First of all, this forum is AMAZING and all of you who reply here are wonderful and such a big help to confused/terrified travellers like me!
Let me set the scene... I am 22 years old, student, traveling to Europe from May 10, 2011 to June 30, 2011 with my boyfriend, student, 22 years old. We plan to backpack (I use that term loosely - mostly meaning budget - as much as possible).
Originally we had our hearts set on going to MANY places, but after some thinking and planning we realized this is a bit of a stretch. I will illustrate:
Ideal trip: Fly into London, train to Paris, then either night train or fly to Barcelona or Madrid (one or the other), train from Barcelona/Madrid along French coast (Marseilles, Nice, Monaco) then to Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome, fly to Greece, greek island ferries, fly?? or train to Istanbul, fly?? or train to Venice, train Venice through Salzburg, munich, Prague, to Berlin, then train to Amsterdam, fly home. I realize looking at this it seems absolutely absurd in that amount of time and we will not enjoy our time since we will spend most of it on the train… That being said, I think it appropriate to cut out the spain/French coast leg, unless there is a scenic train we can take in a matter of 2 days for the entire trip from Barcelona to Venice. This would mean to go directly from Paris to Venice (train or plane?). Another option would be to simplify the Czech/Austria/Germany leg – I was not thinking to stay at length in each place, perhaps just train through and get off for half a day in Salzburg, 1 day in Munich, 1-2 days in Prague, etc. Berlin would be a longer stay.
I am a terrible planner. I am bad with websites and can not figure out bahn.de website. If anyone can help out I would GREATLY appreciate it. I have no concept of time/how long it takes to get to these places via train, when to buy the tickets, whether or not to buy a pass etc. I have heard such mixed reviews about eurail pass… It seems like it may be worth it for this, but a lot of it involves supplemental fees/trains that are not included!!!
We would like to save money EVERYWHERE possible, but we also want to spend a reasonable amount of time doing it. We would be willing to spend a bit extra for a cheap flight if it saves us 10 hours… that sort of thing.
Please help, and if you need more information let me know – also feel free to be blunt and say that is a ridiculous itinerary…
THANK YOU
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