28 Days Free - what to do??????

I should’ve added we like hiking, architecture, history, city tours, road trips, beautiful scenery, and more. For medical reasons, I’m now on a vegan / plant based diet where eating out can be challenging. We’d also love to mix in a 2-3 night resort stay in the middle of the trip to rest and recover for the second half of the trip.

What a wonderful opportunity. I think you should each make your own list of your "top ten" of what you would like to see or experience on this vacation and see where the lists overlap. This might be a good place to start your planning.

Then I would take a look at the budget. How much money do you have to spend for these 28 days and what does that work out to be in budget per day? You need to think through what this means in amount of money you can spend on transportation, lodging, food, admissions.

My personal suggestion is at least 3 nights at every location before "moving on" and more nights can make for a more relaxed vacation.

I love the Alps but I would not go that time of year as you are at the tail end of winter into the shoulder season.

You might consider the classic Venice (easier to fly in to than fly out of), take a train to Florence and a train to Rome for 2 weeks, then fly from Rome to Paris. Spend a week in Paris then go north to Bruges by train for a few nights and end in Amsterdam. Book an open jaw itinerary IN to Venice and out of Amsterdam on your airline's website (use the multi-city tab).

I'm vegan/plant based as well. It is usually doable to find vegan options in big cities. Italy, France, Belgium and Amsterdam are pretty easy. I did have to go with adding in fish when I went to Orkney and Shetland in August. Go to www.happycow.net to explore restaurants with vegan options. I also print out "I am vegan" cards in different languages to hand to a waiter if they don't speak English. Even though I am plant-based instead of ethically vegan I just use vegan while traveling. Plant based is confusing for many servers, vegan is not.

https://www.happycow.net/vegtopics/resources/travel

At that time of year I'd research weather before heading north of the Alps. Plenty of people are fine with cool, overcast, wet weather. It is not my preference, so I would always prefer a destination south of the Alps in March and April if given the choice. It is a very good time of year in southern Spain or southern Italy, for example.

Europe’s longitude is equivalent to CA and the US northern states which means Apr is too early to visit a resort. I know that the Algarve in PT does not come alive until summer and I believe that’s true about GR which is further south.
Fly multi-city meaning fly into one city and out another. Here’s what I suggest:
Krakow – four nights that includes a day trip to Auschwitz.
Budapest – four nights.
Bavarian Alps – three nights in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Munich – three nights that includes a day trip to Salzburg.
Venice – three nights.
Florence – three nights.
Rome – three nights.
Paris – five nights.

We’ve never been to Italy or France or Germany, or anywhere in the Alps, or Eastern Europe.
... spending the whole time in Italy, to darting across the continent to 10-15 cities.

Darting across the continent to even 10 cities in 28 days is probably doable, but IMO would be a horrible waste given how many of those days will be eaten up by travel (if on time), checking out, getting to transpo, to the next place & checking in.

Great idea to
start with the weather, look at lows as well as averages, and wind chill can be chilling! Do you enjoy cold weather? You could easily spend the entire trip in any of the countries you mentioned above, although I agree I would avoid the higher elevation Alps, except for example, Lake Como in April should be fine. And personally, I would work my way from the south to the north, as it warms up into April.

Good Friday is March 29, Easter is March 31 & 'Easter Monday' is a national holiday in most if not all of Europe. School kids are usually on holiday from the Thurs or Wed before Easter through the end of the following week (i've checked a few countries including Italy recently.) So be aware of Easter break in terms of hotel prices & crowds in larger cities, that would be a good week to be in smaller cities.

If you want to go to Rome, I would start there first, it will be the quietest from March 23 - March 27th, (remember Easter!)!

Suggest you start with the public library, browse the travel section, watch lots of RS videos & travel blogs on this website, and take it all with a grain of salt because it only shows the beauty, not the crowds, cancelled flights, etc.

You mentioned road trips, as a first visit at that time of year to any of those countries, I would skip renting a car. The train services are excellent. Hiking can be done at lower levels. You can decide first where you want to go & then look at local hikes.

It's very likely that the closer it gets to the summer Olympics, the more expensive Paris and environs will become.

I would actually suggest having a look at hotel prices on a variety of dates to the places you might like to visit, it will be illuminating!! (I was checking out a 3-star hotel in Amsterdam the week leading up to Good Friday, it was 125 Euros, following week it was 250 Euros!). And that's before the tulip festival....

Good luck and let us know as your travel planing progresses!

I take 2-3 trips to Europe every year with each lasting 2-3 months.

You've gotten some good advice.

I'll add the idea of not jumping all over the place. Pick a region. Or if you want to do far flung places, don't jump back and forth. Try to get your trip to flow in one direction.

Do some research and make a list of everywhere you want to go. Then prioritize which areas call out to you the most. Start with those and build your trip. Get a map and see what your trip would look like.

For one month, no more than 10 stops. Otherwise you will be rushing and spending a great deal of time traveling between destinations.

There is some excellent trip planning advice on this website. Go to the pull down menu and click on "Travel Tips."

I like Mary Pat's itinerary.

For the week before and after Easter, I would recommend Romania and Bulgaria since the vast majority of their citizens practice Orthodox Christianity. Easter for Orthodox Christians is May 5, 2024.

We have been in Europe for both holidays and you can expect venues and shops to shut down on Good Friday and Easter. Also, the Monday after Easter will be more of a holiday atmosphere.

I usually try and avoid the open ended questions because the choices are as limitless as the starts in the sky.

But what the heck, you said Eastern Europe so ...............

Because of your diet, I think a short term rental would be good so you can cook. Short term rentals generally have 3 day minimums so this suggestion picks three totally different cultures where you can live like a local for a week each and then ties those three together with shorter stays.

Day 1 (arrival day) through day 8: Prague including one or two day trips (maybe Terezin and/or Kunta Hora).
Day 9 shuttle to Cesky Krumlov
Day 10 Cesky Krumlov
Day 11 Shuttle to Vienna
Day 12 thru 18 in Vienna Including one or two day trips (maybe Bratislava and/or Melk)
Day 19 Train to Gyor and visit the Archabbey at Pannonhalma
Day 20 Train to Budapest
Day 21 through 28 in Budapest including one or two day trips (maybe Szentendre and/or Tihany)

I think I have Prague a little long, but maybe not if you do both day trips.
Vienna pretty much perfect length for my taste
Budapest maybe a tad short for my taste, but not bad.

Its a very traditional tour, the means of connnecting the points are well established and easy to book. This is one of easiest and least amount of hassle tours there is. It also takes you to three very beautiful cities and thorugh some very nice countryside and smaller towns.

Europe’s longitude is equivalent to CA and the US northern states

Its actually latitude you probably mean. But this is rather useless to compare with places at the same latitude in the US, as Europe has rather weird climate. Europe is much milder than you would expect for its latitude.

With 4 weeks I would just spend a week each in 4 places, and really get to know them well. Maybe start in the south, and go north.

Pick your ONE favourit place and stay there for a week. Then decide where you want to go next (north if it was too warm; south if it was too cold) and use Booking.com app or any other accomodation app to find a place to stay and the local train app (or even go to the station and talk to real person) or your favourit air transport app (I use Momondo) for transportation.

The first week covers Easter, so it is probably good to have firm reservations for that period.

I can't offer any location comments, as the only place we've ever been in Europe in (late) April is the Netherlands for tulip time. However, as vegans who cook while traveling, I can suggest that you consider apartments with kitchen facilities. It will most definitely relieve some of the pressure with respect to your newfound dietary choice. Plus, it's just plain fun shopping in European grocery stores and outdoor markets. And the produce is better too.