’s Est station (4h) then fly nonstop from Paris Orly (ORY) to Madrid which is closer to the city center than Roissy CDG.

This updated itinerary removing Brussels sounds very good! You’re going to have a wonderful time

Your new plan sounds much more doable. I like the rule of thumb of no fewer than 3 nights in a location. Especially for big cities like you’ll be visiting. It seems like Frankfurt, Paris and Madrid are the ones that are most important to you. I think you’d also be very happy if you kept it to just those three stops.

The only reason I put Barcelona in my original suggestion is because it’s a six-hour train ride from Paris. But I think Madrid should be prioritized and to cut down on time in trains. Suggestion #2: Frankfurt-> Paris by train -> Madrid by plane.