My Itinerary - Critique please!

[ctwizzy]

My trip has changed so many times but I have now finally perfected it.
I leave in 13 days for 1 month in Portugal/Paris/Manchester/London with my gf, Portugal, Manchester and London is all with relatives so low cost. My gf comes home and then my friend meets me in Manchester and then we go backpacking.

Im going to have to do London/Paris twice so thats annoying but I cant exactly deny him sights he wants to see as well.

Anyways here is my backpack trip once my buddy meets me.

Manchester [2] Get rid of jetlag - stay with relatives
London [4-5] Inc day trip to stone henge (ill be seeing this twice lol)
Paris [4-5]
Belgium [2-4] Not sure on where to focus our stay, i hear bruges is the best, 2-4 days is to compensate a day trip to brussels. Is it worth a day trip to Luxemborg and ypres?
Amsterdam [2-3]
Berlin [4]
Munich [6] Oktoberfest, 2 days city, day trips to castles and dachau
Prague [2]
Cesky Krumlov [1] recommended no idea why
Cinque Terre [2-3]
venice [2]
Florence [3-4] 2 day trips, 1 sienna, 1 pisa
Rome 5 Naples day trip?

Hows this look?

[Eagle]

ctwizzy, your Itinerary looks well organized. I'm assuming that you've planned the transportation details between each of the cities on your list?

One other question relates to your stay in Munich. If you're planning on attending OktoberFest, have you made any reservations? Many of the lodgings and the tickets to the event book up long in advance, so pre-planning is definitely required! Also, which of the five towns of the Cinque Terre will you be staying in?

Cheers!!!

[madamtrashheap]

Having to visit London and Paris twice ctwizzy - what a chore !

For the day trip to Stonehenge, to make it a little more for you, would you consider throwing a trip to Bath in on that day as well?

Belgium - Brugge yes, Ypres yes, Luxembourg is worth it too but not at the expense of a little time in Brussels (a day, half day...) too.

Cesky Krumlov - if you don't know why this has been recommended then this www.ckrumlov.info/docs/en/mesto.xml might help.

CT - you'll probably want 3 days here, and do Pisa on the way to Florence from here.

Is this the actual order of your trip in terms of cities visited? If so, can I suggest swapping the last section to Berlin-Prague (via Dresden)-Venice - CT - Florence - Rome.

[herrbert]

It looks good, but I see a gap between Cesky Krumlov and Venice. If you are planning on taking the train, you might want to consider making a stop in Salzburg or Innsbruck to split up the trainride, because it is a long one. Six days in Munich seems like a long time, so maybe you can spare one or two days, and use them to stay in Salzburg or Innsbruck (or one in both)

You can also consider, making it to Cesky Krumlov as a daytrip, (although I hear that the place is beautiful when it is illuminated at night.) and fly Prague - Venice. (Alpi Eagles), or flying to Florence (Meridiana)

[ctwizzy]

Thanks for the input guys!
The travel info between is ALMOST done, been up late finalizing. I just need to find out how long certain trips from cities will take so I can determine if the night train will be better or not.

As of now, we are planning on getting a 10 day Flexi Select Youth Pass, 5 Countries - France, BeNeLux, Germany, Italy, Austria. 8 day pass was suggested by Railsaver but 10 is only $60 more and allows for more flexibility.

As of now this is the more defined trip, its too rigid so im looking to make it more flexible and if I can save money then awesome! My travel partner thinks Amsterdam will be more fun on a weekend, and we also have Oktoberfest so these two are making things harder to schedule.


Sep 2/3 Manchester
Use BritRail P2P Manchester to London
Sep 4/5/6/7 London + Stone Henge
Eurostar ticket connecting London -> Paris
Sep 8/9/10/11 Paris
Use Eurail Pass Paris -> Bruges (9 days left)
Sep 12/13 Bruges/Brussells
Use Eurail Pass B/B -> Amsterdam
Sep 14/15 Amsterdam
Use Eurail Amsterdam -> Berlin
Sep 16/17/18/19 Berlin
Use Eurail Berlin -> Munich
Sep 20/21/22/23/24/25 Munich
Eurail Munich -> Furth Im Wald + P2P Furth Im Wald -> Prague
Sep 26/27 Prague
P2P Prague -> SUMMERAU + Eurail SUMMERAU -> GENOA + P2P GENOA -> CT
Sep 28/29/30 CT
P2P CT -> GENOA + Eurail GENOA -> VENICE
Oct 1/2 VENICE
Eurail VENICE -> FLORENCE
Oct 3/4/5/6 FLORENCE
Eurail FLORENCE -> ROME
Oct 7/8/9/10/11 ROME

END

Ok so thats 8 uses of the flixi eurail pass, so 10 to me seems better incase we decide to change things up or use a day travling within Italy.

We have no idea how we are getting home at the moment, one way from Rome -> Toronto/Detroit was how we were hoping but we cant find cheap flights, so we may end up taking a budget flight back to Manchster stay with my family for a few days and then fly home from there.

Prague is not 100% I am on a budget and if i dont think ill have enough cash for italy by the time prague nears ill have to cut it out, which makes getting the 5 country pass maybe a bad idea and going for a 4 pass instead. Still working out the kinks.

I still need to figure out if I can travel between destinations cheaper than my eurail pass as well, and how long each trip can be so i can schedule in night trips.

madamtrashheap - We would do Berlin - Prague but then that means doing Munich first then backtracking to Berlin, its possible but IM not sure yet. It would give us more flexibility and allow us more time in Belgium and account for travel time and relaxing.

I realize we are planning late for Oktoberfest, this is our first time traveling like this so I gess we are a lil up the creek, we have checked hostel availability and it seems were screwed for the first weekend. We are hoping that if we can arrive on the 20th we can secure a walkin and bargain to stay for the duration, otherwise we will have to stay outside of the city and commute in. We planned 6 days for Munich based on 2 days to explore, 2 days for Oktoberfest, and 2 days Day trips for castles and other stuff.

We have no clue on which town in CT to stay in, still looking it up and welcome to suggestions.

Thanks!