As I consider our travels in the US and abroad, I find myself categorizing cities by how many days make a good visit. Some cities feel right for a two day visit, while for cities like Rome and Paris 10 days is barely enough.
I am interested in opinions about cities in Europe. Which ones are in the two day visit category, which need three-six days, and which demand a week or more.
Well that is so subjective.. I know people who will absolutely believe they "did" Paris in 2 days.. or Rome etc.. others ( liike me ) would book those larger cities ( Paris, Rome, London etc) for minimum of 5-7 days)
Out of the cities I have visited that I think are ok to "do" in 2-3 days were :Venice, Lucerne, Bath . Athens, Brugges
3-4 days: Florence, Munich, Nice , Tours( to tour Loire Valley) , Amsterdam, Barcelona,
I personally never plan to be anywhere less then 3 nights,. which is only 2 full days,.
There are a few places I passed through that I was happy enough not to have stayed overnight ( Pisa comes to mind) but most places I could always spend more time in.. not less but as I said its so subjective.
Very hard to answer since what we may do in Rome may be very different that what you want to do. We have spent close to three to four weeks in both Rome and London over the past 30 years and I am not sure we have seen everything yet. And do not pass up the opportunity visit on any travel schedule. We have had over a week in Florence - still would go back. I never consider how time we have spent there but rather how much time we are going to spend on the next visit.
If you have never been to Europe before my opinion is that an overview sort of trip isn't a bad idea. London, Paris, Venice, Florence and Rome with 2 full days each at a minimum. That's 3 weeks right there. Add a few day trips and side trips and you have a month. That doesn't mean that you couldn't spend a month in Italy alone. For a first time trip I like the idea of someone getting a little experience in as many places as possible and then go back to what interested them the most and diving in deeper as their interest may demand. There is nothing more disappointing than to hear of someone who planed a week in some town that they heard nothing but good things about only to find out that they hated it and suffered for a week. Actually, I wouldn't do that I would pull up stakes and go some place else. But....................
Like Pat and Frank say, it's subjective, depends on what you want to see and do. I seldom spend less than two nights anyplace, and give the major cities at least a week. We've spent over a month in Paris across three visits in the last ten years, and I'd cheerfully return.
Two nights gives you one full day in a city or town, and if it's worth stopping there it should be worth that much time. We do a lot of three-night stands, sometimes using a city as a base for the area. We don't like to pack and unpack all the time, and we sleep better in hotels on the second or third night (we hope!).
Sometimes we'll spend just one night on a longer path. We've done this recently in Reims, Chinon, Caen, and Bourges, for example, breaking up long drives with afternoons and evenings in interesting places (Reims would have taken longer if we were into champagne).
London, Rome and Paris are my "as long as possible" cities - ones where I could stay a month. I think Istanbul will be that way from what I've read and heard from friends, but I haven't been there yet ;)
That said, my first trip to each of those (London and Paris on one trip, Rome on a tour of Italy) was about 3-4 days. Was it enough? Certainly not to see everything, but it was a great amount of time for the highlights and to get the sense that I really wanted to return. There's nothing wrong with a highlight trip, but for the biggest cities I'd say 2 full days is the minimum to do a few basics and get a good feel.
I don't like hurried-up visits, the sort of thing done on the spirit of "been there, done that" off a checklist.
Unless the place I'm visiting is a very specific site, like a museum that is out of the way, or a monument, I avoid at all costs to do one-nighters. Ideally, I stay at least 3 nights on each place, to reduce the hassle of packing, unpacking and all the time lost on changing lodging.
More importantly, I think people buy too much into lists made to fill a person's 2-3 days in a city, so that they think they'd be bored if they had more time.
It is sort of a chicken-and-egg problem: most tourist guides/sites (RS included) decided that certain places are worth just a "quick look", then people will not risk "wasting" more than 1/2 a day in Pisa, for instance...
This is very very subjective. You can see it also on this Travel Forum. Some people sing praise about certain city, some others say it was a waste of time. I divide cities into 3 categories: In the first one you need at least 5 full days: London, Paris, Rome. In the second one at least 3 full days: for example: Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Budapest. The third one: at least one full day: Warsaw, Sofia, Bucharest, Salzburg, etc. In most cases of course is beneficial if you could have more days. I don't get bored in the cities I chose to visit (maybe because I do my homework before).
Bob,
How long is long?
As has been stated, this is subjective.
In my opinion, you can spend more that a 1 week in most cities, but it will depend on what you want to there.
what you may want to do is to look at some guide books and see what floats your boat. make a list and go from there. Or google something like "things to do and see in Rome". You will get a listing and start from there.
on my trip this year, i did the "give each city 3 full days" and go from there. on paper it works but i will be leaving some stuff out. What i miss this time, i will catch on my next time there. I dont try to cram in everything on my list, but i prioritize whats important to me and go from there.
happy trails.
Whether city or countryside, I try to determine my formula for the perfect visit: long enough that you aren't upset to be moving on, but short enough that you leave a little wistful to return.
Some places I got it right (for me): Venice (3 nights), London (9+7 nights over two trips) , Rome (7 nights), Barcelona (4 nights), Vienna (3+4 nights over two trips), Krakow (7 nights), Edinburgh (2+2 nights over two trips).
Some places I got it wrong (for me): Warsaw (9 nights, this decision was out of my control -- would have liked around 5), Prague (4 nights -- would have liked two, maybe three), Arles (5 nights - would have taken one away for somewhere in the Luberon or maybe added to my stay in Riviera), Glasgow (2 nights - would have preferred it in a day trip from Edinburgh), Kirkwall (3 nights -- 4 would have been better since there is so much to see).
Some places I haven't yet been to but expect to spend the better part of a week when I do get there: Madrid & Istanbul.
What color shirts do you wear? Personal preferences/interests and possibly other factors (e.g. weather, special events) rule on length of stays.
We went to Siena, Italy on a day trip while based in Florence. We did not know it was Saint Ansano's day, so we just joined one of the processions to the Duomo. Siena would have been worth a couple of nights.
Sorrento, Italy was OK for three nights. We visited Pompeii on one of the days, and could have stayed longer if we had used Sorrento as a base to visit Naples and/or the Amalfi coast.
