8 Weeks in Europe

[mimik]

My husband and I are trying to plan a 8 week trip around Europe. So far we have bought our plane tickets, we land in Paris end of August and head home mid October from Milan. We have also puchased a 2 month Eurail pass to get us around. We plan on staying in hostels and eating on the cheap aswell. We hope to go to France, Spain (Le Tomitina), Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany(Oktoberfest), Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg & London for a couple nights. Any advice you can give on getting around (where to go/where not to go), staying safe, where to eat etc etc.. Any advice would be appreciated

[WillTravel]

That's an ambitious list of locations, even if you have 55-56 days. I would strongly suggest booking accommodation now for La Tomatina and Oktoberfest, as this is very hard to get in short order. Depending how your route goes, you may want to have a budget flight or two in there: www.whichbudget.com

[Eagle]

mimik, welcome to the Boards!!! August is not far away, but I'm sure the helpful group here can provide lots of great tips for planning your trip.

It's great that you've chosen to use "open jaw" tickets (which I usually recommend). I would have suggested starting in London and then heading for Paris. As your flight home leaves from Milano, you'll have to get there from London, which will require additional time and funds (probably via budget airline, so be sure to pack light or you'll get nicked with overweight baggage charges!).

One option might be to complete your touring in London, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and France at the beginning of your trip, and then move south. One advantage of that approach is that the weather will probably be fairly good in the northwest part of Europe in September but will get colder towards the end of October, while Spain and Italy should be nice even late in the fall. You can arrange your route so that you end in Milano.

I'm assuming this is your first trip to Europe? A few things to note about the Eurail Passes - to begin with, these do NOT include reservation fees which are compulsory on some trains, so you'll have to pay separately for those. These also don't include Couchette or Sleeper fees, if you were planning to travel on any night trains.

As usual, I'd highly recommend reading the Guidebook Europe Through The Back Door, as it provides a LOT of great information not only on Itinerary planning, but also some of the other things you mentioned such as where to go/not to go, staying safe, where to eat, etc. IMHO, it's an essential pre-read for anyone travelling to Europe for the first time. The same author provides country and city-specific Guidebooks as well, which also contain an enormous amount of useful information. Be sure that both of you wear Money Belts!

In order to provide more specific suggestions, it would really help to have a list of cities that you want to visit in each of the countries you mentioned, as well as which sights you want to see in each city.

For Hostel listings in each city, you could check www.hostelworld.com or have a look at www.hihostels.com/dba/continent-Europe-EU.en.htm. HI is a "chain" of Hostels, and I find the facilities are fairly consistent from city-to-city. Purchase of the inexpensive HI membership may provide some benefits, such as preferred reservations over those who don't have a membership, slightly better rates, etc.

August is not far off, so you'll have to get the details and a logical route sorted fairly quickly. Although Sept. & Oct. are technically the "fall shoulder season", I've found that Europe can be VERY busy at that time of year so pre-booking accommodations would probably be advisable. One example, on my last visit to Siena (which was during Sept.), I encountered two 20-something girls that had arrived in town late in the afternoon and couldn't find any lodgings. I made a few calls for them (always travel with a Cell phone these days), but everything was booked solid - their answer was "maybe we'll just get a bottle of Wine and sleep in the streets" (not sure the local Police would have been happy with that choice?). I never did find out what they did? Something to think about......

Good luck with your planning!

[mimik]

I must admit my flights don't have too much bearing on our intended route they were just the only available tickets unless we wanted to forgo a week in Europe... So our main goal for our trip is to go to La Tomitina and be in Munich for the opening of Oktoberfest. Other then that we are hoping to experience the different cultures and get involved a little(cooking lessons, wine tour, flamenco show etc), we want to see the amazing sites and I don't mean just the major monuments but my husband and I love scenery and would love to just be taken away by the different landscapes (green rolling hills, undisturbed view above an entire village etc) We also hope to experience a bit of history (Pompeii, Normandy). We are not that into art however do appreciate a good piece of work so we don't intend on going to too many museums (maybe Louvre & Iffizi). So if anyone has any ideas or advice of places to go & tours you've done from your experiences we will be so grateful... (Eagle I'll definately be taking your advice and reading Europe Through The Back Door, a few people have mentioned this book)
Another question what are some names of agencies that organise Tours (Viator), are tourist info stands throughout Europe easy to find, or are we best off booking before we go???

As far as intended itinery so far we have planned and please feel free to comment

Land in Paris and sleep the night
Head to Barcelona the next day
Spain 8 Nights Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, Malaga, Seville, San Sebastian
France 8 Nights Paris, St Malo, Normandy, Tours, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Avignon, Marseille (we thought we'd leave Nice & Chamonix until were in Italy)
London 2 Nights
Netherlands 2 Nights Amsterdam
Belgium 2 Nights Bruggs, Brussels
Luxembourg 2 Nights
Germany 2++ Nights for opening of Oktoberfest then head around the rest of Germany.

To be honest this is as far as we've gotten so far on paper but our intended route after this point we were thinking
Czech Republic
Austria
Germany back to Munich for another night when hopefully it won't be quite as busy
Switzerland
Italy

After reading a lot of blogs on this site we will be trying to book the majority of hostels before we go as we don't want to waste time searching when we are there. We were also thinking of trying to base ourselves out of only a few places so we don't have to lug around our backpacks and hopefully take that rush rush feeling out of it.

Once again thank you all so much for your advice you have really calmed our nerves down

[WillTravel]

The 8 nights in Spain is just not a reasonable itinerary. Start calculating your transport time between all of those destinations. Three places would be pushing it.

France is also way too much.

[Eagle]

mimik,

Another question what are some names of agencies that organise Tours (Viator)

Could you elaborate on what type of tours you're referring to - day tours or those covering a number of cities in one particular country?

Regarding your proposed Itinerary, I have to agree with WT in that both Spain and Italy are very "busy" for the time you've allotted.

I'd suggest making a list of all the cities you want to visit, with the desired number of nights in each one. Then establish a logical route to each of the cities, taking care to avoid "backtracking". Once that's completed you can factor in the transportation time between cities. If you keep each journey between cities fairly short, you should be able to accomplish most trips via day trains. You may find it helpful to read www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/itin.htm.

After you have a list of cities and a realistic travel plan, check some Guidebooks to get a list of sights that you might want to see in each of the cities you chosen.

Good luck!