Hi! travelling to italy for a wedding in september/october. Need help filling 7 to 10 days on the itinerary.
Have plans to stay in cinque terre, and a week or so later to be in paris. the problem: what to do in between? we will be travelling by rail, and mostly staying in Hostels/B&B's/cheaper hotels...
Chamonix/Mont Blanc is of interest, so is the Provence area (Eze, Aix-de-Provence), the romantic road in southern Germany, switzerland, austria???
too many choices.
what would YOU do?
c.
ok..so, its my girlfriend and i travelling, and we've both never been to europe...we are spending the previous days to cinque terre in rome/florence/pompeii, and will spend 4 days in paris and a couple in amsterdam, so i'm sure we'll get enough 'city culture/museums/etc'...we'd really like to see the Alps, and to spend some time in towns that really represent the area of france/swiss/germany that we're in, given that we have a limited time to do so...
c.
For the Alps consider the Berner Oberland area of Switzerland, 2 or 3 days there including travel time to get there.If you don't want to deviate that far east to get to that part of Switzerland, then you can consider getting your taste of the Alps in Chamonix as an alternative, say 2 days including travel time You mentioned Provence and Eze but Eze is near Nice in the Riviera, it's on the way from the CT to ProvenceFor Provence itself, I would suggest Arles or Avignon if you're traveling by train, I would give Provence two or three days. If you have extra time you could consider taking the travel time necessary to get to Bavaria. Some first-timers try to do too much and end up converting there "let's do a lot trip" (understandable) into something that becomes a death march into exhaustion instead of the kind of enjoyable experience that you would want, this happens because people do not always take into account the non-compressible travel time between destinations.
kind of a rough itinerary...have booked a flight home from London on Oct 24th...majority of planning i think is figured out, with some obvious blank spots i need help filling in.
Sept 25-28 - Wedding in sardenia, ferry over night to Italy mainland.
Sep29 - land in italy, train to pompeii/salerno arrive noonish - all day in salerno
30 - day in pompeii - mount vesuvius - naples? night in salerno
1 - train to rome
2 - rome
3 - rome
S4- rome- AM train to florence
S5 - florence
6 - train to pisa (1hr) - see tower, lunch - train to CT
7 - day in CT
8 - ?
9 - ?
10 - ?
11 - ?
12 - ?
13 - ?
14 - ?
15 - ?
16 - ?
17amsterdam
S18amsterdam
S19 paris
20paris
21 paris
22 paris/london
23 - london
24 - london -depart for home
Looking at your proprosed route of travel, some good places to see the Alps would be either from Torino, or Chamonix.
These replies are all good and illustrate that it really depends on what you want to do.
You might also consider adding a day or to to some of the great cities. London particularly stands out--two days?--but you wouldn't regret adding a day to Paris or Amsterdam. This would still leave you time to visit one other destination, e.g. Provence or the Alps.
If it's worth the trouble and expense of getting there, it's worth spending some time once there. Conversely, if it's not worth spending time--skip it. If you drop London (and fly home from Amsterdam) you will simplify your itinerary, save money, and free up time to spend elsewhere.
Sounds like you will have a memorable trip whatever you decide--good luck!
i agree about london seeming to be short-changed at the end of the trip. the truth of the matter is that to fly from london to toronto is really cheap as there is a discount airline that goes for almost half the price. my GF has a cousin in London, and we would stay with her for just the one day as we are planning a "UK" vacation next year sometime, and london is really just a port to get back to canada.
thanks for all your advice, folks. Chamonix is really sticking out as a place we'd like to see, and some pics i've seen of Provence are spectaular. perhaps germany and austria/swizz will have to wait?
c.
Well, I think you could visit the Swiss Alps, specifically the Berner Oberland, from the CT, but going from there to Provence and then back north might be too much zig-zagging in the time you have. (A stop in Alsace or even Burgundy could work, though.)
Also, if London is etched in stone (how much does it really save you, I wonder, if you include the cost of getting there?), consider flying there from Amsterdam. I think that Paris-Amsterdam-London is more logistically efficient than the Amsterdam-Paris-London you propose, at least if you are coming from Provence or Chamonix.
