Itinerary Check Please! 16 nights

Cut out Copenhagen and add time to Paris. Or cut out the Loire if you already booked flights from Copenhagen. What is that poor friend of your daughter going to see in one jet lagged afternoon and night in Paris? I’m sure, since this is your 14th time to Europe, that you’ve been to Paris before. But this is HER first time to one of the greatest, most Instagramable cities in the world.

We’ve been to Paris 3 times, each time bringing different family members. Each time for 4-5 nights. Each time loving the city and their reactions. The last time was with our teens. My very unimpressable 16 year old boy was giddy at the sight of the Eiffel Tower lit up while we were on the river cruise. And his jaw dropped when we walked upstairs at St. Chapelle. Priceless.

Thanks for the input. You are correct we've been to Paris several times. It's a wonderful city, but too much of a big city for us nowadays. I think that we'll go to the Palais Garnier, eat in Pigalle, view the Eiffel tower lit up in the evening from Montmartre, head out the next morning.

Honestly we weren't thinking of going into Paris at all this trip until the friend added and transit schedules out of CDG straight to the Loire were a PITA. We will be jet lagged, but flight is direct from the West Coast and at an optimal time for getting 5-6 hours of sleep while still starting to adjust, and business class, so most likely (most hopefully? 😉) won't be too bad.

Yeah so anyway staying a night in Paris is a convenience, and a bit of a compromise - new girl will at least be able to say she's been in the city, seen the Eiffel Tower, saw a beautiful building, ate on a trendy sidewalk, slept in a cute hotel, etc. But it is a little bit of janky start!

I would just caution that Tivoli is low key compared to American amusement parks, and may disappoint the teens. To spend the money and time to get to Copenhagen for it seems to me a poor choice. Adding those days to Paris and/or Austria would be much satisfying, imo.

Thanks! We've been to Tivoli a couple times. Our girl is just about as much into the millions of charming fairy lights and the open face sandwiches in the food hall as the rides.

Copenhagen is a really good 36 hour city. But you're certainly right about expense. I think we'd pay about $400 fly there. Tickets home from Copenhagen are a little cheaper though, so probably something between $250 and $300 net cost added to transport expenses. And Copenhagen itself isn't cheap - add a 30% surcharge to that day and a half.

On the plus side of the equation though, Copenhagen is along the great circle route back to Seattle, and so clips some time off of our return flight.

But it is a bit of a pricey little jag. We could probably cut it out and visit Europa-Park by train from Salzburg, then fly out of Frankfurt. But we would lose a little bit of time in a completely different national culture .,.

I found your schedule. Paris-Salzburg-Vienna-Copenhagen seems like a more logical choice to me. But no matter how you do it, Loire to Austria will be a long travel day. You should break up that trip in some way. Maybe head direct to Loire when arriving and spending a night in Paris between Loire and Austria.

And just two nights in Copenhagen is cutting it short, but if that is all the time you have to play with you can't see everything.

Hank,
Why did you schedule three places far away so you had to fly to get there?
Save some valuable time and skip the flying. There is plenty to see in France (if you want to see more, take in London or Belgium or Switzerland.

FOR SURE, skip the flight to Copenhagen for only two nights. Believe me Tivoli is not worth it.

This is Europe trip #14 for me. As such, I and my family have spent significant time in nearly all European countries. We have a strong sense of what we like.

We are flying into Paris because it was a good deal for lie flat business class tickets direct from our home town Seattle. The 10+ hour flight leaves at 4pm, so it's great timing for minimizing jet lag. Get on plane, relax with a glass of wine, eat dinner, read a bit, get 5-6 hours of decent sleep. We bought the flight, not the destination per se.

When we arrive it seems a shame to waste a single well-timed flight by waiting around for another flight and more travel time. So instead we decided to go into Paris and enjoy an afternoon and early evening.

Then Loire because we like France and we like to do short bicycle tours. 4 or 5 days riding on scenic calm roads with good sites and great amenities. As our kid is riding her own bike, it's quite important to us that we cycle in places with a lot of cycling infrastructure that are relatively flat and where drivers are very used to bicycles. This tends to limit destinations. We've done the low countries quite a bit lately, so are looking elsewhere.

After 200km cycling, we are ready for the city. We like many cities, Paris included, but visited Paris last summer. Vienna is our hands down very favorite big European city. We don't mind a transfer day after the bike riding. So zip back up to Paris, early lunch and one easy site, CDG, 90 minutes to Vienna, in our Vienna apartment for dinner.

3 full days to see things we like seeing and do things we like doing in Vienna.

Then easy train transfer to Salzburg, pick up bikes, 5 nights in the outstanding Tauern area bicycle touring. Again, gorgeous riding, enough interesting sites, excellent amenities.

Then the two nights in Copenhagen. It's quite directly on the way home and cuts almost two hours of flying time off the long day on the way back. Copenhagen is I think one of the very best 36-hour cities in the world. And we very much like Tivoli. It's an absolutely charming place when you look closely at all of the small details in the theming and upkeep. It has a lot of hugge. We like all of the places where you can sit down and have a drink and a little something to eat in a stylish atmosphere. Many of these places have cozy blankets laid out for your use. We like that there are places with open roaring hardwood fires, and that you are responsible to keep your own children from falling into them. Imagine that at Disneyland? Impossible. We like that the Tivoli marching band is super quirky, looking a lot more like something you would see at Burning Man than in a theme park. Our kid likes it a lot too - she notices details and appreciates them.

One thing to understand is that because we do a lot of the traveling from place to place on our trips by bicycle, longer or more complex transfers in the trip don't feel as taxing as if you are using public transportation or a rental car for all of your shorter journeys between one place and another. We'd much rather do short convenient flights to connect up the places we really want to be than spend time traveling by train stopping in places that we might otherwise be less interested in.

Hank - I’d love to hear about your favorite Vienna spots.