Please sign in to post.

Nicht another itinerary!

Posted by (Rochester, NY) on

Hello all, we've been planning my trip for the better part of a year, and have learned such an accumulation of knowledge from this site and some RS books I bought. Me and my girlfriend are flying into Rome on May 29th and out of Paris on the 13th of July - and we have a rough plan of where we want to go in between:

Rome - 5 days (including travel recoup)

Florence - 2 days

Venice - 3 days

Munich - 4 days (daytrip to Neuschwanstein)

Salzburg and/or Hallstatt - 2 days

Vienna - 3 days

Prague - 4 days

Krakow - 3 days

Warsaw - 3 days

Berlin - 3 days

Benleux - 4 days

Paris - 4 days

We've already booked our accommodations for the first three cities, and are going sans rail pass due to a combination of Eastern European/Italian rail travel and some thrifty use of Lander tickets in Germany/Austria. Overall it would have been pretty darn close to breaking even. With that, we really have two questions:

  • We're both really set on seeing Krakow and Warsaw, but how can we make it work with the least amount of traveling between Vienna, Prague, Krakow and Warsaw and then on to Berlin? We were thinking either doing them in that order with a night train between Warsaw and Berlin, but that Prague to Krakow trip seems quite long - any tips?

  • With four or five days available between Berlin and Paris, what would people recommend?

  • We keep fretting about the ability to get a hostel room with 3-5 days notice, especially in Vienna/Salzburg with Euro2008 in town. Is there anyone with experience who can relate and share their experiences?

  • We just signed up for your Schwab Checking account, thanks to all for that gem of a find!

Thanks again to all!
Brian and Becky

Posted by
12172 posts

I've sort of written off Poland because of the long travel times and reviews that crossing Poland is like crossing Alberta (flat plains). Putting the two together I'd recommend taking an Easy Jet or equivalent flight for the trip, you'll save money and time.

Posted by
12040 posts

"I've sort of written off Poland because of the long travel times and reviews that crossing Poland is like crossing Alberta (flat plains)."

I would disagree there. The landscape in southern Poland is quite hilly. On the rail route from Krakow to Prague, you can see the Carpathian Mountains towering in the distance (although the train doesn't actually cross these mountains. Even though some of the less well known Polish cities are a bit nasty, the countryside is quite pleasantly scenic.

Posted by
473 posts

Your itinerary is relatively reasonable. However, you do have quite a bit of travelling in there, so I do have some questions and a few thoughts which may cut down on the travelling. One, there's not much to see in Warsaw, but it is worth maybe a day. So I would suggest seeing it as a day-trip from Krakow. Salzburg is easily doable as a day-trip from Munich. Two, I'm counting 40 days in your trip. I would suggest scheduling a few "down" days, just to recuperate, do laundry, send out emails, etc. After a while, you'll be saying "Good grief, not another church/museum/cathedral". Three, some of those destinations are pretty far apart. Have you allocated enough time for travel between destinations, finding your hotel, unpacking, repacking, getting to the train station, etc.? All of that chews up more time than you think. You can go to www.bahn.de to look up pretty much any train schedule.

This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity.