Help me plan my trip to Europe

[Raygun99]

So after years of trying to go over to Europe, it looks like I will finally be able to go for two weeks this fall with my girlfriend, in late September, early October. What’s still up in the air is what to do once we’re over there. The plan is to land in London first, spend a few days there, then take advantage of the cheap airlines to get around the continent. We’d like to see at least two other cities, balancing out travel time and cost of transportation.

Prague is almost inked in as the first stop (but: more questions below), but it’s the whereto next that’s the question. Somewhere along the Mediterranean would be attractive, with Italy and Portugal being strong contenders. I’m not a “sit on the beach and tan person” in general, but I would like some ocean scenery and interesting culture. I’m also hoping to go somewhere a little off the beaten path (but also easily accesable), so while I’m sure, say, Rome, would be cool, I’m hoping to not see the same thing everyone else has when they travel. Naples might be an alternative there if there’s something to see and experience. We’re open to pitches here, as long as it’s not too complicated and or time consuming to get there.

So, some questions - what’s the weather typically like in London, Prague and (random Mediterranean spot) in September?
How expensive are these cities (London has a rep for being expensive, I know)? How reliable are the cheapo airlines - I’ve heard stories of missed connections and moved flights, is this common?
What’s the sweet spot or booking for the best price but not having them change the flight time on us too drastically, or is the latter thing a hazard no matter when?
One of the connections I looked into had a four hour layover in Paris (w/ no airport change) - is that enough of a security net that we’re not likely to get screwed by delays?
Since none of the cheap carriers flies out of Heathrow (that I’ve seen), how difficult is it to get to the outlying airports like Stansted and Luton? How much time do you want to book to get to them from, let’s say Central London?
Am I being realistic in the three city approach? I’m thinking 3 or 4 days in each spot, hoping to take in as much and as varied as I can.

[Shirley_Ujest]

Check the magazine Budget Travel at your local library for back issues and current issues of travel deals abroad. It is a great resource for real people to travel.

[Tapioca_Dextrin]

A four hour layover in Paris is plenty of time.

If you want to take advantages of cheap flights, you’ll have to book early. The cheapest seats go real fast. And a lot of flights are from very odd airports indeed. If you’re flying into Heathrow, for example, Stansted is about four hours away.

[even_sven]

London is unholy expensive- it’s not unheard of to spend seven US dollars on a pre-packaged sandwich at a convienence store. I’d count on things costing twice as much as you are used to spending.

Rome is awesome! For somewhat-off-the-beaten-track and ocean views, you can’t beat Cinque Terra. These are five little gems of towns strung out along the Italian Riveria. Absolutely beautiful.

Personally, I’d skip London and go straight to Prague or Italy or whatever. Your money will go a lot further and you’ll minimize long-distance travel. That means you can travel by train, make plans as you go and stay in individual places as long or as short as you like. Nothing sucks more than being stuck waiting for a plane in a town you are bored of or having to leave the beach just as you are getting in to it. It can be a little harder to travel without concrete plans, but it gives you a lot more freedom.

For preperation, I’d spend some time with Rick Steves. His Europe Through the Back Door guide is a great introduction on not just where to travel, but HOW to travel. He caters to slightly older budget travellers, so he teaches you how to keep costs down while still having a nice time. It’s a good break from pretty much worthless Fodors or the absurd penny-pinching of the Lonely Planet set. He’ll point you to cheap hotels but not ones that don’t have sheets. He’ll tell you what is truely a hidden gem, what is worth splurging on, and what you can pass up.

[Doctor_Who]

@Tapioca Dextrin

If you want to take advantages of cheap flights, you’ll have to book early. The cheapest seats go real fast. And a lot of flights are from very odd airports indeed. If you’re flying into Heathrow, for example, Stansted is about four hours away.

Couple a’ great points here - you need to book these cheap flights way in advance. If you’re booking a good month before your trip, you can find killer deals on RyanAir and EasyJet.

Also re: London’s odd airports. You must realize that your train ticket to get to Stansted or Gatwick is going to cost as much/if not more than your cheap airline ticket from Stansted or Gatwick. Or at least that was my experience. Just don’t want you to be shellshocked when you find a $20 dollar flight to Prague and a $40 train-ride to the airport.

By the way - getting to Luton is an hour-long bus ride from London. It’s also a nightmare. For your sanity, I’d stick with Stansted/Gatwick which are easily accessible from Victoria Station which is right on the tube (IIRC - it’s been a while).

@Raygun99

Somewhere along the Mediterranean would be attractive, with Italy and Portugal being strong contenders. I’m not a “sit on the beach and tan person” in general, but I would like some ocean scenery and interesting culture. I’m also hoping to go somewhere a little off the beaten path (but also easily accesable), so while I’m sure, say, Rome, would be cool, I’m hoping to not see the same thing everyone else has when they travel. Naples might be an alternative there if there’s something to see and experience. We’re open to pitches here, as long as it’s not too complicated and or time consuming to get there.

Let me recommend cinque terra in Italy as a great destination. It’s accessible by train and right on the ocean. There’s a little 8 mile hike beside the ocean that’s just unbelieveable. (And it’s the good kind of hiking - with 5 italian towns as stops on the route!)

Also — as a travel tip in Italy, before you get on your train you need to stamp your train ticket in the little yellow boxes scattered throughout the station. Those validate/date your ticket - if you don’t do it then you’ll get scolded in Italian.

Of course, I wouldn’t want to miss Rome - the coliseum and the little cafes. Ah, to be there now!

what’s the weather typically like in London, Prague and (random Mediterranean spot) in September?

Variable. Be sure to plan accordingly. I’m most familiar with London and I predict you’ll probably encounter 60F/15C. Be sure to carry around an umbrella like everyone else in London. And drop the 50p to get a copy of the Evening Standard - makes the tube ride more enjoyable and educational!

How expensive are these cities (London has a rep for being expensive, I know)?

London is devastatingly expensive. However, most of the things you’ll want to do in London are not. The museums are free, you can walk in the park for free, etc. Just be careful with your hotel and your meals. Rome can be cheaper, depending on what you do and where you stay. Prague used to be cheap, but they’ve caught on to the tourism boom. Unless you plan on straying wide from the path in Prague, don’t expect that everything will be that cheap.

How reliable are the cheapo airlines - I’ve heard stories of missed connections and moved flights, is this common?

As I understand it, yes, these things are common. I had great success, only once being stranded in an airport because of stupid EasyJet. Don’t worry - they finally flew us out 8 hours later and even gave us a coupon for a 5 euro snack. But, I wouldn’t worry about it. If it happens, it happens. Just relax, that’s what travelling is all about.

Since none of the cheap carriers flies out of Heathrow (that I’ve seen), how difficult is it to get to the outlying airports like Stansted and Luton? How much time do you want to book to get to them from, let’s say Central London?

You can get much more accurate travel times from the local airport websites, but I would say give yourself one hour at the airport, one hour on the train, and then it just depends on how far you are away from the central station. Three hours is probably safe.

Am I being realistic in the three city approach? I’m thinking 3 or 4 days in each spot, hoping to take in as much and as varied as I can.

Yep. Although, I will say - if you do it right, you’re gonna wish you had more time everywhere you go.

Finally, I know you didn’t ask for any sightseeing advice, but there’s plenty of Euro-Dopers on here (not me) who can give you some awesome recommendations. If you’re interested, that is.

The Doctor

[Doctor_Who]

@even sven

Rome is awesome! For somewhat-off-the-beaten-track and ocean views, you can’t beat Cinque Terra. These are five little gems of towns strung out along the Italian Riveria. Absolutely beautiful.

Simulpost! All right! Well, let’s see that’s two votes Cinque Terra…

For preperation, I’d spend some time with Rick Steves. His Europe Through the Back Door guide is a great introduction on not just where to travel, but HOW to travel. He caters to slightly older budget travellers, so he teaches you how to keep costs down while still having a nice time. It’s a good break from pretty much worthless Fodors or the absurd penny-pinching of the Lonely Planet set. He’ll point you to cheap hotels but not ones that don’t have sheets. He’ll tell you what is truely a hidden gem, what is worth splurging on, and what you can pass up.

I like Rick Steves, but the problem is that everyone likes Rick Steves. I always find that his hidden gems are crowded tourist traps cluttered with tacky T-shirts and cheap postcards within minutes of a new edition coming out. But I will wholeheartedly agree that he does have some great advice on how to travel.

The Doctor

[glee]

London will be cool in September. It rains regularly in England. :eek:

We use trains much more than you do in the US, and also spend longer checking in / passing security for flights. (We’re only a small country, so our travel habits are different.)

The budget airlines are cheap, but offer no frils and get rather stroppy if anything goes wrong. Read their small print!

It takes about 50 minutes from London to Stansted Airport (N.B. You want London, Liverpool Street - there are several railway stations in London, usually built by different companies). There are several trains per hour. This site has a journey planner:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

London is expensive, but there are travel cards.
Public transport is much better than car, and you see more from the top deck of buses. There are river trips along the Thames, and walks with commentaries. Also London taxi drivers (‘black cabs’) spend years qualifying for their licence, and they know the streets backwards.
In particular the Tower of London is about 1000 years old.

http://www.londoncountyhalltours.com/

London Walks - London's Best Guided Walking Tours

London Taxi Tour.

http://www.toweroflondontour.com/

Hope this helps, and have a great trip!

[Dag_Otto]

@Raygun99

Prague is almost inked in as the first stop (but: more questions below), but it’s the whereto next that’s the question. Somewhere along the Mediterranean would be attractive, with Italy and Portugal being strong contenders. I’m not a “sit on the beach and tan person” in general, but I would like some ocean scenery and interesting culture. I’m also hoping to go somewhere a little off the beaten path (but also easily accesable), so while I’m sure, say, Rome, would be cool, I’m hoping to not see the same thing everyone else has when they travel.

I’ll suggest Dubrovnik, Croatia. It won’t be the high season so it should be a bit cheaper. While it may be a little cool with light rain, it’s pretty far south so you might get good weather. From there, you could island hop to Korcula, Hvar, or Brac and then fly out of Split to your next destination. For ocean scenery, Croatia will be hard to beat.

[Nava]

I 20-or-so the notion of ordering the tickets way ahead. I like amadeus.net as a decent source for timetables, they don’t have every single airline since they’ve been springing up like mushrooms lately but they have a lot of them. Amadeus is the program most travel agents in Europe use to control reservations; the information is very good regarding flight availability - it was one of their strong selling points when the company started and they take good care of it.

Portugal isn’t on the Mediterranean, you know Don’t let a Portuguese hear you say it is! They won’t scream at you for it but you will get filed under Y, for “freaking stupid yankee who like all of them doesn’t know any geography”. We wouldn’t want that to happen to a Doper! Southern Europe, yes. Mediterranean, no. El Algarve (S coast) is beautiful; Lisbon is one of Europe’s jewels (and this is a Spaniard telling you). And in Porto you can visit some of the wineries.

Croatia is getting a lot of tourist development. My bro and the SIL went to Dubrovnic as part of a Mediterranean cruise two summers ago and loved it. It was one of those where you spend the night aboard, then each day in a different place, with the exception of Rome - there, they stopped for two days.

You may be able to get from Prague to either Croatia or Greece by train. Trains, specially with Travelpass, are a good alternative. I know you can get to Portugal by train but that would probably be too long.

A package that’s being sold a lot in Spain these last few years is “Prague and Budapest”. I went to Prague with Mom and other-bro last year and we absolutely loved it, haven’t been to Budapest.

[treis]

@Raygun99

The plan is to land in London first, spend a few days there, then take advantage of the cheap airlines to get around the continent.

Have you considered flying into Dublin? I am heading over to Europe this summer for an internship and thats what I am doing. The plan right now is to take a plane to Dublin stay a day or two. Then fly over to Hamburg and take the train to Berlin and stay there for 2-3 days. Then take a train to Prague, stay there for 2-3 days and then on to my internship.

Dublin is cheaper to fly into, cheaper to stay in and Ryanair flys to many locations from there.

[clairobscur]

I don’t want to be negative, but, though I never went there, its pretty clear that Cinque Terra isn’t anymore “out of the beaten paths”. Everyone and his dog go there. On travel boards, everybody went there, is about to go there or plan to go there. Of course, the comments are massively positive, so I assume it must be great.
Concerning Croatia : well, it’s becoming a more and more popular destination. Especially Dubrovnik. Even in september there are an awful lot of tourists in Dubronik. Been there, done that, there was a queue just to enter the walled city. But I honestly can’t make any other negative statement about this town, or generally speaking about the Croatian coast. I’m genereally reluctant to tell people to go somewhere, but Dubrovnik is the most beautiful european town I’ve seen. Make sure you’ll stay at least one night, so you’ll be able to visit the city before and after the largest crowds.

By the way, the water temperature is fine on southern Portugal beaches in early september.
As usual, I’m going to advise you to visit travel boards where you should find an awful lot of infos :

The “europe” forum on www.fodors.com (heavily trafficked, more infos than you will ever be able to digest, good infos about mostly everything except travelling on the cheap. I’m refering to the discussion forums, not to whatever other infos fodors has on its site and that I never read)
For backpack-style travel : www.eurotrip.com and the “thorntree” on www.lonelyplanet.com .

[jjimm]

Two weeks in Europe is very little. I’d say concentrate on max four major cities including London, to give you time to appreciate them.

Your idea of using London as a base for cheap flights is good, as is the advice about booking flights early. Book the cheap flights direct from the airline site, not an agent - EasyJet, BMI Baby, and Ryanair (even though I hate the latter) are the three cheapies with the widest coverage out of the UK. Note that most of the airports they service are usually several miles out of town, and there’s almost always an hour or more travelling into the city.

For destinations, I recommend Rome and Budapest, both of which I have visited in the last couple of years and absolutely adored.

[clairobscur]

Also :
This site will give you the average/recently recorded/min/max temperatures, along with the weather conditions (clouds, winds, etc…) in a given place at a given date.

[GorillaMan]

http://www.whichbudget.com/ is a great resource for working out which airlines fly where.

[even_sven]

@clairobscur

I don’t want to be negative, but, though I never went there, its pretty clear that Cinque Terra isn’t anymore “out of the beaten paths”. Everyone and his dog go there. On travel boards, everybody went there, is about to go there or plan to go there. Of course, the comments are massively positive, so I assume it must be great.

Ahh, the age old tourist paradox. We all want someplace amazing and undiscovered. But we also want hotels, good food, easy transportation and stuff to do. To find the true “hidden gems”, you have to shovel a lot of coal. The truth is that most stuff off the tourist path is off the tourist path because it sucks. For every great village, there are a hundred boring hellholes. You can have some great experiences in hellholes and enjoy the gems when they come, but not if you only have two weeks. “The Beach” has got to be one of the worst books ever written and an even worse movie, but it does do well in satireing the pointless tourist machismo of finding the great undiscovered spot.

As for Cinque Terra, I was there in 99 and it was beautiful. Each city has progressively more or less development, so you can take your pick from “renting someone’s extra bedroom for the night” to “five star hotel”. Yeah, it won’t earn you any respect over beers at the hostel, but it’s a great place.

[Chefguy]

@Nava

Portugal isn’t on the Mediterranean, you know Don’t let a Portuguese hear you say it is! They won’t scream at you for it but you will get filed under Y, for “freaking stupid yankee who like all of them doesn’t know any geography”. We wouldn’t want that to happen to a Doper! Southern Europe, yes. Mediterranean, no. **El Algarve ** (S coast) is beautiful; Lisbon is one of Europe’s jewels (and this is a Spaniard telling you). And in Porto you can visit some of the wineries.

Actually, it’s O Algarve (‘o’, which is pronounced ‘oo’ is the Portuguese equivalent of ‘el’).

I lived in Lisbon for two years and it’s a nice place for tourists. There are plenty of corner bakeries and cafes where you can spend hours just watching the world go by. Lisbon has lot’s of moldy old buildings like Sao Jorge castle and Jeronimos, not to mention the castle at Belem. Plenty to see and do. The Algarve has some dramatic coastline: fishermen fish off of the cliffs. It also has a more Mediterranean feel to the architecture. But for my money, I’d stick to Lisboa or Porto.

I love both Prague and Rome. You can’t go wrong with those choices. No lack of beautiful architecture and museums and churches. The Charles Bridge in Prague is worth the trip alone.

[Chefguy]

I can’t believe I wrote “lot’s”. Fcuking hell. :smack:

[Tomcat]

When come Prague, bring pie!

London’s neat, and can be done on a budget, but you do have to watch it. The temptation for me is always the food - awesome restaurants and fresh produce! You can order take-away from most places and get a 10% discount so you can eat in the park.

Stansted to Prague is a no-brainer. Cheap flights and you might even be able to find a package tour that includes a cheap hotel. Otherwise email me and I’ll try to get you a corporate discount at the hotel’s I use. Check out www.expats.cz or www.prague.tv for more information on tons of topics, plus you can post on the message boards and maybe score a room in someone’s place for cheap. The weather in September is great! Warm and sunny. Tons to do here, you won’t have enough time for half of it.

There is a cheap airline going to Dubrovnik from Bratislava and Budapest (I just checked a Tuesday flight Sept. 5 will cost you $30 one way). So, go to Prague, hang for a few days, take a 5 hour train to Bratislava ($25 for 1st class), then stay in Bratislava for a half day and go to Dubrovnik. OR, take the hydrofoil on the Danube to Budapest from Bratislava for around 60 Euros with a student card (if you are under 26 get one of the ISIC cards - save lots!). Neat trip on the river past all types of castles and such. Then fly to Dubrovnik.

Email me for any details on Prague, or just to offer to buy me a beer!

-Tcat

[Doctor_Who]

@Tomcat

if you are under 26 get one of the ISIC cards - save lots!

Anecdote: I had friends that got these international student cards. You have to get them ahead of time, so my friends were proud of their diligence and their forethought. Lacking both of those qualities, I definitely did not plan ahead and went over to Europe … GASP! … sans international student ID.

My friends were furious when I would whip out my regular college ID card, give the teller a smile, and use my college ID to get discounts. All over Europe!

YMMV of course, but I (now) regard those international student cards as suspect.

The Doctor

[The_Big_Cheese]

If you’re dead set on London, then that’s where you should go. ALmost everyting is twice as much there as here. Free and good: Tate Modern, Imperial War Museum. $14 and good: boat ride from London Eye to Greenwich, and hang out in Greenwich, see the museum and set your watch there.
Windsor Castle was impressive(take the train, might spend 3/4 of a day here). If you have time…London Tower.
Buy an Tube/underground pass when you land, 3 or 4 days($6/day?). ANd a one-way into the city…about $7 more.

To get to Stansted go to Liverpool Train station, I believe. 1-way it’s about 22 pounds or $40, About 45 minutes. You can get a $5 flight from London to a lot of places, but see the full cost, the taxes will jack the price way up. And filter in the train price out there. And if you do take these cheapos, see how much luggage you can bring, not a lot I bet. You may have to pay for it where you won’t be paying for it on AA, UAL,etc…

Part of the reason flights are cheap is they use the cheap, often distant airports. ie) Stansted, not Heathrow. We flew to Glasgow, but landed a 25 minute train ride away from Glasgow. But if you go to Paris, you can take the chunnel.

Paris & Venice are my favs. Cinque Terra is on my list next. WHo cares if everyone is going there, if you like it it doesn’t matter how many people ‘know about it’. Venice you can do in a day, or two at the most, but you can’t miss it if you’re in Italy, especially if you’re with a SigOther. Pictures of it don’t do it justice, much more beautiful, but the most dense tourist per square meter than anywhere I’ve been. Take the train. Make sure it isn’t high tide that day though.

My cousin lives in Sarajevo, and she goes to Dubrovnik every chance she gets. Loves it.

And Mind The Gap.