Itinerary Order Priorities: Weather vs. Exotic in peak season

Laura You've gotten good advice here. You are trying to cover all the highlights of Europe in one trip, but you'll be overwhelmed. It is easy to underestimate how much time and energy the logistics take. It might be a whole day just to get to Gimmelwald, from wherever you are, for example. Five days to see UK is like five days to visit the east coast of US. How much will you see that is not through the window of the train or car? Someone suggested the RS tour, which I would do if you want to cover that much ground and enjoy it. It is cost effective. Per your original Question, I would fly to London, return from Rome. Forget about the weather and crowds. You can't avoid either.

Seeing you are from Salem, unless you like hot weather, you may be more comfortable in Italy in June. With the vast experience of one trip, lol, mid May was pretty hot for me in Rome, but it cooled off and was more pleasant after a cool front moved thru. I am not sure I could tolerate sightseeing there in July! I liked the suggestion of perhaps looking at a tour. Rick's classic Best of Europe is 21 days, but doesnt do Prague or Vienna. You could consider that tour then add a couple of extra days on at the beginning in Amsterdam to adjust for jet lag and then do your London days at the end, taking the Eurostar from Paris. BTW, if you all can get up to Edmonds Rick sponsors some free travel classes. He usually has a Fall Festival with classes all day long about his different destinations, but I don't see that on the line up for this fall. I do see a day of Women's Travel Seminars, so perhaps he is changing things up a bit this fall. http://www.ricksteves.com/news/classes/class_menu.htm

Since you express a concern about the weather, I think the first thing to do is to check averages for the cities you listed and the times you would be there. I like Weatherbase because you can go to the bottom of the opening page under Vacation Finder, click on the month(s) you will be traveling and follow your nose from there. When you get the long list of cities for the country you pick, you can click on the city for much more detail. For example, the averages for June in Edinburgh are a high of 62, a low of 48, and 24 days with precipitation. The numbers for June in Rome are an average high of 78, a low of 60 and 2.5 days with precipitation. Of course, the weather could be different at the time you go, but finding these averages for June and July could affect where you go when. When you check things out, you may be surprised to find that it could snow in the Alpine areas. We got stuck in a hotel at the top of a mountain in Austria one day during the last 2 weeks of June and had to wait for the road to be plowed and for things to melt before we could drive down. I don't know how young or energetic you are, but this does seem like a lot of time on trains or on the road for only a month. Unless there's some burning reason to see all the other places, and since you have a passion for Italy, you could spend your entire month there, experience lots of different kinds of art, architecture, history, terrain, cities and towns all the way from the Alps to Sicily and still want to go back for more.

A month may seem like a long time, but once you get there you find how fast the time goes. I think you have way too many places. Seven countries in 4 weeks is too much. You have 5 days for London but want to go to 4 other far flung places during that time? You need to be more realistic about the time you have, how long it takes to get from one place to another, and what you can actually see if you rush from place to place. I don't know what your budget is, but the more you move around the more it will cost you in time and money. One way to look at time is to keep in mind that 2 nights in a location is only one full day. I like to plan my itinerary by how many nights I will spend in each place. Europe isn't going anywhere. You can always go back to see the places you don't get to on this trip. I've only been to Italy once. I spent 3 weeks there and left without seeing places I wanted to visit. Since Italy seems to be your priority you might want to spend most of your time there. For your first trip to Europe you might want to fly into London to make your transition easier. Spend 7 nights there so you can do a couple of realistic day trips, then take the Eurostar (train) to Paris. Spend at least 4 nights there, then fly to Venice. Spend the rest of your time in Italy, flying home from Rome. Save the other countries for when you will have more time. If you want to beat the weather you could reverse the order. I only suggest Italy for last because particularly in Rome there is a bit of culture shock with all the noise and chaos. I think it's easy to deal with if not jet lagged and tired.

I think weather is the least of your concerns with this plan. If you really want to see all those places in a month, take an escorted tour. If you try to do it on your own, you will be too busy getting from place to place, checking in and out of hotels, etc, to actually see or appreciate anything. You'll just be checking places off a list. BTW, if you got this itinerary from Rick, be aware that while I agree wholeheartedly with much of his advice, I (and many others here) think his itineraries are much too rushed and busy. To find train schedules and times, use the Bahn (german rail) website, following Rick's tutorial: http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/db_tips.htm. To find estimated driving times and costs, use http://www.viamichelin.com/ (note that many complain that these times are optimistic). To find flights, use http://www.skyscanner.com/. When you start looking, you'll see that (for instance) London to Edinburgh is 4.5 hours (add getting to and from the stations, and you've lost more than half of a sightseeing day), and that Venice to Vienna is not a quick connection (the Alps are in the way). Once you have pared down your itinerary, you can then decide what cities to fly in and out of. You can look on http://www.kayak.com to research flights; it may be cheaper (for instance) to fly into London and out of Zurich than the reverse.

If you don't like hot weather, start in Rome or Venice in June and work up to UK in July, but don't let weather be the only decider. Mid-June to mid-July are nice in all those places. However I agree with Lo it's too much for 30 days. It looks like you're trying to see basically all of 'must see' Europe in one month long trip. You'd need two weeks in Italy to see all you want to see. That would leave two weeks for Switzerland/Austria/Germany/Paris/London and other UK sights. Factoring in travel that's a lot, not impossible but close. I would leave out Vienna/Salzburg/Prague/Bavaria for this trip and concentrate on Italy/Switzerland/Paris/UK and spend some quality time in your chosen locations. Rome/Paris/London need 3-1/2 to 4 days each to really enjoy and the 1/2 day to travel between. That's 12 days right there, leaving about 18 days to see the rest of Italy/Switzerland and you might be able to squeeze in the Rhine area. It'll still be a lot of traveling between places but you could do it. Read those guide books, research online, and ask questions here for advice and enjoy the planning - it's half the fun for a lot of us here.

Hello Laura. Italy has hot weather in June. I agree with what Andrea said. I recommend : in this trip, go to three countries : GREAT BRITAIN FRANCE ITALY.
Plan for being at ITALY two weeks.

So you have roughly 30 days, minus arrival day, 29, minus 5 days for an entire continent(UK) minus departure day, so that leaves 23 days, just over three weeks to visit another 8 places minimum. Thats less then 2 or 3 days in each place, and does not take in account the 1/2 day minimum you lose in actual travel from place to place. Cut list down. I agree, UK, France and Italy. I would start south, I have been to Rome twice in summer its really, and I mean really ,, hot in july and august. As for your expectations , please be careful.. they can cause what would have been a great time to be less so because of over built and unreasonable expectations.. All the places on the list are great, so go with an open mind.. no where will be perfect but everywhere can be wonderful.

I'll go against the consensus. England, Paris, Bavaria/Austria would be my pick. Visit Prague if you have the time. I have no desire to go to Italy in the middle of Summer due to hot temperatures and a lack of good air conditioning. Save Italy for April/May or October/November when temperatures are more comfortable. And when you visit Italy, take at least two weeks to take in all the culture, food, history and art. It's a little overwhelming when you're going to so many other countries.
And by all means, fly into London and out of Munich--open jaw.