My husband and I are planning our honeymoon. We%26#39;ve booked tickets arriving Paris on June 14, 2008. We have decided to train to Amsterdam upon arrival and will be staying there til the 17th. Now we%26#39;re stumped as to how we should do our itinerary for the rest of the trip without going broke. a 3 country Eurorail pass and 3000Euros on hand where do we stay and where do we go? We love food, architecture and history. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Stumped...
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Congratulations.
With just 15 days following tiresome wedding stuff, I might imagine a leisurely visit of just three or four cities would be better than zipping around too much.
Is your airplane ticket roundtrip to Amsterdam? If yes, next time get an openjaw ticket, so you don%26#39;t backtrack.
Did you already get the Eurail pass? I find it hard to make those things worthwhile for trips as short as 15 days. So if you haven%26#39;t gotten it, don%26#39;t get it.
(1) If you have gotten a Eurail pass, and seeing how you posted in the France forum, I recommend getting a Thalys bullet train ticket to Paris from Amsterdam. Spend a few days in Paris. Then take a TGV train to make Strasbourg a base to look around the Alsace like Colmar. Then spend the remainder of your trip by train around in Germany since train travel in Germany is disproportionally expensive compared to anywhere else in Europe--you%26#39;ll get the most value out of that Eurail pass. Take a look at Hamburg, Aachen, the Rhine River %26amp; Cologne. I%26#39;m not sure if having zipped through Belgium on the way to Paris counts as one of your three Eurail countries. [If Belgium does count, you might as well stop in Brussels and have a look around for a day. Take another train to Brugge before going to France. Skip Germany because you%26#39;ve used up all three of the countries in this Eurail pass. Hence, Eurail pass is mostly an overpriced pain.]
(2) If you do not get a Eurail pass, train travel is still a good way to go. However, you are now free to look at some budget European airline possibilities like Easyjet %26amp; Ryanair. Their websites are really easy to use, especially their interactive route maps. But now, stopping in Belgium by Thalys becomes a pain [Brussels is on the Thalys route but Thalys stopovers are extortionally priced without a pass], so skip Belgium [no big loss] or just fly over it. From Paris, go anywhere you want. [eg fly to Copenhagen and then train back to Amsterdam through Hamburg; or TGV train to Madrid and then fly back to Amsterdam; etc]
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Oops. I read your itinerary backwards--you%26#39;re landing in Paris not Amsterdam! I%26#39;m still not sure if going through Belgium exhausts the 3 country business of that Eurail pass. If it doesn%26#39;t, I still vote to head into Germany.
If you don%26#39;t get the Eurail pass, I still vote against getting that pass. That way, you could freely fly back to Paris from wherever to catch your flight home.
How about fly to London from Amsterdam, then fly from London to Tours (in the Loire Valley--chateau %26amp; wine world) and then train back to Paris? Again check low cost, dependable carriers like RyanAir and Easyjet for their routings.
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Personally, I can%26#39;t really understand why you are going straight from a long flight to Paris, to a long train trip to Amsterdam.
Why don%26#39;t you spend some time in Paris first, get over your Jet Lag, and enjoy, there is plenty of history, architecture and food there!
If as a previous poster suggests, going by train from France, through Belgium to Amsterdam, covers your %26#39;3 countries%26#39; rule, then other places to visit could be, Rotterdam, The Hague %26amp; Delft in Holland, and Brussles, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp or Ypres in Belgium.
Happy Honeymoon
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