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Updated Europe Iten.

Posted by (chicago, il, usa) on

I have found this website extremely helpful, and everyone has been giving extremely good feedback. After the feedback I went ahead and revised our original Europe Iten and removed Rome. Reason being I didnt think we spend more than 1/2 day of the 13 days we have for travelling from Paris to Rome.
I have some new questions now however. I have two itens and was wondering which one to go for. Keep in mind we are going end of march from march 17th to march 31. Excluding travel time we have exactly 13.5days in Europe. We are landing in Brussels at 6:30 am on Tuesday (3/18) and leaving Frankfurt at 3 pm on a Monday (3/31) These tickets are booked and I can't change them, I got them on miles since we had to make use of our miles before they expired.

Iten 1
1) Brussels and Brugge (3days)
2) Amsterdam (3days)
3) Paris (3days)
4) Munich (4.5days - with a day trip to Salzburg for 1 day and 3.5 days romantic road)
Advantages : All the train rides are short and we would need only a single visa.

Iten 2
1) Brussels (2 days)
2) Paris (3 days)
3) Switzerland (5days)
4) Germany (3.5 days - spend this time driving from munich to franfurt via the romantic road)
The only thing with this iten. is we would need 2 visas on is the Schengen and the other for SWitzerland. Also, I would think this may turn out to be more expensive.

The basic choice is between Amsterdam and Switzerland..we are fine with going to either of them. Switzerland would definitely be different from the rest of the countries so I thought of adding it.

Suggestions/Help please.

Posted by
12040 posts

Both itineraries look very reasonable. And yes, any trip including Switzerland will add significantly to your cost.

Question- are you a US citizen? If yes, you do not need a visa for any of the countries on your list. Even though Switzerland is not a signatory of the Schengen treaty, you don't need a visa if you carry a US passport. I can't recall exactly, but I think all I needed to do at the border crossing was flash my passport.

Posted by
188 posts

nopes, not a US Citizen, and I hold an Indian passport, hence I need a Schengen Visa and a Swiss Visa. :)

Posted by
2779 posts

Simran, would it be possible for you to replace Switzerland with a visit of the Rhine and Mosel river valleys and the Bavarian alps with their magnificent castles? You could save on one visa, save on travel time and add variety to your initerary - without giving up on magnificent and very tall alpine mountains...

Posted by
2030 posts

I vote for Itinerary #1, except do only 2 days in Amsterdam and 4 days in Paris.

Posted by
486 posts

Unless you are old and will never go back, why do so much in one trip. We have made 13 trips since we first went 18 years ago. When we were young, we couldn't afford it then the kids came. But now we decided that we can go back again so we see fewer countries on longer trips.
Stick to France, Brussels and Amsterdam (or only 2 countries). Do Germany and Austria next time and Switzerland and Italy on a third trip. Or do like us - figure you will live forever - and do 3 weeks in one country (vs 1 week on a trip and one or two countries) and really enjoy yourself instead of enjoying the train stations and airports.

Posted by
12315 posts

The most expensive countries in Europe are Scandinavian countries and Switzerland. So that way would probably be more expensive.

Posted by
47 posts

I vote for #1 as well. Both look like fun, but I agree that it looks as though you'll save yourself some money and hassle (two Visas) with #1 vs. #2. Also, you say "Switzerland" in #2 but don't give an idea of exactly where in Switzerland -- unless you mean that you're going to keep your rental car and drive all around, vs. staying in one city/region.

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