My wife and I are leaving Sunday for a 3 week trip to Europe. We've been trying to keep things fairly flexible so that we can decide once we're on the ground where we want to go, but that is making it difficult to decide what is best for travel arrangements and so I'm looking for some advice from the more experienced travelers. A brief sketch of our itinerary so far. No travel has been booked except for the flight into Rome and out of London. Fly into Rome and spend two days there Venice for two days We then have about 8 days with no plans before we need to be in Paris. Paris for 2-3 days Hamburg to visit a friend for 4 days or so
We fly out of London and would like to spend just a couple of days there. Thoughts on the best travel arrangements for this kind of trip? Any ideas on what you would do if you had 8 days to get from Venice to Paris?
Posted by
La Crescenta, California, USA
361 posts
Four days in Rome, One day in Florence, one day in Assisi and two days in the Cinque Terra, two days in Venice and then the rest for the latter.
Posted by
Reston, Virginia
403 posts
Your post was somewhat vague on the Paris-Hamburg-London section. Keep in mind that Hamburg is a good ways away from both Paris and London. Easyjet does fly from Hamburg to London, so you might want to book those tickets ASAP as prices go up as you get closer to flight time, and will already be much higher than you could have gotten a month ago. Now as for Paris to Hamburg....you might well want to break the trip by train with a stop along the way, perhaps Amsterdam or Cologne. I would take some of your unattached 8 days and use them to cover the travel in the Paris-Hamburg-London leg.
Posted by
OP
New York, NY, USA
6 posts
Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm afraid I wasn't totally clear in my original post. My issue is that I have certain places I have to be to on certain days, but am flexible in between these stops. So the things that are fixed and sort of out of my control now. 25.4 - Arrive Rome (have hotel bookings for 2 nights) 27.4 - Venice (also 2 night reservation - need to be there on these days for some work) 9.5 -10.5 - Paris (meeting friends that are only going to be there for these 2 days)
17.5 - Fly out of London Everything else is completely flexible, but I would like to make it to Hamburg for at least a few days to see another friend that I don't get to see often. I was thinking night train or flying from Paris would be the best option for this. So considering the hard points in my itinerary, what are my best options for travel? I'd like to be economical, but I'd pay a bit more for flexibility and the freedom to not have to spend time thinking about each and every ticket.
Posted by
OP
New York, NY, USA
6 posts
I took Roe's advice and purchased a ticket from Hamburg to London for the 14th on Ryanair. They seemed to be a lot cheaper for this day (12EUR) than anything else...even when you add in the extra fees. So now my trip is bookended a bit more, and I just need to figure out transportation on the continent. I know I'll be in Italy, France, and Germany so I was thinking a 3 country pass, but in Germany I'll likely have a car and/or travel with my friends so will not travel by train much except maybe to get there (trying to decide between flying and train). Also, still really undecided about what to do after Venice and before Paris. I'd kind of like to find a place that we could make as home base for a few days and make day trips from, but not sure where a suitable place would be. Slovenia and/or Croatia would be nice, but that is the opposite direction from Paris.