How Disruptive (or not) is sticking a flight in the middle of your trip?

I won't get into why you are trying to go so far in such a short time. Everyone has there reasons for the places they want to go. I assume you have already been to Florence and Tuscany and that is why you are choosing to go out of your way to the CT. That said, we drove from Sienna to Rome and flew to Lyon last summer. We left early in the morning and were in Lyon for dinner. I would assume you will lose a full day to travel. As long as you are fine with that it was not a problem for us. Make sure you factor in getting to the airport in Paris and baggage allowance on the in Europe flight. Nice to know someone besides me starts planning too far in advance.

Oh angelmarie.. I add flights in all the time.. almost every trip.. I am ok on a train max 5-6 hours ,, after that forget it ( for me).
I would definitely choose to fly from Paris to Pisa.. I can't afford a nice first class cabin on a train ( they are not cheap) and the shared couchettes turn me off, plus I can't sleep with so much noise etc and HATE the shared bathroom down the end of the car and no way to shower for the day etc.

An intereuropeon flight is not that bad,, you only need to be at airport 1.5 hours ahead of flight ( not 2.5-3 hrs like for transalantic flight home) .. I just looked at Easyjet.. picked a random date in October( they aren't showing next years prices yet) and its 50 euros for a direct flight from Orly to Pisa and less then 2 hours.. even if you add the baggage fees( I always do ) thats still under 60-65 euros.. and Orly is a smaller easier airport to navigate then Charles de Gaulle. My only warning is do not choose a flight leaving from Beauvais.. looks cheaper but Beauvais is a pain in the butt airport to commute to ..

So total would be less then 65 euros each.. and including commute, airport wait, and flight time.. only 4 hours out of your day. Seems like an easy choice to me. Prices can vary of course but you get the ball park..

We are taking 3 flights this holiday.. london-dublin, dublin-majorrca and majorrca -paris.. and then Eurostar to London ..

We like train trips.. but found last trip that after about 5 hours we go a bit stir crazy( our last trip was almost 6 hours.. paris to Nice) .. but the 2-3 hour trips( amsterdam-paris, etc) are easy.

Unless you really hate flying (and even if you do, like me), I don't see a problem with taking a short flight between two European cities instead of taking a super long train ride. It can also be very convenient when you want to visit cities that are not necessarily close to each other, or when having to choose a new destination at the last minute.

For example, on our last trip, we'd planned to spend a week or so in the UK, but had to back out because of some visa issues. We'd already planned and booked the rest of our trip, so now we had this week-long hole to fill. Budapest was completely out of the way from our other destinations, but we decided "what the hell, let's go anyway" and booked a 15 EUR flight from Brussels to Budapest. After Budapest, we took another cheap flight to Berlin and continued with the rest of our trip as planned.

One downside I can think of is that most budget airlines tend to use "secondary" airports in major cities, which can be out of the way and not serviced by transit as well as the primary airports. Taking an early bus to Brussels-Charleroi was kind of a pain, but given the price of the plane ticket, I didn't mind too much. So, make sure you have reliable transportation to/from the airport. I can't think of too many drawbacks beyond that.

Also, it's in no way obscenely early to start planning a year in advance - planning can be as fun as the trip itself :)

A couple of times a year we fly to a favorite city in Europe and then it isn't unusual for us to fly somewhere else for a few days in the middle of the trip, then return to our city. We've done some great trips that way, a couple of the best were Moscow for Orthodox Christmas (2 days) and Jerusalem for the first couple of days of Hanukkah. Both trips about USD300 f/t from the same central European city.

Many, many times we have added flights within Europe - even within the same country... if the price is right, the airports are handy to get to, and it saves me a long train ride, it's a no-brainer for me.

Prague to Venice, Krakow to Bergamo, Munich to Florence, London to Munich, Barcelona to Santiago de Compostela, Paris to Pau, etc.. There was always a sound reason to add one of these in. I'll be flying Heraklion (Crete) to Budapest in May.

If it makes sense to you, and it saves you time and money, go for it. It makes perfect sense to me to want to fly Paris to Pisa for the CT - but, just as Pat so rightly cautioned, not from Beauvais if you can avoid it. Pisa airport has a direct train link.

If it helps, I always figure the time cost of flights within Europe in this conservative estimate: 3 hours + flight time + 1 hour = airport to airport.

Do pay careful attention to the baggage allowances though - they are much stricter than for trans-Atlantic flights. I usually pay in advance, at the time of booking, for both a checked bag (mindful of the weight limit) and for a reserved seat.

I always thought that train travel would be more scenic. I've discovered-not so much. The flight makes much more sense.

Patty

I have flown between destinations in Europe many times. What was the experience? Certainly not worse than in the US. And I never had to take my shoes off at security check in European airports. And main thing: flight was so pleasantly much shorter than Seattle to Amsterdam which I usually take when flying to Europe.

I've done flights mid trip and it isn't at all disruptive. There was nothing awful about it. If the price is right and the train trip would be really long, and 12 hours is long, I would definitely fly.

A flight is just another means of transportation. You're sitting in something twiddling your thumbs waiting to get somewhere.

86,

my rule of thumb (ROT) is that if a train ride is > 4 or so hours, i start looking for other means. If the is something really cool to look at on the train, then i may opt for it, but it better be worth it. I put my flights in where ever its needed by how i travel too.

if you find that 12+ hours on a train is worth your time & $$, then go for it. If you think that your time is better used doing/seeing something, then i would look elsewhere.

happy trails.

Thank you all so much for the responses! I feel much less apprehensive now about sticking a flight in the middle of our trip.

I especially thank you for the tips on the airports in/near Paris. Very helpful!

We take a flight within Europe most every time we go. The last time, we took a flight from Belfast to Edinburgh. It took about 3 hours including trips to and from the airports instead of most of a day on trains and ferries. Another time, we spent 10 days driving from London to Inverness, then turned in the car and flew back in 2 hours. If flying makes sense, we fly. It's not at all disruptive.