7 weeks, 4 countries

[back2zer0]

My girlfriend and I are going to be backpacking in Europe this Aug/Sep. We are pretty much locked in to going to The Netherlands, Germany, Greece and Spain; in that order.
We're not really into a most touristy stuff (we enjoy a good museum, but don't want to spend 7 weeks on guided tours), but would like to get a feel for the essence of the countries and respective cities we will be visiting.
Any suggestions on how to break down our trip in such a way as to maximize our time, but not spend ourselves into gigantic credit card debt when we get home?
We're trying to spend an equal amount of time in each country, but aren't naive enough to think that we can see all of one country in 10 days or less.

BTW, we fly from Portland to Amsterdam in Aug, and back from Barcelona in late Sept.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[herrbert]

Did you already selected a couple of places that you want to see. Country names say so little.

Obviously you should get a flight from Germany to Greece, and from Greece to Spain. If you leave Spain through Barcelona, it would be the best to fly into Madrid, and make a circle, with Corboba, Sevilla, Granada, Valencia and Barcelona. This is a kind of classic trip in Spain. You could also opt to leave out Valencia, and take a flight from Granada to Barcelona. (which would safe quite some time.)

Amsterdam is you starting point, and from there I would suggest to make the daytrip to Haarlem, and then either choose to go North to Groningen and continue to Hamburg - Berlin, or to go south, and go to Maastricht and continue to Cologne - Rhein Valley.

I think that a lot will depend on the best deal you can find for you tickets. My guess it that it's either from Munich or Berlin you should catch a flight to Athens. (Frankfurt, will also have flights, but it's in the west of the country, so it's likely you will pass it, in the early part of your Germany leg of the trip.

Are you totaly excluding other countries? As it would be a fairly good option to head to the south of Germany from the Netherlands, and after that head back north, via Salzburg, Cesky Krumlov, Dresden and then Berlin.

I would propose something like this:

Amsterdam (Haarlem) (3 days)
Utrecht (1 day, maybe travel in the evening to M'tricht)
Maastricht (2 days)
Cologne (Köln)(2 days)
River/Mosel area (3 days, take time for some visits)
Rothenburg (1-2 day)
Munich (Castles)(3-4 days)
Salzburg (Werfen, icecaves) (3 days)
Cesky Krumlov (1 day)
Prague (3 days)
Dresden (1 day or stopover)
Berlin (4 days)
Athens (2 days)
Island Hopping (2-3 Islands, at least including Santorini, 3 days each))
Athens (1 day/travelday)
Madrid (Toledo, Segovia) (4 days)
Cordoba (1 day or stopover)
Sevilla (2-3 days, possible daytrip to Arcos de la frontera)
Granada (2 days)
(Valencia, 2 days) (if chosen, add one travelday)
Barcelona (3 days)

If I counted correctly this is about 56 days, but remember that you also need to make you connections. So you need more than only the time in the cities.

To really getting to know a place, a city or let alone a country one needs to move to that place. As a traveller you will always see the place different. But in my opinion there is nothing wrong with that. Do go to see these 'touristic' things, as there normaly is a good reason that people want to see these things. (because it's something special.)

[back2zer0]

We're definitely going to visit Domburg, Netherlands and Munster, Germany. Also, I have friends in Munich, so I would like to spend more than just a couple days there.
Other than that, our itinerary is pretty open.
Thanks for putting all that thought into our trip, that's really nice. The only issue I have is, that seems like a lot of cities that we'd only be spending 1 or 2 days in. We're fairly relaxed people and running from train station to bus station to airport seems like it would eat up a lot of time. Is that a rational concern or am I making too big a deal of it? And I'm guessing most of that travel would be by train, so would it be more cost effective to get a Eurail pass or buy tickets individually.

I guess our issue with touristic things is that we'd rather feel like we're visiting a country and not a history book. We're going to check out that stuff, but I have a hard time justifying visiting a city just so I can check out their amazing Glockenspiel. There's more to the city than that, and that's what we're after. I've never really traveled like this, so I'm not sure if what I'm after is entirely realistic. Thoughts?

[herrbert]

I think it should always be a relaxed trip, but in some towns, you are simply ready after a few hours or 1 or 2 days, maybe because they are not that big, or because they are not that high in the "must-see list".

Everybody has his/her own interests, and this can make you to include towns, that others will not visit. I believe that every town or city has beautiful things to see, and nice people living in them, so I think that every town on this planet is worth checking out. But most of us will choose for the touristy things. Why? well why do things become a tourist sight? because they are some thing special.

I put in the one day stops, on places where I think it is enough to spend one day, and when the travel distance is not too big. In the case of Cordoba, you can make it to Sevilla in 45 minutes if you take the AVE. (that's less than I need to get to work.) or when i think it's good to break up the travel. You could go straight to Prague from Salzburg, but Cesky is somewhat in the middle, it's pretty, so why not make a stop? And one day, is quite a bit of time, if you know what you want to see. In the end it's all about doing your research. It might not sound like fun, but it helps you to determin if you need more or less time, than most people do. If your day includes, taking a break a few times to sit down, ahve a drink or something to eat and relax, and watch people, you need to calculate a little bit more time.

I just made an example, and of course you need to add Domburg, and Münster into the mix. I think that visiting friends is a good way to spend time, and they can show you the things you can never read about in a book.

Don't worry about the trains, and passes until you know what you will be doing.