Eurotrip, (not the movie) Options

[ricerrx7]

I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I've decided to do it. I've been saving money for no particular reason, but I want to spend my saved money on a month long trip to Europe next summer. I'm curious as to other people's experiences with their travels. What did you like? Not like? So far I've found that it will be cheapest (by around $300) to fly in and out of Paris. I would probably land, then go straight to London (I'll make Paris the last leg of the trip, so I don't cut it short trying to get back to fly home). Then spend some time in Amsterdam, then Berlin, Poland, Venice, Rome (in no particular order). There are certain things I want to do; visit a concentration camp, anne frank's house, eiffel tower, louvre, stonehenge, big ben. You know, the usual touristy stuff. Any recommendations?

[Ishtar]

Ireland is apparently amazing. I would love to take a tour of the major universities, librarys and churches of the UK and Ireland.

[silet]

You're doing the Euro rail or renting a car?

[Devin]

Munich is one of my favourite cities in the world. And don't miss Florence in Italy. Look into the Eurailpass, when we went the first class upgrade for tourists was free and it covered almost all the train lines (except for the chunnel and certain high speed lines). The train is the easiest, fastest, etc.

[ricerrx7]

Definately not renting a car, I'm going to be doing this as cheaply as possible. I'll be backpacking, taking trains, youth hostels, etc. I've even started trying to get some penpals through myspace so I'll have people to possibly stay with and show me around...

[roydjt]

If you go to Berlin, check out a museum downtown called "The Story of Berlin". Also hit up Checkpoint Charlie.

-Roy

[NY2002ElantraGT]

Ricer, i've been to the following countries:
Scottland, Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, Estonia, Itally, Spain (twice), Portugal, Turkey, Canary Islands, and Germany. if you have any questions about any of them shoot me a PM. I have tons of pics, and stories.

[flcerberus]

If you go to Berlin, check out a museum downtown called "The Story of Berlin".  Also hit up Checkpoint Charlie.

-Roy

The Checkpoint Charlie building I beleive is now at the Museum, I was actually there when the building went by our soccer practice on a flat bed truck. I was in E Battery 320th Feild Artillery (REDLEGS!) from August of 1988 til September of 1991 and saw the wall fall live on 9 November 1989 over seventeen years ago now. If you go to Berlin there are some excellent museums and some beautiful parks to hang out in the people were always very nice too. Potsdam which is just to the West of Berlin over the Geleinicke Brucke (freedom bridge) where quite a few prisoner exchanges took place is also an interesting town.

Roy when were you there?

[ricerrx7]

Thanks for the replys guys. Here's the basic question that I'm trying to figure out; If you guys went to Europe for a month, what would be your plan of attack? What would you visit?

[NY2002ElantraGT]

What time of year? every time i was there was from May to July

Mallorca, Spain is a beautiful island in the Med (right next to Abiza) and is an awsome party place with beautiful water and some nice scenary.

Italy has some nice places and some not so nice places. I was in Genoa, which was like the BRONX of Italy. very dirty. Rome was amazing, met the Pope. Portafino is a beautiful small town on the water, went snorkeling good time.

Copenhagen, Denmark was one of my favorite places. The women were georgious, beautiful arcitecture, definately suggest it.

Gotta go to Ireland or Scottland. both were very similar, both were amazing places. Kissed the Blarney Stone, went to Edenbourogh Castle.

Lisbon, Portugal had amazing beaches and amazing women.

Turkey is a treck, i went to Istanbul and Chesme. Chesme was a nice beach port, Istanbul was ehhhhh a little dirty.

Belguim was similar to Denmark, but not as good.

Canary Islands is a hard place to get to (off the coast of Africa) but by far a really beautiful place to go with the best beaches i've ever seen.

[Devin]

Thanks for the replys guys. Here's the basic question that I'm trying to figure out; If you guys went to Europe for a month, what would be your plan of attack? What would you visit?

That's pretty much exactly what we did. We started out in London and spent a week there (the company paid for that part of the trip though, if I were paying I'd only spend a couple days in London since it's so incredibly expensive). Then we took the chunnel train to Brussels, spent a night there and went to Munich the next day for three nights (during Oktoberfest, by mistake, but it was fun nonetheless), went to Innsbruck for two nights, Zurich for another two nights, Paris for three nights, Lisbon for two nights, Madrid for two nights, Barcelona for two nights, Venice for two nights, Florence for three nights, and Rome for three nights. From Rome we flew to Bucharest, Romania where my father was working and spent a week and a half there and then flew back to Los Angeles (with a connector in London).

We avoided most of those pre-planned tour bus things which are usually full of fat and obnoxious Americans who refuse to actually immerse themselves in the local culture. I'd recommend getting some guidebooks (the Eyewitness travel books are fantastic, by the way) and touring around yourself. You can get pretty much everywhere by train, subway, or public bus. There may be times where one of those American day tours can be good, we only used them for a day tour to the Palace of Versailles from Paris and for a day tour to Pompei from Rome. Europeans know many languages, most have a good knowledge of English and are pretty friendly so you can always ask for directions on the streets or at a train station.

We carried the iBook with us so we could get email since that was before we had GSM cell phones, now I would recommend if you have either Cingular or T-Mobile just taking your phone for emergencies and using the internet cafes for email or online banking. Most laundromats there have internet cafes in them so you can kill two birds with one stone. We also went before the switchover to the Euro so we tried to use our credit cards as much as possible. I'd still recommend doing this, but make sure your bank insures you against fraud as our card number was duplicated in London - luckily Citibank managed to get a hold of us in Switzerland and overnighted us new cards and we didn't get charged for any of the fraudulent purchases. Anyways that's all I can think of for now, feel free to ask any specific questions!

[02CanGT]

Ireland is apparently amazing.  I would love to take a tour of the major universities, librarys and churches of the UK and Ireland.

Yes, yes it is. Lived there for 13 years. do you drink Guinness?