Help with European Vacation Travel Planning

[zumbro clones]

We are planning a trip to Italy this summer. A friend suggested Costco as a good choice.

Several years ago I put together a trip to Ireland and UK but it was a lot of work for our family vacation due to all the transportation details (ferry, bus, train, etc.). A travel service like Costco may be a good alternative for this upcoming trip since they handle all the transportation and hotels.

What have you all used for your European trip planning?

 

[dmclone]

I've been to Europe probably 10 times in the last 20 years. We've always handled 100% of the planning ourselves and it's 1/2 the fun. It's also a lot easier now than in the past. Use a website/App like Wanderlog.

With that said, it seems kind of late in the game to be planning a summer trip to Italy. Also, I've learned over the years that some people just like to have all the decisions made for them. I'm sure there are positives/negatives for both.

I watch youtube videos, read rick steves books, my wife joins groups on FB and Tripadvisor, etc. We usually decide on a general location that we want to visit and then plan from there. We rarely spend less than 2 nights in a row for lodging. We usually try to spend 1/2 the time rural/1/2 in cities. We put a lot of things on our itinerary but we know we won't get to all of them. We usually try to pack really light. My wife usually tries to learn a little of the local language. Since we never had kids, we usually go in the offseason. Nothing is worse to me than spending our time sweating while waiting in long lines.

 

[cytor]

When I go to Europe, I pick a city to fly into and start there. I literally have nothing booked ahead and I wing it. After I leave the airport (take a train into the city), I start to look for a place to stay. Then I go sight seeing for x number of days, before jumping a train to another city/country. I will usually have an idea what cities and/or countries to see, but sometimes change it up and go somewhere else instead. I always make sure to end up being in the city where my flight leaves to go back home at least 1 day before departing. It's the ultimate free wheeling way to travel over there.

 

[soccercy]

I've been on trips to England, France, Belgium and Netherlands. Fly into your starting point, then should be able to book trains on trainline or Rail Europe, always use public transit or walk locally. Have never had any trouble planning, it is easy to book and change trains if necessary.

 

[83cy]

When we go to Italy we rent a car, Italy is pretty easy to drive around, beats hassling with trains that go on strike every other day. Do not drive into Florence or Rome though, park outside the city and take a train in. As mentioned earlier kind of late for this summer a lot of the better Vrbo's and hotels will be booked for the summer.

 

[Frog]

We did a travel agency for flights/train only and rates were real good with no penalties. We did our own planning where to go/what to see and booked our own Airbnb.

 

[Cyclones_R_GR8]

 

[dmclone]

When I go to Europe, I pick a city to fly into and start there. I literally have nothing booked ahead and I wing it. After I leave the airport (take a train into the city), I start to look for a place to stay. Then I go sight seeing for x number of days, before jumping a train to another city/country. I will usually have an idea what cities and/or countries to see, but sometimes change it up and go somewhere else instead. I always make sure to end up being in the city where my flight leaves to go back home at least 1 day before departing. It's the ultimate free wheeling way to travel over there.

I would love to have the mindset, I'm just too much of a planner. I also know I'd learn about something I missed after I got back.

 

[cytor]

I would love to have the mindset, I'm just too much of a planner. I also know I'd learn about something I missed after I got back.

I like winging it, because I will always run into other travelers and they have some great ideas on what to see. I will sometimes follow their ideas and have a great experience of seeing something I might have ordinarily missed out on.

 

[FriendlySpartan]

We are planning a trip to Italy this summer. A friend suggested Costco as a good choice.

Several years ago I put together a trip to Ireland and UK but it was a lot of work for our family vacation due to all the transportation details (ferry, bus, train, etc.). A travel service like Costco may be a good alternative for this upcoming trip since they handle all the transportation and hotels.

What have you all used for your European trip planning?

I’ve done both and since your starting your planning late an agent might be best but really need to know how long you are going for, where in Italy you want to go, and what kinds of things do you want to do while you’re there.

 

[pourcyne]

I would love to have the mindset, I'm just too much of a planner. I also know I'd learn about something I missed after I got back.

Unless you have a lifetime in which you can take that trip, trust me, you're going to miss something.

Also, if you already know every detail about something before you go, why go?

Travel agents are good if you have several cities/countries in mind and need some kind of transportation while going around the country or from country to country.

If you are going to one city and staying in one hotel, however, you can easily book the trip yourself through the airlines or something like Kayak or Travelocity. One thing to consider are day trips to nearby locations done with train or intercity bus. When I went to Barcelona, I did day trips to Montserrat and Tarragona and just bought tickets at the train station to the destination. From Naples, I went to Pompeii and took another trip to Herculaneum. Same method. If you want to do that, it's good to have a hotel near a major train station (and be careful, some cities like Paris have several stations, depending on where you are intending to go).

For Italy, do not miss Florence and Pompeii. Skip Pisa. Rome is an acquired taste (especially if you've been spoiled by somewhere truly astonishing, like Paris). I'm not at all religious, but Vatican City was extremely interesting. Do hire a local guide. It's worth the cost.

 

[pourcyne]

Speaking of Italy, ruh-roh.

Italy floods: thousands flee after six months of ‘apocalyptic’ rain in a day | Flooding in northern Italy has forced more than 10,000 people to flee their homes. At least 13 people have been killed, with the death toll expected to... | By Channel 4

Flooding in northern Italy has forced more than 10,000 people to flee their homes. At least 13 people have been killed, with the death toll expected to...

fb.watch

 

[FriendlySpartan]

Unless you have a lifetime in which you can take that trip, trust me, you're going to miss something.

Also, if you already know every detail about something before you go, why go?

Travel agents are good if you have several cities/countries in mind and need some kind of transportation while going around the country or from country to country.

If you are going to one city and staying in one hotel, however, you can easily book the trip yourself through the airlines or something like Kayak or Travelocity. One thing to consider are day trips to nearby locations done with train or intercity bus. When I went to Barcelona, I did day trips to Montserrat and Tarragona and just bought tickets at the train station to the destination. From Naples, I went to Pompeii and took another trip to Herculaneum. Same method. If you want to do that, it's good to have a hotel near a major train station (and be careful, some cities like Paris have several stations, depending on where you are intending to go).

For Italy, do not miss Florence and Pompeii. Skip Pisa. Rome is an acquired taste (especially if you've been spoiled by somewhere truly astonishing, like Paris). I'm not at all religious, but Vatican City was extremely interesting. Do hire a local guide. It's worth the cost.

+1 for the Florence pick. I personally liked Rome a lot but holy crap there are too many “tourist” tourists.

 

[laminak]

We did an organized tour of our Italy trip with Globus, which was excellent. They saved time and money on the transportation, got us into sites without waiting a loooong time, had excellent guides, and a good itinerary. The downside is that you'll be traveling with others and on the trip's schedule.

As part of the tour, we visited Rome (and Vatican City), San Gimignano, Lucca, Pisa, Florence, Venice, Verona, Assisi, and Ravenna. We also later added a day tour of Naples and Pompeii outside of the Globus tour.

The main targets we loved and would always recommend are Rome, Florence, Venice, and Pompeii. Assisi and Sienna were nice surprises and Pisa was overrated.

 

[zumbro clones]

We are looking at a trip including Rome/Florence/Vienna. We are excited about side trips in the Tuscany area. We'll probably have 3 days per stop so it will be hard to visit everything we'd like to see. We'll take the train to get between the cities.

Is it difficult to get bus/train tickets without speaking Italian? On my trip to Germany, outside of the larger cities I couldn't figure out the self-service train kiosks since they were all in German.

 

[Clark]

We are looking at a trip including Rome/Florence/Vienna. We are excited about side trips in the Tuscany area. We'll probably have 3 days per stop so it will be hard to visit everything we'd like to see. We'll take the train to get between the cities.

Is it difficult to get bus/train tickets without speaking Italian? On my trip to Germany, outside of the larger cities I couldn't figure out the self-service train kiosks since they were all in German.

Do they make apps where you can take a picture of something and have it translated?

 

[dmclone]

Do they make apps where you can take a picture of something and have it translated?

Google Lens works great for that

 

[Angie]

I love travel planning. I like making a mix of super unique, off-the-beaten-path things (like Atlas Obscura items) mixed with some more mainstreams. I also am a big fan of planning ahead - I have gotten to go to the Necropolis under the Vatican two consecutive years, but you can only do that planning months in advance. (It is like the Vatican equivalent of getting breakfast inside the Castle at Disney or something - only about 125 people get to go per day.) Honestly, if I could make a business out of planning unique travel experiences for others, I would - but not everyone wants to travel the same. That is part of why I don’t use the generic stuff a broader travel agent does.

 

[Cyclonepride]

I was going to be severely disappointed if Chevy didn't make an early appearance in this thread.

 

[zumbro clones]

I scheduled an Italy trip through Costco. Flew in to Rome (from MSP -> Paris). Took the train from Rome to Florence and then took another train to Venice. Then flew from Venice through Paris back to MSP.

Costco arranged to have a driver pick us up at the Rome airport (just beyond the baggage claim area). They also arranged for a water taxi to pick us up at our hotel in Venice and took us directly to a water taxi dock at the Venice airport.

The total price was good for a 10 day trip. We stayed at hotels that we couldn't afford otherwise since Costco has special negotiated rates.

Here's what I learned:

Don't try to eat between 3pm and 7pm. Most good places are closed. Get a reservation for the highly rated or top scale restaurants. Your hotel concierge or an app like The Fork or Quandoo can get a timeslot for you.

Expect to walk a lot. Wear comfortable shoes and bring water. Most attractions allow you to bring in regular water bottles. Small bottles usually cost 1-3 euros at street stands. Bring a big bottle for tours. If you have trouble walking you might have problems with areas like Venice that have a lot of stairs and bridges. Many tourist sites are not handicap-accessible. There are a lot of stairs to navigate in Ancient Rome and Florence tourist sites.

Get advance tickets to popular attractions if possible. We did that for the Ancient Rome sites in Rome, the Uffizi and Accademia in Florence, and St Marks in Venice. Some places have lines that go fairly quickly without a pass like the Pantheon. The Vatican lines were impossibly long when we were there.

Keep some smaller denomination euro coins or bills for sidewalk stands or transportation (like taxis). We used Apple Pay for almost all other payments. Every restaurant has a credit reader that is easy to use for a simple Apple Wallet transaction with a click of a button.

Don't expect to find public rest rooms. They are hard to find and most are pay toilets. Keep coins to pay for them. Instead, plan to get a drink or snack at a restaurant to use their toilet.

When you get a quick snack, many restaurants charge more to eat at a table than if you take it "to go".

The best restaurants aren't hard to find. Avoid the overrun sidewalk cafes near the tourist sites and walk a short ways. Google Maps can show the restaurant "rating" and we were quite happy picking places that were the best rated in our area.

TripAdvisor and Viator are two common apps that can help schedule tours. They worked out well.

We didn't have many problems communicating. Most taxi drivers used their phone's translate functions if they had problems trying to talk to us. Hotel staff were multi-lingual and restaurants were usually very easy to work around language differences. The tourist sites' staff seemed to be fluent in English.

Most tourist attractions charge a fee and have a security gate to go through. Bags are checked but it usually takes very little time.

If you are taking a train, make absolutely sure which train station you are leaving from. For example, there are multiple train stations in Rome. Termini is the big one but don't assume that your train leaves from there (it was only a few blocks away from our hotel but it wasn't where we needed to be). You can take the Metro or taxi easily between train stations but make sure you leave enough time. Trains stations don't usually post their platform information until 10-15 minutes before the trains leaves so be ready to quickly move when it is posted. There is usually a security gate to go through that may be a traffic jam.

Rome is a great place to visit and it's even better when you get a hotel near the center of the action and can walk everywhere. We stayed near the Trevi Fountain and walked to ancient Rome, many museums and churches, Pantheon, etc.. The only time I got bumped by shady characters (pickpockets?) was at the Colosseum waiting to get in.

The Vatican is an absolute zoo most days. Long lines of people waiting to get in to the museum or into any one of the buildings. Trying to get advance tickets can be like trying to get Taylor Swift concert tickets. To get through the crowds and from place to place efficiently, booking a tour is best. We took a taxi to the Vatican to meet our tour and that worked well. It was nearly impossible to get a taxi back to our hotel. The taxi stands were empty. When we found a taxi they wanted to charge us a high premium for going from the Vatican back to Italy. Best to walk out to the Vatican to find a way back.

Florence was quite different from Rome. The Uffizi, Duomo, and shopping areas were packed but the other areas were much more quiet. Again, walking to most places was quite easy from a central hotel location.

We took a guided Tuscany wine tour. This was certainly a highlight. We went to 3 wineries and visited several small towns. Each winery was quite unique from the others. They gave us tours and we had a sit-down sample of their wine and some snacks. We shipped a case of wine home for family gifts.

Venice was more expensive and was quite busy with tourists throughout most of the central areas. Getting around by boat was pretty easy. We got a 3 day vaporetto (think "water bus") pass to get to most places around the area. It runs through the Grand Canal and the main islands. We ended up using a compass app on our phones to get around. There are a lot of dead ends to canals that you need to work around and find a bridge to get across. We took a gondola ride to say we did it. Get one early in the morning to avoid the lines. Everyone wants a sunset ride but the lines can be long. They aren't hard to find on the inner canals.

Costco got us a hotel on the island just south of Venice called Lido. We stayed on the east side of the island looking over the Adriatic Sea. There was a nice long dock and a sand beach. The cabanas on the beach were closed for the season. There was a canal from the west side of Lido to the hotel dock for water taxis and the hotel shuttle. We used the free hotel shuttle to get to and from Venice each day.

We took a tour of a glass factory on the Murano island and a tour of the lace shops on the Burano island. We got a nice tablecloth on Burano. The islands have no cars and are a nice break from chaotic Venice.

Our flight to Paris from Venice was delayed by a short time, but we didn't have much of a layover time in Paris. Our plane dropped us off to a bus that took us to a passport control station in a remote building. Then we took another bus to Terminal M for our flight to MSP. Luckily there were a lot of us running to get on that flight and they held it for us. Lesson learned: don't have a layover less than 1.5 hours in Paris.

Overall it was a great trip. I'd recommend it for anyone who likes to be a little adventurous. It's especially fun for people who love history.