14 days --- 8 countries --- we need your opinion

[j33pguy]

hello all,
we are planning a 14 night, 16 day trip (May 23 - June 7th) to tour europe in late May. We wanted to mention our plans but get your 'professional' opinion about it as well :-)

here's the plan:

Fly from US to:
Rome (2 nights)

Train to:

Venice (1 night)
Vienna (1 night)
Bratisiava (0 nights)
Budapest (1 night)
Kracow (3 nights)
Prague (1 night)
Frankfurt (1 night)
Paris (3 nights)

Fly home from Paris on the 16th day.


- We found that we need only 10 days of euro-pass since we can get it 'from' when we're ready to leave to venice, 'until' we arrive in paris! it will be $750
- our airline tickets are free since we're using credit card miles


We need your help with:

- best way to spend the nights (hostels or not...we are flexible)
- how much to budget for food (we're not picky...but we enjoy good food too)
- are we better off renting a car?
- what are we missing?!!!

thank you in advance everyone for your help!

[Mikul]

It looks like you are trying to hit as many areas of Europe as possible, but it might be a few too many. I would probably cut your list in half and only choose the ones you really want to see in your limited amount of time. Or I would add an extra 2 weeks to your itinerary. Most people here recommended $100 per day plus transportation. I would recommend hostels if you are on a budget. Hotels can get to be very expensive, unless you plan to put 4 people in each room. How many people are going to be in your group?

Anyways, enjoy your trip. I am leaving for 4 weeks in Spain, 5 days in Paris, and 2 nights in London on May 24th.

[WillTravel]

If you're going into Rome, and out of Paris, I think it would be much more reasonable to focus on Italy and France for this trip, and use the train to go from place to place in Italy, and then fly from Venice to Paris on EasyJet (or myAir). With this method, you would not need the $750 pass, and your transportation expenses would be more like $200 total (say $100 for the flight from Venice to Paris, and $100 for all your Italian train tickets together). I'd pick about 3 Italian places (maybe add a daytrip too), and Paris.

Or if you want to see central Europe more, maybe something like Rome - flight to Vienna (with daytrip to Bratislava) - train to Budapest - flight to Paris.

I understand you want to see a lot of places, but most of your time will be spent in transit with your plan, and you'll hardly get to see anything.

[herrbert]

Rome (2 nights)
Venice (1 night)
Vienna (1 night)
Bratisiava (0 nights)
Budapest (1 night)
Kracow (3 nights)
Prague (1 night)
Frankfurt (1 night)
Paris (3 nights)

The number of days you award to each place might just be enough to get a short glimpse of the city. If you are gonna do this by train, you will end up spending more time on the train then in the cities.

If you have 14 days. then spend your time in 3 or 4 cities, that are closer to each other. That way you really have time to see and visit sights. If you are gonna choose cities that are further away then 5-6 hours by train (check you timetables at www.bahn.de), then take a look at some of the available budgetflights.

If you need to go to Rome, and out of Paris. (I don't know what options you have on your miles). Then try Rome - 5 days. Venice 2-3 days, and Paris for 4 days. This would give you some time to add another city or town, for a few days. (Florence / Cinque Terre / Interlaken / Nice?)

[pointofnoreturn]

You probably do realize that travelling from city to city (most of the time) takes up a good part of the day right? You have to get to the train station/airport, travel on that, get off, go to the hotel/hostel, check in and all that stuff...

I'd stick to 2 countries.... France and Italy sounds very reasonable and you can hit a few cities within that timeline (i.e. Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice)

[j33pguy]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

it'll be me and my girlfriend (both in our late 20's)...she has family in poland so we plan on staying there 3 nights........so poland is part of the plan. we figured that since we have to go from italy to poland, we might as well stop by the 3 counties along the way. Prague is only about 400 km from poland so we figured we'd just ride there too.

i understand what you mean about transit time....we do realize that...and we were thinking whether it's possible to travel at night?!??

we don't want to fly....$750 for the rail covers BOTH of us for 10 days....which will take us all over.

i know that paris and italy alone are worth more than 2 weeks...but IF we 'have to' go to poland as part of our itin, what's the best plan? also, once again, 'can we' travel at night using the train? also, does anyone have a list of how long it'll take to get from place to place using the train (ie. rome to venice, etc...) and how much time we should give for getting to the station and misc. stuff?

[pointofnoreturn]

Please don't take offense at what I'm about to say...

If you say that you're passing through 3 countries between Italy and Poland, it doesn't make sense to say "Oh well, I guess we're in Country X so we ought to get off the train and see it!"

I think in order to get the most out of your trip, sticking to a more reasonable itinerary would be better. Europe isn't going to disappear anytime in the near future and there's always a good excuse to go back.

Italian train website: www.trenitalia.com --> The faster the train, the more expensive it is.

I still think you need to cut quite a bit from your itinerary though.

[j33pguy]

no offense taken. we're trying to weigh our options....we may end up cutting our destinations if that's the best thing to do....

the website you gave is in italian...niehter one of us speaks italian....any english sites that maybe have the difference in fairs for the "different speed" trains...as well as the time for getting from place to place? :-)

[pointofnoreturn]

There is an English option. Here is the direct link:

www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html

Italian train fares are calculated by the distance. However, there are different types of trains (AV, Eurostar, InterCity, Regional, Espresso, etc). The slower trains are much cheaper (i.e. Rome to Naples one-way on a Regional train is 10 euros but the journey is like 3-1/2 hours compared to a fast train which is usually more than double the price).

[j33pguy]

how long does it take with a fast train?

[pointofnoreturn]

You're going to have to check the link I gave you. Eurostar is the fastest followed by AV and IC (usually interchangeable) then Regional/Espresso. It could be an hour or two in different between the types of trains.

Just input the cities and look at the options.

[herrbert]

PONR is right, you guys want too much in one go.

If you need to get from Italy to Krakow, take a look at a flight from Milan-Bergamo, with Ryan Air. (at this moment it's about 25 dollar (17.11 euros) for a flight in May), the flight takes 2 hours, the train 15. (and that's counted from Venice.)

Flying also makes your expensive train pass useless, as the trains in Italy are not that expensive.

[j33pguy]

actually, that sounds like a GREAT option...you just gave us an idea....

how about going to:

rome (3 nights)

take the train to: (it was listed on the site for about 52 bucks for 2nd class)
Venice (2 nights)

flight from venice to:
Krakow (3 nights) (how much??? where would i book it???)

then from poland, take train to:
Prague (2 nights)

then fly or take train to:
Paris (4 nights)

Fly home.

thoughts?

[pointofnoreturn]

I'd actually ditch Venice from the itinerary and add the days to Rome. Rome is MASSIVE and VAST. Much bigger than you would think. Plus you'll kinda lose a day due to jet-lag so adding 2 days to Rome would definitely be ideal.

[j33pguy]

a trip from rome to venice takes only 4 hours via the train and there's only a one hour difference in the timezone.