Revised EuroTrip, Advice?
 

Hey there,

My friend and I are taking a senior trip to Europe. Anyway, we've been finalizing the itinerary over the last couple weeks so we can begin booking hotels and flights in Europe. Here's our itnerary so far:

June 19th-Depart LA for London
June 20th-Arrive LHR at 8:00 am, take train to relatives
June 21st-Relatives
June 22nd-Morning train to London
June 23rd-LONDON
June 24th-LONDON
June 25th-Morning chunnel to Paris, night in Paris
June 26th-Morning Flight to Dublin
June 27th-DUBLIN
June 28th-DUBLIN
June 29th-Morning Flight to Barcelona
June 30th-Barcelona
July 1st-Barcelona
July 2nd-Barcelona
July 3rd-Fly to Nice
July 4th-Nice
July 5th-Nice
July 6th-
July 7th-ROME
July 8th-ROME
July 9th-ROME
July 10th-PLANE BACK TO LA

I've been to Europe once before with my family and we did London and Scotland for about two weeks. My friend has been to Italy and France, but hasn't been to England before. Anyway, neither of us really want to spend that much time in Paris, so we figure we'll do one day there.

As for the rest of the cities, does it look like we've set aside enough time in each city? We were going to take the trains throughout Europe, but decided to fly as it will be cheaper than a pass and won't require the hassle of making sure we have a sleeper car for the night trains and all that stuff.

My friend thinks 2 days in Rome is plenty, however, I think we need to spend at least 3 days in each city to really get a feel for it and enjoy it instead of constantly being on the move. My question is, it looks like we're going to have an extra day to allocate somewhere. We could do 2 days in Paris instead of one, or we could go to Rome and go to Pompeii for the day.

I'm open to any suggestions as far as time in each city and all that. However, we're pretty set on the cities we want to visit. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

That all depends on what you want to do!!

Just have your photo taken in front of the main sights? Spend some time in museums and art galleries? Retails therapy? Or bars and clubbing? Beaches and swimming?

3-4 nights could be plenty of time or no time at all!

We want to see the big stuff. For example in London, I'd like to see the Tower of London (saw it when i was 11 and will be able to appreciate it much more now), the big ferris wheel, and there were some cool war museums I saw in this book that would be worth going to. I have family in London who will at the least take us around for the day sightseeing and to a couple meals.

Paris: Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and I should be good.

Dublin: Guiness Brewery, not so sure what else there is to do in Dublin. My friends dad suggested we hit Dublin so I've gotta look into it a little more.

Barcelona: I've heard there's quite a bit to see and that it's got a great nightlife.

Nice: 2 Days relaxing there should be nice.

Rome: The Forum, Vatican City, Colisseum, etc.

So I'd say we're planning on doing a mixture of museums, bars, clubbing, and I figure in Nice and Barcelona we can spend some time at the beaches.

There is a thread in the Paris forum on doing the sights in a day in that case:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=575555

The Guinness Brewery will fill an afternoon, but the city isn't over-endowed with tourist attractions! Some nice streets to wander around. You probably only need a couple of nights (enough time to sample more Guinness). I'm sure there are plenty of suggestions over on the UK/Ireland forum:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forum...prune=-1&f=484

This also seems to be the city that neither of you have been to, so you're both probably going to be interested in doing a lot so set aside as much time as you can spare. You might also need a bit of time to catch your breath - you'll have been flitting quite a bit from airport to airport the previous few days don't forget. They may be short hops, but they are still a drag!

I know you say you are set on the cities, but any particular reason why Nice? It always struck me as never really living up to the hype! Personally I'd add somewhere else in Spain (Madrid or the Balearic Islands) or Italy (Florence or Naples) rather than a side trip to Nice, but YMMV.

Rome is very compact so you could do many of the sights in a couple of days as your friend suggests, but if you want to go into the Vatican museum you're really going to want to set aside a good chunk of day for that so three days would be safer. Don't forget it also has the potential to get very hot in the Med in July, so you might not have the energy to traipse around Rome all day looking at sights! You'll be crying out for an afternoon eating ice cream in the shade of a park.

So your schedule could be ok - you could maybe shave a day off Dublin, add a day to Paris, but focus on some quality time in Barcelona and Rome which have everything - sights, nightlife, culture and coast (well, Rome is relatively close to the sea!).

After all, you can always come back!

Looks good! A few flight related items to consider:

If you haven't already booked your flights yet, be sure to check both LCCs and mainline carriers for the Paris-Dublin leg. Ryanair uses Beauvais, which is a solid 50miles from downtown Paris, and the transfer to the airport is a pain. I've found that Aer Lingus often isn't that expensive, and has a much more convenient CDG departure.

On the BCN to NCE leg, I don't think there are any LCCs, so that might be an expensive segment if you want to fly. It's an easy train ride, though.

In terms of where to spend your extra day, personally I might suggest somewhere in Ireland, and use that time to get out of Dublin and check out a small town. I as bcmatt noted there aren't tons of tourist attractions in Dublin, and a lot of the charm of Ireland is in the small towns.

As far as the flights go, I've been tooling around online to get an idea on fares.

CDG-DUB=100 dollars on Aer Lingus
DUB-BCN=200 on British Airways with a stop in London
BCN-NCE=104 on British Airways with a stop in London
NCE-FCO=210 on British Airways with a stop in London
FCO-LHR (to get to Heathrow for our flight back to LA)=240 on British Airways

So about 850 for the airfare. Seems expensive, but it looks like most of the LCC's fly out of weird airports that are out of the way.

Thanks for the input!

This is all excellent advice - the museum in Dublin is interesting and there is also the Book of Kells at Trinity College, but hiring a car and driving into the countryside is well worth it. Take enough small change for the new toll roads. There is a strange driving habit in Ireland though which can be a bit disconcerting at first - some of the major roads are wide but not in lanes, and cars will overtake into on-coming traffic, which then has to move over - you get used to it after a while.
Good advice too re the Ryanair flight to what it describes as Paris.
Barcelona - a fun city with loads to do.
Nice - well I like it, it is a great area for exploring on foot if you like walking.

Why Dublin? Why Nice?
 

I don’t really understand why you want to fly up to Dublin for 3 nights. (OK, maybe it’s nice, but…) And if you insist on Dublin, why go down to Paris first???

I would take at least 2 nights in Paris. It has more to offer than for example Barcelona or Dublin and a LOT more than Nice.

And yes, Barcelona has a great nightlife. And it’s a nice place to spend some time. So I wouldn’t cut back on your number of nights there.

But Nice????!!!??? If you want to enjoy a bit of the south of France, spend some days in Avignon or Aix-en-Provence. Nice is a seriously overrated place IMO.
Also consider that Barcelona – Rome can be done on low-cost airlines. If you want to pass by the south of France you’ll be complicating your itinerary a lot. (Go by train, with a lot of connections, or drive…)

Flying everywhere via LON on BA does seem a little ... well, mad (unless you really want the miles!!!).

Some LCC fly to weird airports (with Ryanair the most notorious) but many don't. Try www.skyscanner.net as another tool for finding routes and prices, it includes most LCC in Europe. I'm sure you could save some time and money.

If you want to fly BA within Europe (which I agree does seem a little time consuming, especially since the mileage earned on BA discount fares is often minimal), you might want to look into the BA European airpass:

http://www.oneworld.com/ow/air-trave...s/visit-europe

It's a flat price per segment based on distance. I don't really know anything about the pass - seems it could be a good value, but it depends on how the distance is calculated (e.g. does the flight from BCN-NCE go off of BCN-NCE straight distance, or does it go off of BCN-LHR and LHR-NCE). In any case - might be something to check out. Note that you have to fly transatlantic on a OneWorld carrier to be eligible for the airpass.


You might also be able to save some money by pricing the airfare out as open jaw or round trip tickets from London, but that gets confusing and could potentially lead to troubles with delayed flights. For example, buy a one way DUB-LHR, then buy a LHR-BCN-LHR round trip, LHR-NCE-LHR round trip and a LHR-FCO-LHR round trip. This probably sounds awfully confusing; I used this method years ago to save money on a similar trip, but that was before the explosion of LCCs when most traditional carriers priced one ways as 2x the round trip. Anyway - just something else to play around with....

You aren't alone in that opinion. On the OP's previous thread I related how I voted for Nice as "the most overrated city" in an old TravelBuzz poll and asked why he chose Nice rather than spending more time in Paris or Spain. Since it is still in his plan he must have a strong desire to go there. So I hope he has a great time!

Flying through LHR all the time is nothing but mad. You have chosen the most crowded and most security mad airport in Europe. Rome, CDG and Barcelona should be good for LCC, NCE not only expensive but overrated

What about the following schedule:

LHR - DUB non stop on Air Lingus or British Midland
DUB - CDG non stop on Air Lingus
CDG - BCN non stop on Easy Jet for about 50 Euro (www.easyjet.com)
BCN - PMI non stop on Air Berlin for about 50 Euro (www.airberlin.com)
PMI - FCO on stop in Madrid on SpanAir/Air Plus for 77 Euro (book on Expedia)

Palma is in my humble opinion much nicer than overrated Nice and one of the best places to go to for a short relaxing holiday on a wunderful island

This will save you plenty of travel time and plenty of unpleasant transfers in LHR. Air Berlin is a German carrier with plenty of services within Spain and two daily services between PMI and BCN.

Clickair flies directly DUB-BCN for around 90 Euro all in at your time. It is the new LCC launched by Iberia and also is the first LCC to use LHR

From Barcelona to Nice, there is also a very nice night train, although it requires a connection at the border.

NCE-FCO is 50 Euro all in on www.blu-express.com, an Italian LCC


Flying through LHR with its insane taxes seems like a waste of time IMO

For CDG - BCN you could also consider Vueling (www.vueling.com). (I would even recommend it over Easyjet anytime.)

Anyway, as far as I know Easyjet does not fly CDG – BCN but ORY – BCN (which for the OP shouldn’t make any difference, just going to another airport in Paris).

Nice has been taking a bit of a bashing in this thread. In a sense, that's understandable - there's little in the way of sights, it's too crowded to be a relaxing beach town, and the beach is rocky.

However, I note that it's a "senior trip". Assuming "senior" is a reference to college, then Nice is not that bad of a choice. There's a lot of young people from all over Europe traveling through there, and the nightlife can be extremely fun. It's a short train ride to some nice coastal cities with good beaches.

I enjoyed my first trip to Nice and think the OP would have fun there also. Having said that, it's not a place I would include on any future trip. I also agree that going to a Spanish island such as Palma Mallorca or Ibiza would be more relaxing and more fun, and you can take a boat or a plane from Barcelona.