Europe for two months

[amandaandkatie]

A friend and I are going to be backpacking through Europe April 1st-June 1st. This is our first time backpacking and planning an itinerary so we are having some trouble. Any suggestions or input would be appreciated! We are flying into London and also flying home from there. Some of these dates are dependent on when we have a place to stay in those specific places. We are trying to just take it easy and not really plan strictly so we are open to winging it sometimes.

London (apr 1-6)
Northern France (apr 7-14)
Belgium (apr 14-18)
Amsterdam (apr 18-24)
fly to Spain
Madrid, Barcelona (apr 24-28)
France, Marseilles and Nice (apr 29-may 3)
Italy (may 4- may 10)
Switzerland (may 11- may16)
Prague (May 17- may 21)
Poland (May 22 - May 25)
Germany (may 26 - May 31)
London

I realize we will need to work some things out, this is our first version of any sort of itinerary. also, just fyi we have a eurail pass for 15 days in two months. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

[pointofnoreturn]

Maybe some specific cities would help?

[herrbert]

If you are trying to take it easy, then I would suggest to take more time in both Madrid and Barcelona. 2 days for Madrid, and 2 for Barcelona, are too short. Also take a look at making daytrips from Madrid. (Toledo and Segovia).

The time in London, looks a lot better. For the rest it is hard to give advice if we don't know where you want to go. For Italy in my opinion almost all the days you sheduled, should go to Rome, and maybe a smaller city. But if you want to do Rome, Florence and Venice, you are running out of time there too.

[Eagle]

amandaandkatie, first of all, Welcome!

I have a few points to mention initially. First of all, April 1st is not far off so you'll have to get some more specific planning done very quickly! Also, as the others have mentioned, it would really help to have a more specific list of cities to work with! It appears you've already bought your air tickets, so open-jaw flights are not an option. Which airport are you flying into in London?

I'm assuming your Eurail Pass is a Flex pass (any 15 days in two months)? Is it specific to certain countries, or does it cover all countries?

In order to help your planning, I'd highly recommend reading the book Europe Through The Back Door, as it will help you work out things like Itinerary planning and a lot of other details (the Rail Skills section is excellent!). Since this is your first trip, you'll also need to be familiar with money issues (ATM access) and technology issues (whether you'll need a Voltage Converter or just Plug Adapters for things like Camera Chargers, Cellphone Chargers, etc.).

Given the countries you've listed in your first Post, one of the first things to do will be to work out your best transportation options between locations. Some of those locations are quite a distance geographicall from the others. It's getting a bit late to be booking budget flights, as I suspect the least expensive seats will already have been sold.

Good luck with your planning! I'm sure the group here will be able to help you get this sorted very quickly.

Cheers!

[stylescriber]

i suggest you count the hours of travel from one place to another. you can go for some online hotel bookers or vacation auctions for more detailed info goodluck in your travel!