Help me choose an itinerary for a last-minute 8 or 9 day trip to Europe

June 15, 2009 6:41 PM

Help me choose an itinerary for a last-minute 8 or 9 day trip to Europe.

I'm going to be switching jobs in early July, and have timed things to give myself roughly 9 days (including travel) to do a quickie European backpacking trip (I've already found great fares from Lufthansa). I'm a 26-year-old guy, will be traveling alone, and for all intents and purposes don't speak anything other than English. I'd like to cram in as much as I can, which requires balancing a desire to see as many cities and cultures as possible with a desire to not spend the whole trip on a train. I'd like to keep it cheap (I'll be staying in hostels whenever possible) but don't have a specific budget.

What sequence of countries/cities should I hit? Feel free to define "Europe" as loosely as you'd like. The only restriction is that I'd rather skip France, since I've been there already. Right now I'm investigating Italy/Greece/Turkey, but am open to anything.

Other relevant advice is welcome too, of course. Thanks!

posted by gsteff to travel & transportation (11 comments total)

I am taking it you are travelling everywhere by train, with point to point tickets?

Where are you flying in to and out of?

A 9 day trek will have to be very planned to maximize what you see, and these details would be pretty important.
posted by atmosphere at 6:53 PM on June 15

I haven't booked flights yet- I'm flexible as to my arrival/departure cities (I expect they won't be the same). I'm flexible regarding intracontinental travel too- right now I'm investigating ferries from Italy to Greece.
posted by gsteff at 6:57 PM on June 15

nine days is VERY quick once you consider the day you will lose on each end traveling to and from europe.

you should decide if you want quantity or quality. even in the Med area around italy-greece-turkey there is a TON to see. if you try to hit all three areas in 7 days you *will* spend all your time in transit and not enjoying the sights, sounds, smells and flavors.

why not just one or two? say italy and greece? spend 1 day in Rome and see the obligatory stuff there, then travel overnight to the Amalfi coast and check out Positano/Sorrento/Capri for a couple or three days. from there you can head back to Naples (be careful there!) and catch flight to Athens. there you can see all the obligatory stuff in 1 day. from there head to Mykonos and/or Santorini in the greek islands and just relax (mykonos if you are in a party mood, santorini if you are in a chill mood).
posted by monkeybutt at 7:00 PM on June 15

With 6-7 days of sight seeing time, I'd say just stick to Italy - you get a lot of bang for your buck there anyhow. Rome, Florence/Pisa (don't think you need a ton of time in Pisa if you even bother to go), and Venice would still entail a lot to see, but maybe you can get an openjaw ticket, so you can fly into rome and fly out of venice? If you do want to hit more than one country in that short amount of time, I'd look into ryanair or easyjet and fly.
posted by backwards guitar at 7:04 PM on June 15

9 days is very short, so you'll probably have to confine yourself to a few countries. I have never been to Greece and Turkey so don't know what it'd be like trying to do 9 days there.

Since you are going during the high season though, everything will be insanely busy, you will need to book ahead etc., and tourist centres will be varying degrees of unpleseant depending on your tolerance.

In my experience trying to do big cities like Rome in one day is not ideal but doable if you plan your day out and use a map and guidebook, but it's hardly an ideal way to see or experience 'culture' and more a way to ticks things off a 'must see list'. Consider either limiting yourself to a few cities, say 3 or 4, or heading to smaller places where one day will feel sufficient, and which will possibly be less crowded (although almost anything that is easy enough to get to and has shops will be busy). For example I felt fine having one day in Siena considering my tight schedule at the time.
posted by atmosphere at 7:10 PM on June 15

yeah, i'm going to go with backwardsguitar and recant my earlier suggestion to include greece. stick to one area and just soak it up. the best trips i've had me just staying PUT for as long as possible and settling into the vibe of the place. granted you don't have that much time, but you really don't want to always be worried about your next leg of travel? if you've got flights every other day when can you afford to get blotto with a couple of cuties on holiday and sleep in the whole next day?????? ;)
posted by monkeybutt at 7:12 PM on June 15

I actually have some flexibility in how much time I have available (my new start date isn't set yet), and based on feedback here, will aim for 10-11 days instead of 9.
posted by gsteff at 7:13 PM on June 15

Berlin-Dresden-Prague is a good combination, not too spread out and plenty to see. Helsinki-Tallinn-Riga would also minimise lost transit time and there's a lot going on. Two days in Tallinn is plenty. Easyjet also have cheap flights from Riga and Tallinn to Berlin.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 7:42 PM on June 15

I'll nth the suggestions to not try to go too far given the limited time you have. Venice--Istrian Peninsula (Pula, Porec, etc.)--Ljubljana--Salzburg--Munich has lots of variety but should have no single leg of more than 4 hours (you'll have to take the bus to Pula, but they should be fairly frequent). Budapest--Vienna--Prague could also work. bahn.de has train schedules for most of Europe and is a good way of estimating how far apart, timewise, cities really are.
posted by komilnefopa at 9:15 PM on June 15

The best European trip I’ve ever done (and I’ve done quite a few) was premised on the idea of combining sleep time and travel time. I flew in to Lisbon, spent a day there, and at about 10pm, hopped on an 8-hour train to Madrid, during which, I slept. Woke up in Madrid, spent the day there, and again at 10 pm’ish, hopped on an overnight train to Paris. I did this for 10 days straight, never staying in a hotel, sleeping every night on a train, waking up in a new city. My only requirement was that tomorrow’s city had to be at least 8 hours away.

Over those 10 days, I spent full 14-hour days in Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, London, Munich, Verona, Venice, and Amsterdam plus a few day trips here and there. I was always well rested, had plenty of time to get a flavor of each city, and never felt like I had any down time. A big bonus was that with a rail pass, I didn’t have to plan my days more than one day out. I just needed to decided where to go tomorrow so I’d know when to be back at the train station. And when the weather was bad in one city, I just trained to another. I knew where I was flying in and out of, but between there was totally up to a moment’s whim.

I can’t recommend this highly enough, as long as you can go with just a single backpack, don’t mind sink bathing, and don’t need everything planned out ahead of time.
posted by ericc at 9:22 PM on June 15 [5 favorites has favorites]

Based on feedback here, I decided to do 16 days instead of 9, and saw London, various obvious Italian cities and Athens. I ended up traveling with my sister for most of the trip, which made ericc's excellent night train suggestion inconvenient this time, but will definitely keep it and the other advice here in mind for the zillion other trip ideas I now have bouncing around in my head. Thanks everyone!
posted by gsteff at 9:46 AM on July 18