sincera4565

Hi,

I am planning to get to Europe with my SO this winter, and I have set up a draft on the schedule. It will be great if you can provide me with any advises.

12/17
Boston to Paris
Arrived in the morning of 12/18

12/18 - 12/22
Stay four nights in Paris (Thinking about Pullman Paris Eiffel Tower)
Our anniversary is actually the 12/20! So I am expecting to have lots of fun in Paris.

• Louvre Museum
• Eiffel Tower
• Arc de Triomphe
• Notre Dame
• Champs-Élysées
• Palace of Versailles
• Lafayette

12/22
Paris to Munich
Plan to take the train in the morning. Arrive at late afternoon.

12/22-12/24
Stay two nights in Munich (Club Carlson maybe..?)

• Old Town Walk
• Neuschwanstein Castle

12/24
Munich to Prague
Plan to take the train in the morning, arrive late afternoon.

12/24-12/26
Stay two nights in Prague (Radisson Blue Alcron Hotel)
How is Christmas in Prague?

12/26-12/27
Prague to Zurich
Overnight Train, take the train in the evening, arrive in the morning.
(any experience on it? any alternatives?)

12/27-12/29
Stay two nights in Zurich (recommendations?)
Plan to take a day trip to Lucerne

12/29
Zurich to Boston
Back to home!

How is the plan? Any recommendations (hotels? things to do? changes to the plan?)

I really appreciate any inputs from you guys! Thanks!

-Pete

gracall

Most businesses including xmas market will be closed by the time you arrive since the 24th is the celebration day for Czechs, so it will be a bit dead yet with plenty of tourists roaming the streets still. Restaurant availability will be extremely limited, reserve your table well ahead of time. Castle should be open on the 25th.

exilencfc

Sounds reasonable to me though you will be pushed for time in Munich - you'll only have one full day there and Neuschwanstein will take up most of that, you'll see very little of Munich itself by daylight. I would be inclined to take out one of Munich/Prague/Zurich so as to get more time in the other two - as it is you've got a lot of travelling and relatively little time actually seeing/doing stuff.

The overnight train should be good though you may not sleep that well. Hopefully it'll be the newish Czech sleeping cars which are really nice but all the sleepers in use in Western Europe are clean, comfy and fairly smart.

sincera4565

Thanks for all the awesome response, so since xmas would be kind of quiet, does it make more sense for me to stay in Munich for another day, and head to Prague during Christmas day?

Or would there be not transportation at all in Christmas?

Thanks!

linglingfool

I agree with exilencfc that you should think about cutting out one of the cities -- in this case, probably Prague. Even with the overnight train, you're going to spend a lot of time traveling out of your way to get to/from there, and will barely spend any time in Munich. If you move a night from Prague to Munich, you'll only be in Prague one night, which hardly seems worth it.

sincera4565

Thanks for the reply!

Right now i have two ideas:
1) add one more day in Munich, to make the whole trip 12 days instead of two.
2) Remove Prague and stay two more days in Munich.

Which one will be better in your opinion? If that seems to be too much time spend on train traveling, maybe option 2 is better. I just want to make more out of this trip but I definitely love to have more feedback from you all to make this trip more awesome!

Thanks!
Pete

gracall

25th and 26th will be quiet in Munich. I would add 1 day to have a full day on the 24th in Munich and save 25th for the road to either Prague or Zurich.

exilencfc

A and B are both good plans, I would suggest researching travel options before deciding between them. I don't know how good rail services are on those days.

niehaubs

Zurich is expensive but underrated as a destination. Last year I spend 2 nights after Christmas in Zurich. It had snowed for the first time and everything was pretty damn awesome looking. Set up was underway for New Year celebrations down by the lake. We used 2 Hyatt free nights at the PH which had a great location, but there are other slightly less expensive hotels right there. I think 2 days is enough to walk around everything. Uber is great and cheap for getting around. The concierge at the PH actually recommended Uber and the least expensive and fastest way to get places. He used Uber to get to and from work. Public transport looked fine to me, we just never used it.

In Paris we ate at the Ciel de Paris 1 night and it was amazing for the view across the city and the sparkling Eiffel Tower every hour. I mentioned to my friend that it would be a perfect place to propose and sure enough the couple seated next to us got engaged about an hour later It was pretty expensive and the food and service were good. My favorite meal was actually at Le Vaisseau Vert. Google it. At the time it was #1 on Trip Advisor probably due to the small sample size of reviews, but it was amazing. service was very personal and personable. I highly recommend it. It is around the corner from the Moulin Rouge in Monmartre. Considering the normal price of food in Paris, this was amazingly well priced as well.

Our other stop was Milan and you are not going there We did hit Lake Geneva in between Zurich and Paris for 1 night, and I would say a day or 2 in either Montreux or Geneva would probably be pretty awesome if you can swing it. But it is not on your route and you are going to Lucerne, which I would like to do someday. I was actually pretty disappointed that I did not choose to spend all 9 night in Switzerland. Seriously, it was hit with some snow right before we arrived and just riding the train through the country made me wish I was stopping at every stop.

sincera4565

right... but the thing is I cannot check the rail service time table online yet... Or am I not using the right website to look for those information...?

sincera4565

If i have more time to spend, I would really love to stay at Zurich or nearby for longer. I am actually planning to use the free nights from Hyatt to stay at PH Zurich as well, and seeing what you said make me feel that it should be a great stay.

I am planning to leave Italy for the next trip (maybe in summer? ) with all the awesome comments I received, I will think about it and see if it make more sense to not go to Prague and split my time in Munich and Zurich, or simply add one night on Munich....

Thanks for all your input and I really appreciate it.

Pete

exilencfc

What website are you using? Though it looks like the bahn.de (which is normally the best) and oebb.at are only going up to about 12 December; so probably the Christmas schedules haven't been finalised yet.

sincera4565

bahn.de is actually the website that I am looking at.. glad that I am on the right website

Maybe I will check back in a month and see if things have changed.. Thanks!

greg5

You mention you'd be staying in Zürich using the Hyatt free nights, so that's probably as good a reason as any to stay in Zürich. Otherwise, I'd suggest staying in Luzern, which I think is way prettier than Zürich. It's not that Zürich is a bad place, just that Luzern is prettier.

You might consider a day trip to Bern or Basel, if you do end up staying an extra day around these parts. Bern is a very pretty city just on its own. And Basel, while I don't generally recommend it to folks on a short trip to CH, has a great Christmas market every year. Otherwise, if you stick to your schedule, stay in Zürich and do the trip to Luzern.

Sundays are pretty dead in Switzerland. Not much other than museums are open.

railways

You'll have to be a bit patient because the new timetables (from December 2015) won't have been finalised yet. DB generally posts them on their website some time in October, and they are bookable from then.

Since most timetables do not change significantly, or are only tweaked, I would do your pre-planning on the basis of current schedules.