advex

I need to visit some customers in the following locales and am wondering what the best way to do it is. The problem is that most of them are not in the city center or easily accessible by train. Last year I rented a car to travel through France, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, but the drop charge (Hertz) was outrageous and the driving wore me out.

Brussels, Belgium
Strasbourg, France
Krakow, Poland
Venice, Italy (Vicenza, actually)
Bologna, Italy
Barcelona, Spain
Birmingham, England
Bremen, Germany (near Hannover)

Given how scattered these are, air would seem to be the most efficient method.

Any suggestions would be welcome and most appreciated. RyanAir? EasyJet? Thanks.

Aviatrix

Don't let anyone from Bremen hear you say that! ;-)

Bremen is one of Northern Germany's major cities, and a state capital. A bit like saying "Liverpool near Manchester" or "San Diego near Los Angeles"...

Not a very fly-able itinerary, I would say, except for some of the longer stretches - and if you wanted to use low-cost carriers you'd probably have to do a lit of zig-zagging.

Do you need to visit these places in any particular order? (I love working out complicated itineraries - if you give me some more details I'll give it a go!)


[This message has been edited by Aviatrix (edited Dec 29, 2003).]

Daydream

I would not do air...go by train! Cheap, fast, reliable, access to every dinky little place you can imagine. There are socalled Eurorail passes available, which give you pretty much unlimited rides within certain trainnetworks for a certain amount of time.

cordelli

There are only two choices, car or train. You have already said they are not near the city center or accessible by train, so that pretty much means taxi or rental car from airport or train station.

If you rent a car do you rent in each city and then train or fly between or rent for the entire journey? There has to be some ability to combine both train and rental so as to avoid huge drop off charges.

BeautifulFeet

I concur. Train or car.

Train would be easiest for Brussells, but a car would be easier for Vicenza. (Are you in downtown Vicenza or the outskirts?) Much of what is be seen in Vicenza can be visited by public transportation, but many more are available primarily by car.

Aviatrix

I would concur that the train is the obvious mode of transport for most of these - possibly using overnight services where available if time is at a premium.

Krakow is a bit of a long way from the rest, though (15 hours from Bremen, 20 hours from Brussels), and Birmingham is awkward to get to by rail from Mainland Europe as you can't get there from the Channel Tunnel without changing stations in London (Waterloo to Euston).

Your best bet would probably be a combination of air and train travel, with either taxis or local car hire to get you to your out-of-town destinations. Criss-crossing Europe by car strikes me as a waste of time - just think of all the work you can do/books you can read/ sleep you can catch up on while sitting on a train!

magexpect

You did not leave sufficient info. Are you going to make a circuit or are you going to go from city to city? How much time have you got?

The Eurailpass would be quite good although a trip to Barcelona or Krakow is going to be quite time consuming. If you know all your schedule in adavance, try Easy Jet and Ryanair, but then again you will have ground transportation problems, depending on where your appointments are. Unless in some cities you secure a rental car.

Be glad to help.

advex

Thanks to everyone for their ideas.

I need to plan out the schedule of meetings to make it as time-efficient as possible. I'm probably looking at 2 weeks.

cecelia

Absolutely, rental car if it was me. However, I have not crossed that many borders with a rental car and don't know if that would be a problem for renting.

I would think it cheaper to rent outside of Italy but not sure of coverage in other countries.

If you're not doing business in city centers, a car is so convenient. If you visit within city centers, park in a suburban or small town train/bus parking lot and take the transport to visit the city centers.

Maybe you could work out a circle trip and avoid drop charges.

[This message has been edited by cecelia (edited Dec 30, 2003).]

Aviatrix

Now there is a point I hadn't considered... you probably wouldn't get a rental car into Poland, unless it was rented from another Eastern European country. We had an Austrian rental car a couple of years ago, and the rules were very strict - "You can't go anywhere east except Slovenia, and if you want to go to Slovenia you have to have one of our Skodas".

I'd still say "take the train" (or fly for the longer trips) - much more relaxing, and (unlike in a car) you can do other things while travelling - read, sleep, work, whatever.

monahos

LOL!

I also vote for the train. Once at destination, take a taxi or rent a Smart

BTW apart from Vicenza none of the above locales is really a 'small European city'...

Track

This trip could all be done by train, and I, a great railfan, wouldn't hesitate a minute. Just taking your listing of cities as an example (not necessarily the order in which you would visit them), I've come up with an itinerary, which really just serves to give you some idea of the timings. It involves some long days, but it also offers the opportunity of taking some overnight trains (with sleeping cars). There are also day trains on all these routes, and some others also offer overnight sleepers:

lve. Brussels 7:01
arr. Strasbourg 12:18
lve. Strasbourg 21:59, arr. Vienna 8:30
lve. Vienna 6:34, arr. Krakow 12:51
lve. Krakow 15:40, arr. Vienna 22:02
lve. Vienna 22:45, arr. Venice 8:34
lve. Venice 9:26, arr. Vicenza 10:12
lve. Vicenza 8:33, arr. Padova 9:09
lve. Padova 9:40, arr. Bologna 11:16
lve. Bologna 15:22, arr. Milan 17:20
lve. Milan 18:10, arr. Geneva 21:55
lve. Geneva 23:25, arr. Barcelona 9:01
lve. Barcelona 8:45, arr. Montpellier 13:16
lve. Montpellier 14:09, arr. Paris 17:25
lve. Paris 19:19, arr. London 20:55
lve. London 22:10, arr. Birmingham 0:37
lve. Birmingham 6:15, arr. London 8:21
lve. London 10:39, arr. Brussels 12:10
lve. Brussels 13:20, arr. Cologne 15:49
lve. Cologna 16:10, arr. Bremen 19:11.

My mouth is watering already.

[This message has been edited by Track (edited Dec 30, 2003).]

jen360

WOW Track! I thought I was good at Europe by train....you da man!!!



------------------
Jen

martinius

For all information on Worldwide and in particular European Rail Travel, I find this resource invaluable:

http://www.seat61.com/

All timetables, sleeping cars, restaurant cars etc throughout Europe with the ability to book most trips online via links. Maintained by a guy who used to be a Rail manager in the UK and has done most European routes himself - complete with pictures etc

[This message has been edited by martinius (edited Dec 31, 2003).]

advex

Happy 2004 to all and thanks for your replies. As much as I'd like to experience the joys of European train travel, the time it takes to get to one city, and then to the suburbs where my customers inevitably are, would be time consuming and the taxis to/from the train stations would be INCREDIBLY expensive.

Instead, I think the best solution might be to rent a car (Sixt is pretty good) in Bremen and work my way across Holland, Belgium, then Lille and Strasbourg. I can then drop off the car in Frankfurt, and find some cheap carrier from FRA to Barcelona, Krakow, Bologna, and Vicenza.