A trip to Europe from the states. Any suggestions?

[AxlxA]

I am planning a trip to europe this coming summer. Probably gonna spend a month there.

Mainly so far, I'd like to visit London, Amsterdam, Venice, Rome, Belgium, and Paris.

Any recommendations on this list or how to travel between them? I am not going to rent a car since it'll be too expensive.

Money is a huge issue and I'll try to stay in hostels.

Planning on landing in one city then flying out of another too.

I ask you all this because it seems like most of you are from Europe. (and australia and the states)

[AxlxA]

It'd be so effing cool if i could go to a filming of Top Gear. But they're not filming during my visit. DOH!

[Ultra_Kool_Dude]

I'd say get a Euro train pass thing for transport.

[BlaRo]

Saving Germany and the 'Ring for another month, huh?

I'm assuming your itinerary is London, Paris, Belgium (the entire thing, it's a small place), Amsterdam, Rome, and Venice. You could probably take the train instead of a plane like UKD suggested; it's probably cheaper but a bit slower.

See if you can bum off of our fellow European Finalgear junkies!

[monkeymax]

Yup, if you book in advance both train and plane can be cheap (plane tickets can be had for less than 20 quid). The difference is that if you go for budget plane, both airports are outside the cities - not good if you don't know at least one of the cities... So consider coming to London first, then taking Eurostar to Paris (book early and it can be very cheap) as this goes from Central London to Central Paris and when you factor in the time you'd have needed to get to the airports takes about the same amount of time...

Plus, I can tell you taking Eurostar is nice and easy and quite relaxing...

Then once you're in Paris, you can get the fast trains to the other cities. I took a TGV to Lyon from Paris - it took 2 hours, but that's a long way. So you could do a similar thing to Brussels... I'm not sure about connections after Brussels as I've never been to any of the other places. However, try to plan the trip well in advance to get it cheaper...

In fact, just thought. Eurostar go to Brussels (Belgium) I believe so you could probably go from London to Brussels and then work your way South from there...

One thing to consider seriously though is where you'll sleep. I think the best thing you could do if you want to save money is to try to get a place in a hostel not right in the heart of the city but just in the outskirts. This way the accommodation should be cheaper. Also in London, you'd get a travel card while you're here for the tube, regardless of where you stay, so travel wouldn't cost any extra this way - providing you stay somewhere near a tube station.

And the same thing applies for Paris. Find somewhere near one of the metro stations, and you can get a "carte orange" I think they're called (will try to look this up later today, have a map somewhere with this info in it) which is very cheap metro travel. Hop on and off as much as you want while you're there...
I'd recommend trying to find somewhere near Place d'Italie - I stayed in that area and it's great for hopping out in the morning to the metro right outside, and not too far from central Paris. But then Paris itself isn't too big...

Just try to plan your itinerary as early as possible. A month isn't that long, and you're planning to see a lot of places. I've spent a week and a bit in Paris, just as a tourist, and it wasn't anywhere near enough to see all I wanted to. London's not much different; if you want to go 'round museums then a week there is nowhere near enough. If you just want to visit the Tower of London, etc., then you may be alright with just a week there...

I'm not so sure about how long you'd need at the other cities, but as you're pushed for time, my best advice is to try to plan it as best as you can, as soon as you can. But always give yourself more time at any place than you think you may need (it's easy to lose track of time) and don't forget travelling in London and Paris on the tube/metro does take time! (especially if you accidentally stumble onto either during rush hour...)

HTH. Any other questions, I'll try to help out...

[KryptonZone]

Don't come to Belgium! Especially for the next 5/6 months! It will be cold, grey, and rainy! And there's practically nothing to see here... Compared to London, Paris, Berlin, etc...

[monkeymax]

Well, he did say that he was coming during Summer! I'm hoping that means during/after May/June, as otherwise all the cities will be old, grey and rainy!!!

[jensked]

Originally Posted by KryptonZone

Don't come to Belgium! Especially for the next 5/6 months! It will be cold, grey, and rainy! And there's practically nothing to see here... Compared to London, Paris, Berlin, etc...

What?? Do come visit us!
I can suggest the city of Brugge (Bruges): very old town center http://www.brugge.be/internet/en/toerisme/index.htm

The university town of Leuven (Louvain) old town center with one of the oldest universities of the lowlands:
http://www.leuven.be/showpage.asp?iPageID=2721

And of course Brussels, with the Atomium, Manneke Pis and the old market place.

Plenty of hotels to stay, most under-60 people speak English and you can drive from Holland to France trough Belgium in 2 hours

[bone]

i would definately NOT take the eurotrain/TGV/HST/... they're more expensive than going by plane these days. and to get from england to mainland europe, take a look at the hoovercrafts, they're guite cheap, and it also only takes 1.5h

but there is sth interesting with normal trains.
they have a few combos where you buy a ticket, and can take the train anywhere you want, as many times as you want. but those are divided in areas,
-france, spain, italy, portugal
-france, germany, belgium, holland, luxembourg
-scandinavia
-eastern europe

don't know if they have some sort of arrangement you can go all over europe though

[monkeymax]

Originally Posted by bone

i would definately NOT take the eurotrain/TGV/HST/... they're more expensive than going by plane these days. and to get from england to mainland europe, take a look at the hoovercrafts, they're guite cheap, and it also only takes 1.5h

but there is sth interesting with normal trains.
they have a few combos where you buy a ticket, and can take the train anywhere you want, as many times as you want. but those are divided in areas,
-france, spain, italy, portugal
-france, germany, belgium, holland, luxembourg
-scandinavia
-eastern europe

don't know if they have some sort of arrangement you can go all over europe though

Hmmm... while I'd agree that perhaps the plane is cheaper, the train is more convenient as you don't have to travel out of the cities to leave (as you do with most airports). Once you add in the cost of travelling to the airports - at least this is the case here in England - the train is not much more expensive...

When I went to Paris a couple of months ago, train was cheaper than plane - hence why you need to research this and compare prices...

[anto-t]

come to ireland you will have a ball 8) 8)

[AxlxA]

Okay that was a lot of information to digest. Thanks for the guide from london to paris.

Yea i did hear that eurostar has some package pass that you can take from one city to another. then to another. I will have to look it up. I agree thta the time it takes to GET to these budget airports is wasteful. I bet i get to see more on the train than on the plane.

Okay now here's a good question,

In each city, what is there to see? What must a FIRST TIME Tourist see and not see? I was thinking I wont go inside the louve but just take pictures outside of it since i bet the lines will be worse than disneyland.

I guess, Where should i go as a must-see during my first visit? Things like giant museums i could possibly save for next possible trip.

[AxlxA]

Oh yea, is it cheap to get one fo those "on the go" cell phones? could it be used throughout the few cities?

Like those pay for certain # of minutes. Here in the states, you can pay for a 200min cell phone at one of those cell phone stores.

[DJ]

Originally Posted by AxlxA

I am planning a trip to europe this coming summer. Probably gonna spend a month there.

Mainly so far, I'd like to visit London, Amsterdam, Venice, Rome, Belgium, and Paris.

Is your choice of destinations definite? Although your choice isn't that bad (except for the Belgium - sorry folks from B, but that is probably the most boring country I've been to) ... It is very American (what's with Venice and you ppl???) and you really won't see much of Europe that way.

Places I believe are worth visiting:
- Cote d'Azur (Monte Carlo, Nice, Cannes)
- Tuscany (Florence, Pisa, Elba, San Gimignano (best icecream in the world))
- Alps (all of the famous ski resorts, Geneve, Zurich, Lago di Garda)
- Mid-Europe (Vienna, Prague, Budapest)

London, Paris and Amsterdam are of course a-must-see. There are also many many less known places worth visiting, but since you're coming for 1 month only, I haven't bothered putting them down.

Disclaimer: I haven't been to Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Poland and Baltic countries, so you should ask someone else about their opinion about those. My selection is based on all other EU countries.

[AxlxA]

Well i think belgium should be off my list then since it doesn't seem like worth going to. Maybe when i go back to europe i can visit.

[swek]

I agree, don't visit both Venice and Rome. There's so much more to discover in Italy.

If I were you I would just visit one of them and spend the rest of the time in Liguria to visit Cinque Terre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinque_Terre.
Not so cramped with tourists and the scenery is to die for.

Like the others said, skip Belgium and go to Prague instead. It's one of the nicest European cities.

[jensked]

Originally Posted by swek

Like the others said, skip Belgium

Hey! http://www.visitbelgium.com

[bone]

depends what you're interested in

if you like citytripping i wouldn't skip it, antwerp and ghent are sure worth seeing, and brugge recently won the title of most beautifull city in europe.

but for the rest there indeed isn't that much

[vRS]

Cork and Dublin in Ireland are great places to visit, there cheap to fly to from the Uk.

[KryptonZone]

Antwerp is okay, but small. Ghent is in the middle on nowhere, but its okay. Bruge, well it depends what you like, I mean its pretty alright, but if you are looking for anything else... Well...

I can tell you Brussels is interesting but its still too small and does not have as much to offer as any of the other places in Europe.