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Help with 12 days Itenairy in March of 2008 in Europe

Posted by (chicago, il, usa) on

We are going to be in Europe for 12.5 days in March of 2008. We are landing in Brussels on 19th March 6:30 am and leaving from Frankfurt on 31st March at 2:30 pm. I am totally confused about what countries we should visit.
This is what I had in mind initially
1) 2 day in brussels
2) 2 days in amrsterdam (take the am train from brussels to ams)
3) 3 full days in Paris (take the am train from amsterdam to paris)
4) 3 days in rome (take the night from paris to rome)
5) 2 days in venice (take am train from rome to venice)
6) take the night train from venice to frankfurt

but now we decided to add Cinque Terre to the iten and cut out Amsterdam all together.
Any suggestions?

Posted by
473 posts

That's an awfully full schedule. Keep in mind that packing/unpacking, finding your hotel, finding the train station, waiting for the train, etc., all take up time. And for some people, night trains do not offer a good night's sleep. Brussels and Amsterdam are a good start, since they are close together. You might also want to consider Brugge, either as a destination itself or as a day-trip from Brussels. Quite a few people have reported that Haarlem, in The Netherlands, is quite nice. I would suggest dropping Paris and visiting the Rhine/Mosel area near Frankfurt. I would drop Rome and Venice since they are too far.

Posted by
47 posts

I agree that it's a lot to cram in. Assuming that your plane tickets are carved in stone, you'd be better off, IMO, cutting out the southern destinations (Rome/Venice/Cinque Terre) and limiting yourself to three base cities, day-tripping out from each as you feel inclined.

For example: I haven't been to Frankfurt and therefore I don't know whether it and its surroundings are worth seeing, but if so, you could base out of Brussels, Paris or Amsterdam, and Frankfurt. Spend a couple of days seeing what's to be seen in each, and spend a day or two day-tripping out of each.

This assumes also that you have no particular reason for wanting to visit one place more than another!

Posted by
188 posts

Well we really want to go to Italy. So now we are going to stay in Brussels for 2 full days. The next morning we are taking the train to Paris. It is an 1.5 hours train ride. We will be in Paris for 3 full days and take a train to Cinquee Terre which is a night train. Then we are going to spend a week in Italy and take the night train from Venice to Frankfurt.
Is this doable? We have 12.5 days excluding the flying in and out of Europe. If I add the flying time its 14 days.

Posted by
47 posts

12.5 days is certainly a decent amount of time, and you are obviously planning to make good use of the night trains vs. spending your precious daylight hours on long train rides. It still seems a bit rushed to me, and you'll be tired for the first jet-lagged day and possibly (depending on how well you sleep on trains) for the days after night trains, but if you are an energetic sort of person, then I'm sure it's a doable itinerary!

Do I assume correctly that (a) you are flying in and out of Brussels & Frankfurt b/c you got a good deal on the tickets, and (b) you are not able to change those tickets now w/o incurring major fees? If you can change them, then you might cut out one more stop and do Italy more thoroughly, since it seems to be your highest priority. I don't know whether you really care much about Brussels or Paris, or whether you're just doing Brussels b/c it's where your plane lands and Paris b/c it's relatively convenient and has many night train options to Italy.

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