Ideas? City Lights and Scenic Countrysides

London would be a top notch choice due to the lighting and how romantic the nights seem there plus there is much to see and do there, a huge number of great day trip locations to visit, and there are food choices from every possible type of cuisine you could want.

These trips are difficult to plan. The following advice is offered in the spirit of trying to help you have the best experience.

In my opinion, 4 to 5 cities (large enough to have night life), in the number of countries you mention, in 7 to 10 days, is going to having you rushing around so much that you won't have time to savor the experience in the way you want.
Transportation times in Europe are significant, when you're trying to see 4 to 5 cities, in different countries, in that period of time. Transportation times need to be factored into the number of destinations and number of days that you have.

You specify: "Surrounding scenic drives to venture out during daylight."
My thought is that having a car in the center of some large European cities is an unexpected hassle because of difficult parking and traffic congestion in the center of European cities.

You also specify that you want to enjoy the nighttime hours, which implies you would be in the centers of some larger cities. If you can see where I'm going with this, you may have some partially inconsistent objectives: large cities, with a car, so that you can enjoy scenic drives in the country, in a limited amount of time.

I would recommend reducing the number of cities, and/or the number of countries; or increasing the number of days; and also carefully selecting hotel locations where having a car in a city location will add to the enhancement of your experience rather than detract from it.

These trips are difficult to plan. Don't hesitate to follow up with other questions if you need to.

With 7 - 10 days (by the way, is it 7 or 10?) more than two cities is just notch-marking. London and Amsterdam could work nicely, a good 3 or 4 days in each place.

The others are steering you correctly. 4-5 cities is too much for 7-10 days. I'd max it out at two, or one world-class city like London or Berlin with day trips.

If you choose to do London, you could add on Edinburgh if you don't want to spend the full week in London. But you could easily fill 10 days with seeing London especially if you are doing day trips.

Edinburgh fits all of your criteria. And it is a little easier to keep a car in Edinburgh than in London. I stayed at a B&B off Dalkeith road about a mile from the "Royal Mile" and they had parking. That seemed common with the B&Bs in that area.

Thanks for pointing out the conflict between the timeline and objectives. That makes sense, and I may have given you the wrong impression about something.

Clarifications:

• I have completely overemphasized "cities." They can be smaller ciites and even towns...as long as once the sun sets, there are places to walk/do/see/eat/eatagain.
• All of our stuff will fit in our backpacks, so staying 2-3 nights in a city might be preferred.

Rough example itinerary:

• Switzerland (?) for 3 nights
• Brussels for 3 nights
• Rotterdam for 2 nights
• Amsterdam for 1 night before flying back home

Hi,

If it's ten days max, then I suggest London and Berlin. You can include a day trip or spend the entire time in the capitals, London to Cambridge, Windsor, or longer. Berlin to Potsdam, Hamburg, Leipzig, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, etc. Including your day trips, one each from London and Berlin, you will end up visiting at least 4 different places.

If your trip is just 7 to 10 days, I'd try to stick to one or two countries at the most and move around a couple of times with each stop given at least a few nights so you can base yourself and do some day trips.

Example: Ireland - Fly into Shannon, base yourself in Galway (not a huge city, you can find B&B lodging not far from the center where you can easily drive in/drive out and park your car). You will have a few nights where you can try various restaurants and pubs and enjoy some live music yet still take any number of day trips (Connemara, Cliffs of Moher, The Burren, fly to Aran Islands - etc.) and if you want a splurge for lodging one night, maybe drive to Cong and stay at Ashford Castle. After leaving the Galway area, head to Northern Ireland - base in Derry or Belfast for your nighttime activities, take some daytime drives around the Antrim Coast (Giant's Causeway, Dunluce Castle, Bushmills, etc.) or stay in the cities and tour the neighborhoods where the murals are. Ditch the rental car and train back down to Ireland and stay in Dublin for a few nights - you can do a day trip outside of Dublin though one of the tour operators recommended at the TI office, or for something more low key, you could take a DART local train to somewhere like Howth and just wander around the waterfront for the afternoon and have lunch.

If you are traveling with just a single bag per person, the cities and towns in both the Netherlands and Belgium are pretty easy to do by rail and you could just rent a car for a day or two depending on when you want to get out into the countryside. In the Netherlands, maybe consider Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam and some side trips to Kroller Muller Museum, Kinderdijk, etc., train into Belgium and base someplace like Ghent or Brugges - you can easily get to other cities in Belgium via local rail for day trips and it does not take much time (Antwerp, Brussels) or rent a car for the day and go to Ypres.

10 Days, 3 cities. Prague (3), Vienna (2), Budapest (4). October is absolute ideal time of the year for weather, lights, evening cultural activities, opera, concerts, musicals, festivals, long evening walks, wine bars, pubs and outlandish good food. Even many of the outside cafes still operate till the first freeze.