Visiting Europe for a month this summer

[Earl Sleek]

In my experience the language barrier will be more of a problem in France than Germany. Most German's, or at least most of the ones you will deal with, speak at least some English, many very well. I also found them to be very friendly. The French on the other hand are on the whole a much more rude people, at least to the English. There is a fairly widespread attitude of "you are in France, you will speak our language". Even in restaurants where you would think the waiters deal with English all the time, you will find a lot of the waiters absolutely refuse to recognise a single word you say that isn't in French. You should definitely spend some time learning the language before you go, it will make a world of difference (and it's a pretty easy language to learn). Of course there are still many friendly people in France and some great places to visit. If you get the chance you should spend some time in the more rural areas outside Paris, there is a lot of culture there.

If it were me going I would look to cut out a city or two, there is an awful lot of traveling involved in your trip and I would rather have more time to explore each city that would be wasted with so much traveling. You'll find that there is a lot more to each of these places than just the well known landmarks, and I suspect once you are there you will regret having to move on so quickly.

If I had to recommend a city to cut out, I would say London.

[JJSCOTT2]

More info about the French langauage barrier:

I was there for a week last summer (in Nice). I got the feeling and was told by Americans who live there that it's more about making the effort to speak in their language. They appreciate that you try. Never open a conversation in English, attempt to say what you need to say in French, once they see that you are making a good attempt at it most will converse with you in English.

[TheMetetron]

I'm leaning more and more towards taking up the only guy I know in Paris's offer to crash at his place.

[ahnuld]

I did the new berlin walking tour and pub crawl. It was alot of fun and definitely worth checking out. I actually did two pub crawls in berlin, but I cant remeber what the good one is called. In any case, it was the one that had 1 hour off all you can drink to start out, vs the other one which didnt. Made all the differnce.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Why such a hurry man? You are young [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]. Reduce the number of cities, it is from day2/day3 and beyond you really start to find things you enjoy etc. in a city, stay 4-5 days at least.

[TheMetetron]

[ QUOTE ]
Why such a hurry man? You are young [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]. Reduce the number of cities, it is from day2/day3 and beyond you really start to find things you enjoy etc. in a city, stay 4-5 days at least.

[/ QUOTE ]

If it was just me I'd spend 10 weeks in Europe and visit 8 cities or so. My brother doesn't have all the time or money in the world. He may not be back to Europe for at least 5-10 years after this so he wants to see as much as he can.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Not much to add, since I have mostly stayed on expensive hotels, but choice of cities seems very good, except maybe Milan (haven't been here, but have heard other people than the one in this thread critizising it). What do you want to do in the different cities?

[El Diablo]

Met,

I've done trips like this and I've done trips where I spend much more time in individual cities. I far prefer the latter. However, I do think checking out a lot of places is pretty fun at a young age so you can figure out what you like. But it's way more fun if you do it without planning. Just show up in London w/ a rough idea of places you'd like to check out and a couple of must-see places to get to, then play it by ear. I did that long ago when you had to communicate with locals for things like figuring out where to stay, etc. That was a blast. With the Internet, doing that is trivial.

I'd also echo what otehrs said about Milan. If doing two cities in Italy, I'd do Florence and Rome. I haven't been, but everyone tells me the Italian Riviera is a pretty sweet place to visit, not sure if it really makes sense on this trip though.

In Spain, I'd want to hit Barcelona. One of my favorite cities anywhere. Sevilla, Granada, etc. in the south of Spain are all really nice too, but probably won't make sense for you logistically.

I've spent a fair amount of time in all those places except Berlin. Tons to do in all of the cities. Very easy to stay occupied for a week or so in each place. I like it like that because then I don't feel any pressure to check out specific museums or whatever in a short timeframe, just sorta check out stuff at a leisurely pace if I feel like it.

My recommendation would be a few days in London.
Then Paris next for a couple of days.
Then to Madrid and Barcelona for a week.
Then to Florence and Rome for a week.
Then Amsterdam for a couple of days. I'd make this an optional stop, depending on how schedule is going.

Would probably skip Copenhagen, even though it's a pretty sweet city. I just think there's a lot more to see and do in many other places. Also would skip Berlin, because I'm not a big fan of Germany.

Anyway, just another idea that gets you to about the same number of cities, but might be a little easier logistically.

What I'd really do, though, is pick three cities that you really want to go to and plan for a week in each of those places, then have the other places as "fill-in" places in case you decide you want to take off after just a couple of days someplace.

[kipin]

If you are into 20th century history at all don't skip Berlin.

In my eyes that is the city with the most 20th century history in the world.

Berlin was awesome when I went there and would recommend it to anyone. Then again I'm a bit of a history nerd so I guess it appealed to me for specific reasons.

As I said earlier, as well as Diablo mentioned you really shouldn't make a set schedule that you feel like you MUST stick to. When I was in Vienna I originally planned to stay for just 3 days but ended up staying 6 because I found it so awesome. I don't regret that decision at all because I got to do a lot of one of a kind things I wouldn't have been able to do if I had only stayed for 3 days. For example by staying a few extra days I was able to see a ballet in the Vienna Opera House for 5 euros thanks to the student tickets they sell. (Student tickets = the best tickets in the house that they don't sell they release to students an hour before the show starts for 5 euros)

[Spy Dog]

If you asked 100 people 'Florence or Milan', 99 people would choose Florence. I would stay in Florence for 3 days and take a day trip to Siena via cheap bus. You can always take the train to Milan from Florence to catch your flight.

If your flights aren't already booked you can also get cheap fares from www.ryanair.com. They are usually cheaper than EasyJet. I have flown for 2 cents round-trip a couple of times from Dublin to Belgium. You just have to book a little early.

Edit: Also, make sure you get the high-speed train out of Rome. This can cut your travel time down significantly, although you will pay a slightly higher price. These are the ES* trains.