My husband and I will be traveling to Europe for 16 days in July/August. Our tentative itinerary is.. 1 day - arrive in Bilbao, and head to San Sebastian 3 days (4 nights) - enjoy pintxos, wine, and everything else in San Sebastian. Maybe spend one day taking a day trip to St Jean de Luz and other towns in French Basque (suggestions for towns to see?) 1 day - travel from SS to Barcelona (suggestions on best travel method?) 4 days - soak up (and drink up) the good life in Barcelona. Maybe 1 day for a day trip (suggestions for towns to see?) 1 day - fly from Barcelona to Italy. - here is where we don't know where to go.... 5 days in Italy - how should we spend them? All in one city? which one? or split between a larger city and a smaller town? I know 5 days is not a long time at all, so I would appreciate any suggestions. 1 day - fly home (to Miami)
My goal in planning this trip was to not cram too much into a short amount of time. I feel like with this itinerary, we get to really soak up the local flavor of a few places. Who knows when we will be able to come back to Europe, it took us a long time to save up for this trip, so we want to make the most of it...
Posted by
OP
Miami
14 posts
I forgot to mention that in Barcelona we will be there 5 nights, so I was counting on 4 full days there. I know we could spend all 16 days in one particular location, and still not see everything...but I was hoping my idea of 3 full days in SS, 4 full days in BCN, and 5 full days in Italy somewhere would be pretty good....
Posted by
Tilburg, Netherlands
2829 posts
I answered your question on your idnetical post on the "West" section.
Posted by
OP
Miami
14 posts
Andre,
Thank you for your suggestions (in both forums) :). Your idea of a "countryside" approach to Italy sounds interesting. Any area you would suggest? While I love the idea of spending time in a major Italian city like Rome (I have to see it right?!), the thought of eating local food and drinking the wine in the smaller Italian villages sounds amazing. If I did the country approach, how would the logistics work of flying in to Italy, getting to the towns, and eventually flying home. Wouldn't the travel portion eat up the majority of our 5 days (6 nights) there?
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
16231 posts
I gave some suggestions in the other post. If you decide to visit countryside and small towns, Tuscany in probably de rigour. Having a rental car in that case is advisable to maximize your time, since transportation to many small towns is infrequent. To fly back to Miami you can either take a flight from Florence and fly to Miami via a major European hub, like Paris or Frankfurt or Rome. Or take a train (or drive) to Rome and fly from Rome, Italy's largest airport. Florence to Rome is 90 min. by train or less than 3 hours by car. The only non stop to Miami is with Alitalia (Delta codeshare) from Rome.