First Time Trip-Searching for Life

[rockineurope]

Hello everyone,
I am a first time solo traveller but have been to Europe several times when I was younger.
I am planning on spending 10 weeks traveling and sightseeing but my primary goal is to experience Europe not so much look at it from a tour book perspective. Loooking for beautiful scenery, quaint villages, and maybe a little night life.
Transportation is 15 non consecutive day britrail pass and 2 month eurail pass.
Very tentative itinerary:

England-15 day non consecutive rail pass planning to spend a little less than 1 month
Flying into London (one week)
Going to Bath (1-2 days)
Wales (? any suggestions where to go and for how long?)
Lake District (2 days)
Scotland-
Inverness(1 day)
Isle of skye (2 days)
*suggestions for further destinations encouraged*

Now I am concidering going to Ireland to spend a couple of days in Dublin and starting my Eurail Pass then getting a ticket to the continent. Good Idea? Bad Idea

France-
Paris (1 week)

Germany-
Berlin (3-4)

Czech-
Prague (3-4)

Austria-
Salsburg (1-2)

Back to France
Aix-en-provence (2-3 days)
Arles (2-3 days)
Marsailles (2-3)
*really looking for more nice towns and villages to get a good grasp of french life*

Italy-
Venice (1-2 days)
Florence (4-5)
Pisa(1)
Rome (5-6)
Sicily (2)

Finish in Greece-
Athens
Fly to London to catch homeward flight

Any suggestions at all are going to be ubber helpful becasue my plans are completely tenative. Towns, cities, sites, countries, anything and everything will be appriciated. Thanks a lot

[madamtrashheap]

Welcome rockineurope!

have a look through the other sections regarding places in Wales ( pretravel.proboards1.com/index.cgi?board=CCadvice&action=display&n=1&thread=3800&page=1 )and also for other UK destinations as there have been many posts dealing with this in the last few weeks (eg pretravel.proboards1.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&n=1&thread=2952&page=1#1171192619, but there are others). This will give you some ideas of what's possible in the time you have, but while you're looking there, I'm also straight away going to suggest York and Edinburgh and make note that 1 day in Inverness will probably be spent on a trip to Loch Ness and the Highlands (am I correct?) so you won't actually see Inverness. As long as you're not bothered by that then keep it at one day, but the Highlands are just gorgeous. Going to Ireland would always be encouraged so if you can make it work, look at the above post or pretravel.proboards1.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&n=1&thread=2949&page=1 for ideas.

As for the itinerary and time in cities, I'll make some notes, but I'm assuming this isn't the route, just a list of cities you want to visit:
Paris - 1 week will allow for day trips (Giverny, Normandy o'night, Mont San Michele or even Lyon)
Berlin - good number of days, also looking at your other cities, you could include Dresden on the way from Berlin to Prague by train and even Munich as it's near to Salzburg and fits in with train travel.
Prague - 4 days will allow for a day trip to Kutna Hora or a trip to Cesky Krumlov
Austria - Salzburg is good, but look at including Vienna as it's on the line of travel and is an amazing city (for 3 days) and Innsbruck is also in a possible line of travel (eg Munich, Innsbruck, Venice).
France - look at keeping these cities in order by starting in Paris and working your way across, otherwise you're zig-zagging a little unnecessarily.
Aix-en-Provence - gorgeous, maybe 2 days
Arles - again, gorgeous and 2-3 days is fine if you want to explore and relax
Marseilles - not the nicest of cites, great Bouillabaisse
though! - so look maybe at pretravel.proboards1.com/index.cgi?board=CCadvice&action=display&n=1&thread=3790&page=1 for some other ideas.
Italy - so many threads on destinations for here! But for the ones you have:
Venice - 2 days
Florence - 4 days (5 will allow a full day to Siena as well as a half-day to Pisa)
Pisa - see above (it's only 1hr from Florence by train)
Rome (5 days min will allow for a day trip to Pompei)
Sicily - 2 day is nowhere near enough time on this island, so either skip it and save it for later, or add more time.
You could also look at smaller places like Cinque Terre, Siena, Verona and Lake Como, depending on your interests.
Athens- 3 days if you're not going to an island (you'll need more time if you are) and fly from say Rome to Athens to save time.

Once you put together the next version of your itinerary, let us know and you'll get some more advice for sure! Oh and it's ueber (or über) not ubber ;D but either way, we'll help!

[rockineurope]

Thanks so much. That is, I am sure, great advice and gives me a bit of direction.
Oh the first of a great many language foul ups ;D

[speedbird]

Good morning!

madamtrashheap has made some fantastic suggestions already so I wont push too many more. But speaking from experiance, I would definitely include Cinque Terre in Italy - especially if you are planning 5 days for Florence, I'd definitely divert for a couple nights.

France is lovely, especially in the summer time & I think it'd be a shame if you couldn't get down to the south coast along the Cote d'Azur - Nice & Monte Carlo come to mind straight away. But to base yourself in Nice for a couple nights would be nice - very relaxing. I found Strasbourg in the north-east to be a good walking town as well, very compact & lovely atmosphere for a day or two.

Best of luck with your trip!