Confused

[lissurlalunes]

Ive been reading posts for a bit, but decided to join a few months ago. Hi.

Anyways, a friend and I were planning to do a working holiday in the UK, but ended up switching plans, we now want to just do a few months of backpacking across Europe. Its easier for her since she is in the middle of school and I am just getting out of school and would be hard on a career to disappear away from that field for a few years.

My whole idea to go to Europe was based in the UK, and not having a clue of what places are good in Europe. Or where to start looking at places, since it never occurred to me I would be backpacking throughout Europe. Never really interested me until now.

We do not have any set dates, time, or money. All right now is im looking for ideas of where to go. So I was just wondering if you guys could tell me your top five favourite places to visit in Europe and why(not including any in the UK).

Thanks guys.

[Jules80]

1. Venice, Italy cause its unlike anywhere else you'll ever visit. its magical!
2. Rome, Italy cause of the fantastic history of the place. and the food is great, too!
3. Innsbruck, Austria so beautiful!
4. Brugge, Belgium... absolutely beautiful! the grande place is incredibly beautiful and great chocolate!
5. Florence, Italy fabulous museums and art and history and great markets, too!
6. Dublin, Ireland... has fantastic character! so much to see and do!

the last four are in no particular order... hard to choose...
avoid brussels at all cost!

and i of course love the UK but you're planning on going there anyway.

Jules

[me]

1. Rome, it's a beautiful place & history just oozes out of every nook & cranny. it has a charming disorderliness that takes several days to get on your nerves. amazing buildings! also, it's the most important city in the history of Western civilization. (i kid you not!)

2. Vienna, ditto on the beauty & history, but more recent history. much more orderly than Rome. also has amazing buildings. as the historical capitol of Central & Eastern Europe, Habsburg Empire & all, it's the most important city in the region. also, it's a smaller, less important city than it once was, but still has much of the cultual bagage from its heyday.

3. Florence/Pisa/Cinque Terra, these are all close together on the northern part of Italy's West coast. the museums of florence, the natural park/coastline of Cinque Terra are amazing! didn't see much of Pisa. . . saw the leanin' tower from the train! Floernce is viewed by many as the cradel of the Renaissance.

4. Innsbruck, the mountains there just take your breath away! there are many towns nearby such as Hall, which are also lovely!

5. Barcelona, great seaport! and also a smaller, less important city than before, it still has much of the cultual bagage from its heyday.

other greats:
Amsterdam, phenominal museums, sooo laid back.

Stockholm, beautiful, unbelieveably clean port city.

Copenhagen/Malmö, Copenhagen is bigger, not as pretty or clean as Stockholm, but much more etnically diverse. Malmö, now a suburb, thanks to the link is a nice Uni-town. Skåne region just north of Malmö is beautiful natural area.

Prague, lovely old town. the beer is great, need i say more?

[madamtrashheap]

This would be a great survey to put together!!!

Here are my top cities (in no particular order, I had to go over 5 ;D):

Florence, Italy - as above, gorgeous, historical, culinary, shopping-ly what more could you wish for?!!

Paris, France - just one of those cities and full of no-so-obvious treasures as well as the must-see stuff.

Barcelona, Spain - vibrant and buzzy city with great museums and nightlife alike.

Brussels (sorry Jules!), Belgium - I've never had a bad time there in 7 visits, plenty to do/see/eat/drink, you just have to search for it. NOTE: Brugge is almost a package deal with Brussels, ie you shouldn;t do Brussels without going to Brugge as well.

Luzern/Lucerne, Switzerland - every vista looks like the front of the ultimate postcard or chocolate box; lake, swans, mountains, bridges, chocolate, 'nuff said!

Berlin, Germany - awesome city for both old and new history, great places to see (museums, monuments, roads!) and excellent nightlife.

Vienna, Austria - you could walk around this city looking at the sights and buildings and listening to the sounds without going inside anywhere and fall in love with it. When you do decide to go inside there are museums, restaurants, etc galore. NOTE: if you can't get that far east, at least go to the Tirol, esp. Innsbruck, see above.

Amsterdam, Netherlands - there's something for everyone in this city; museums, shopping, coffee shops, bars, boats, bikes, flowers!

Istanbul, Turkey - I know it's technically half Europe half Asia, but I had to include it for it's incredible markets (the Egyptian/Spice Markets are amazing), great harbour and inspiring vibe that floats over the city.

Bugger, now I want to start planning my own trip again!!! ;D

[case]

My top 5:

-Florence, Italy: hasn't aged a day since the renaissance. This is one of the best cities for wandering. Every street has something interesting to eat or buy or see. (Go to Ruth's vegitarian, kosher restaurant by the Synagogue!)

-Copenhagen, Denmark: Surprisingly fun, lots of outdoor cafes, canals, unique shopping, plus free bikes to use in the city. Also Christianshavn, the 'free city', is an interesting area with semi-legal pot available.

-Madrid, Spain: I guess I'm drawn to this city b/c it seems like a place I'd like to live. It's big with a good metro system, lots of different neighborhoods,parks, and nightlife. Just tons to do. (I actually fell asleep in Retiro park while visiting - dont' forget to include time to sleep in your trip!)

-Brugge, Belgium: Yes I loved it too! Amazing atmosphere, great french-fry stands, and windmills.

-Prague, Czech Rep: It was just cool, it feels like you walking through a medieval city or something. Very scenic, tons of beer.

A few others too:

Paris (of course, it's as amazing as you might expect), Lisbon (great ocean-side city as long as it's not raining when you arrive!), and Amsterdam (as cool as they say).

[me]

other great cities i forgot to include:

Seville. amazing buildings from centuries past. Church structures abound!

Lisbon. many of the older buildings have been rebuilt since the last big earthquake in 1755, November 1. but, in a much more orderly fashion.

Sienna. the (striped!) cathedral and town square are wonders to behold!

[MuvverRussia]

I'd guess my favourites would have to be (in no particular order):

Prague - very cheap beer , lots of history, things to see and do etc.

Oslo - the fjords are on your doorstep, there's plenty to see, it's a pretty relaxed city overall.

Budapest - Loads of stuff to see/do. I like the relative rawness of Budapest too - it still feels like Eastern Europe, whereas Prague is too full of British stag groups to really be Eastern Europe .

Barcelona - the influence of Gaudi, combined with great nightlife and loads to see/do. Some pretty good (and cheapish) restaurants here too.

Munich - only in the Summer though. In my opinion there's nothing better than an afternoon pub crawl through the beer gardens, stopping off in the English Garden (massive park, with a couple of good beer gardens) en route .

As well as these I really rate London, Seville, Rome and Lisbon. For some reason I never really liked Vienna - no idea why, it was nice enough but I can't see myself ever willingly going back there.

[me]

Englischer Garten also has some interesting scenery.

muvverrussia said:

Munich - only in the Summer though. In my opinion there's nothing better than an afternoon pub crawl through the beer gardens, stopping off in the English Garden (massive park, with a couple of good beer gardens) en route .

[lissurlalunes]

How long do you suggest going to visit each city? A minimum of two days?

[me]

in Munich? i'd say 2 days, at the very least, if you want to see more than just the highlights. <Englischer Garten is far down the list.>

if you mean other places, it depends on where. Rome & (IMO) Vienna take 5+ days. other places take less, or somewhere between.

[lissurlalunes]

Thank you guys for your help, it was very nice.

We have decided to do the following places:

- Dublin, Ireland
- Cardiff, Wales (this one, I dont need how long you suggest, because I am only going for a friends wedding)
- London, England
- Paris, France
- Ypres and Brugges, Belgium
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Berlin and Munich, Germany
- Auschwtiz, Poland
- Prague, Czech Republic
- Rome, Vatican, and Venice, Italy
- Athens and Santorini, Greece
- Instanbul, Turkey

I was wondering how long you suggested we stay in each place. We have up to 3 months to work with going on our trip.

[Jules80]

dublin 4 days (including getting over jet lag)
london 5-6 days
paris 5
belgium 2-3
rome and vatican 5 days
venice 2-3 days

haven't been to the rest... these are of course minimums and more time would definately be great

jules

[MuvverRussia]

For Cardiff I'd do 2 or 3 days. I grew up there and my parents still live there .

Best things to see would be Cardiff Bay, the Millennium Stadium (inside if you're a sports fan, outside if not - it's pretty impressive anyway), Cardiff Castle, National Museum of Wales and St Fagans (National outdoor museum - basically they take old buildings from across Wales and rebuild them there - it's worth a visit). If you're interested in history then I'd visit Big Pit too - it's a coal mine that is now a museum, located in Blaernavon (this whole area is a Unesco World Heritage site btw).

For Auschwitz you're better off going to Krakow and travelling there. There isn't much to see in Oswencim (the town/village where Auschwitz is) itself other than the infamous camps (Auschwitz, Birkenau, Monowitz etc). Give Krakow 3 days btw (Auschwitz 1 day, Wieliczka Salt Mines 3/4 day, the rest of the time just spend around Krakow).

I'd spend the bare minimum of time in Athens. It's not great. Santorini is well worth the visit though.

Berlin - give it 3 or 4 days, possibly more if you're interested in 20th century history. Same goes for Munich too (although the beer gardens are more of a driving force here, rather than history .)

4 or 5 days is about right for Prague too.

As for Istanbul, I honestly have no idea. It's not one of those places that regularly comes up in people's itenaries here. That said, there is a fair bit to do there, so I'd guess around 4-5 days again (I'm sure someone else will confirm this though).

[madamtrashheap]

muvverrussia said:

I'd spend the bare minimum of time in Athens. It's not great. Santorini is well worth the visit though.

As for Istanbul, I honestly have no idea. It's not one of those places that regularly comes up in people's itenaries here. That said, there is a fair bit to do there, so I'd guess around 4-5 days again (I'm sure someone else will confirm this though).

Athens - I've referred to it in another post as the armpit of the earth (pretravel.proboards1.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&n=1&thread=2791&page=1#1146531077) but it is a great place for the history of western civilisation so worth at least a day or two of exploring (2 or 3 nigths), then you could either fly or fast ferry out to Santorini for 3 days (it's everything you think a Greek island should be!) to fit everything in.

Istanbul - as Muvva says, lots to see, so you could easily spend 4 nights (3 full days) roaming the city. I'm interested to know how you're getting there from Athens - flying?

Muvva - only one accent cooler than the Scottish one, and that's the Welsh! Nice one! ;D

[MuvverRussia]

I don't have a Welsh accent. I never really had one and I've lived in England for the majority of the past 3 years, so any Welsh accent has been completely diluted to the point whereby you can't really notice it. Also not that many people in Cardiff have a distinct Welsh accent - the Cardiff accent is far more prevalent, although I didn't had that either.

Overall my accent is pretty close to generic Southern English (at least that's what people tell me .