Planning Europe Itinerary!

So, you only have 7 full days then. That means 2 places, 3 at the most (1 of those being a day trip from one of the other places). First of all leave Greece out of it unless you want to spend the whole week there, it takes too much time to get there from somewhere else like Great Britain or even Italy. Second, if you've already been to VFR, then I would only plan Italy if your boyfriend really wants to go there and then pick two of them. Third, with just a week I would stick to either London OR Ireland OR Scotland, OR maybe London and Amsterdam as a combo. Personally I would probably stick to 3 days London, 3 days Edinburgh, and 1 day in York between the two.

It would be pretty hard to pick 2 places in just 7 days that are culturally different. England, Ireland, Scotland are all individually different and each is wonderful but they are not really culturally that different. Great Britain and Italy or Great Britain and Greece would fit the bill for different cultures and great food. You could do a combo of somewhere in GB, then somewhere in either Italy or Greece if you flew between them and had an 'open-jaw' or 'multi-city' flight to Europe into one and home from the other. Where are you flying to Europe from? What is your budget? Some places are definitely more expensive than others, especially in the summer peak tourist time.

EDIT you might want to delete your other duplicate post to avoid confusion, preferably before there are any responses.

With 7 full days on the ground - why not do London/Paris? Culturally different, both with fabulous food, definitely romantic factor and easy transportation within each city and between the two. Best part is that the Eurostar takes you city center to city center so travel time is minimized.

Oooh - I like Nancy's idea. London and Paris! Perfect!

A vote for London and Paris as well.

You could easily spend all 7 days in one or the other (we have) without running out of things to do but if more than one location is the goal, then at least they're different enough and transport between them is easy. It's tough to pick a more romantic city than Paris.

First Trip to Europe? 9 days is not a lot - even if it is a lot of time to take off work for some folks (I'm a teacher, don't have that problem)

London / Paris is a great idea. Have you been to Paris? Also consider Rome - Florence. With 7 sightseeing days + some jetlag, I'd try to stick with just two cities.

Thank you so much for all of the suggestions! I really appreciate them! I have been to Paris before (my boyfriend has not) but it is definitely a wonderful city and helpful to know it is so easy to get between the two. I like the London/Edinburgh suggestion as well.

Do you have 9 days on the ground or 7 days on the ground?

Have you looked at some flight prices and routes (you didn't say your home airport)? You should never go somewhere just because it's cheap, but money is a great tie-breaker. Similarly, on such a short trip, you don't want to spend too much of it in transit (which means Greece is probably out, on that score alone).

You definitely want to narrow it down to one or two places; rushing around, you won't be able to appreciate history, culture, food or romance (and I agree these are good goals for a trip). So London and Paris or London and Edinburgh or a bit of Ireland or Florence and Rome could all work. You could connect further flung places with a flight (say, Rome and Paris), but that would use much of a day.

You could do London/Amsterdam or Paris/ Amsterdam by train.

Athens and an island or two - Santorini and Mykonos being two obviously popular choices.