Europe trip - 9 days - suggestions please...

Parent Cafe
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<p>9 days is not very long… that said, you can get to wherever you want on the train.</p>

<p>Lots of recommendations for Prague in the thread… Frankfurt to Prague is probably an overnight train trip both ways. I think it’s like 6 hours from Prague to Berlin, as a reference. That said, I think Prague is overrated. I think it is hyped among the college age group because it is cheap and you can drink a lot.</p>

<p>I highly recommend traveling by train, and not planes. The trains leave and drop you off in the middle of the cities. The budget airlines fly from somewhere outside the cities. You can get a full time table (schedule) on the Eurail site. Very easy to follow.</p>

<p>Good places to hit could be Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, Swiss Alps, Paris… Amsterdam has its fair share of weirdos (like the guy who followed my friend and I for multiple city blocks explaining where the best weed was, and what the best time was to patronize the prostitutes), especially around the red light district, but there is good stuff to see there too.</p>

<p>You could fly to Frankfurt, overnight train to Bern, and be in the Interlaken region by 10am on the day after the flight lands. 3 days in the Swiss alps (hiking?) in the Berner Oberland. Train back to Munich for 2 days, train to Berlin for 2 days, train back to Frankfurt. Obviously, the possibilities are endless.</p>

<p>I went backpacking for a month last summer after graduation with one of my roommates, RT plane ticket DC to London. London –> Paris –> Pisa (via Milan) Rome (+Vatican) –> Lauterbrunnen (via Bern, Interlaken) –> Zurich –> Vienna –> Krakow (+Auschwitz/Birkenau) –> Prague –> Berlin –> Brussels –> Amsterdam –> Paris –> London. We stayed in hostels the whole way… good experiences. We stayed at Wombats hostel in Vienna… they have one in Berlin and Munich. Very nice place.</p>

<p>[wombats</a> Hostels!We hostel Berlin, Munich München and Vienna Wien!](<a href=“http://www.wombats-hostels.com/]wombats”>http://www.wombats-hostels.com/)</p>

<p>Paris is definitely a city I would recommend, but after 2 visits there, I am done. They have an extremely large number of street scams going on also.</p>

<p>We booked hostels as we traveled at [Hostels</a> & Youth Hostels Worldwide - Online Bookings](<a href=“http://www.hostelworld.com%5DHostels”>http://www.hostelworld.com) you pay like $1-2 booking fee. They have lots of reviews and stuff. I would definitely not depend on the ability to find a good hotel for $85. If you already have it before you go, then you are fine, but don’t get there and expect to find one.</p>

<p>I will try to check this thread some more… but feel free to PM if you want.</p>

<p>There is a “Backpacking Europe” facebook group. I would recommend that your kids join it and read through the different threads. Lots and lots of stuff is covered.</p>

<p>Also there is lots of travel / general tourist information on tripadvisor.com (I think that’s the website). They must read a lot… and then read some more. And they need to read about all the scams that happen. I typed a big post about them before for some thread… I can try to do so again (or find that one) or summarize them. Here are some: <a href=“http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/298scam.htm[/url]”>http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/298scam.htm&lt;/a&gt; This list does not include all of the ones that I encountered.</p>

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<p>If they have a free place to stay in Paris, that seems like pretty much a no-brainer; they definitely should spend some time there. Greatest and most beautiful city in the world, in my opinion. Great walking city (free), great art (not free, but well worth the price of admission if they’re into that sort of thing. That puts them on a Frankfurt-Paris axis (not unlike the modern EU, I suppose, but that’s another story). From there it’s a question of what they could reasonably add without consuming all their time and money on travel. Heidelberg? Historic old university city on the upper Rhine, with its famous Romantic “philosophers walk” where the likes of Hegel, Jaspers, Gadamer, Habermas have all spent significant time. Amsterdam? Another great city with a distinctive style, pretty easy to reach by train from Paris, again tons of great art; and from there it’s easy enough to skittle up the Rhine with perhaps a stop at Cologne (Koln) and a side trip up the Mosel (enchanted land of castles and vineyards) on the way back to Frankfurt. </p>

<p>Or if they’re less city- and art-oriented, perhaps instead of Amsterdam a little more time in France, e.g., an overnight trip down the Loire valley, returning to Paris for a night before making their way back to Germany, perhaps venturing into the Schwarzwald (“Black Forest”) region.</p>

<p>Or if they’re the rugged outdoorsy types, perhaps a trip up the Rhine through Heidelberg and the Schwarzwald into eastern Switzerland (French spoken) and up into the Swiss Alps, down to Geneva, across to Paris, back to Frankfurt.</p>

<p>Possibilities abound, but a lot depends on their interests.</p>

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<p>One S backpacked around Europe the summer after college graduation. He and friend had not planned in advance. They found that city hostels were generally filled and often booked in advance. They often stayed far outside the cities where hostels were cheaper but transportation was more and sometimes due to missing the last train to the suburbs they ended up sleeping in the train station. My advice is, if possible, make hostel reservations in advance especially if they know their travel itinerary. Are they taking a computer? If not, most hostels have a computer they can use to make hostel reservations for next city. Summertime is busy with many students travelling.</p>

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<p>Make sure they bring their student ID from whatever school they’re in. You’d think the rules would be the same for the whole EU, but I’ve found that they aren’t. In Paris, my kids could get into museums for free or at a reduced rate because they were students; in Italy the perk was for EU residents only. Might as well try to a student rate wherever they are.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions. I’m going to pass them along to the boys.</p>

<p>I’m trying to get the idea across to the guys that the cheap, decent, centrally located lodgings are EXTREMELY LIMITED, and they need to make some decisions so they won’t be either spending all their time commuting from the outskirts. (I would rather they avoid the REALLY scary dive lodgings. 10 dorm beds and a bath down the hall beats drug deals and prostitutes IMO) Planning is not their thing, but they’ll all be together at the end of the month for DS#3’s graduation festivities, and hopefully they’ll reach a consensus of where they want to go. </p>

<p>Once they know the countries, we can figure out the order to do them, and whether Eurail passes or straight train fare makes the most sense and reserve some youth hostels or hotels. </p>

<p>Also, once I know the cities they are visiting, I’ll be back here for more suggestions. </p>

<p>Thanks for all the ideas, and keep them coming, please!</p>

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<p>My younger daughter and two friends (HS Class of 09) are headed to Europe for 17 days, starting in Amsterdam. They have decided on 5 cities and are using Lonely Planet, on line guides to plan their travels. They have assigned a city to each to recommend hotels/hostels and things to do in each city. I’m pretty amazed at their resourcefulness in planning this all out. They have also created a facebook group, open to just the 3 of them, to post things which simplifies communications.</p>