First trip to Eurioe/Help please

Hi everyone! I am trying to plan a 10-14 day trip to Europe with my daughter for her college graduation in May/June of this year..... would I be crazy to think I could pull this off at this late date? I am the worst planner .... I have never been to Europe, but my daughter has ... she traveled to Barcelona, French Riviera, Nice, Southern Italy and Greece her senior year of high school. Could anyone suggest fun destinations for a mother daughter trip? And any suggestions on how to plan such a last minute trip? I am having analysis paralysis on where to go.... thinking either a Paris/London/Amsterdam trip or Italy or Greece....thinking maybe a cruise might be my best option as far as availability at this late date .... but would prefer a land trip (I think?) ... anyways I would appreciate anyone's insight/resources on booking this trip/itineraries/etc.... Thank you so much! I sooooo want to be able to do this with my daughter before she heads off to PA School in the fall!

Rina

>would I be crazy to think I could pull this off at this late date?

Absolutely not! You'll find plenty of accom availability for May/June. Those months are shoulder season, not high season.

Use the long-established and reliable https://www.booking.com/ to find options in any city you decide upon.

> thinking maybe a cruise might be my best option as far as availability at this late date

Imo, doing a cruise would be daft. It costs more, you'll spend far too much time on the boat, you'll be much more restricted in what you can see, do and experience and you'll be tightly tied to boat boarding times.

>Paris/London/Amsterdam trip or Italy or Greece

Your daughter's already been to Greece so I suggest:

1. London/Paris/Amsterdam if you're happy with an open-jaw flight) or 2 out of the 3 if you want to avoid an open-jaw flight (trying to do all 3 would be daft, because travelling would take up so much time). London + Paris by under-Channel Eurostar train or Paris + Amsterdam (maybe a night in Brussels too?) by train.

Eurostar: https://www.eurostar.com/

Paris> Amsterdam/Brussels etc trains: https://www.thalys.com/

2. The classic 'big 3' in Italy: into and out of Rome with Florence and Venice by train. All 3 cities have hi-speed train links. Italian trains are fast, safe and easy to use. For times, details and fares look at the official Italian railway websites in English:

https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html

https://www.italotreno.it/en

3. London + York + Edinburgh. Train times, details and fares:

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

4. Dublin + London. Fly into and out of Dublin (you'll go through US Customs there) and get a short flight to London and back.

There are lots more possibilities but hopefully those above will get rid of your paralysis.

Use the excellent https://www.skyscanner.net/ to explore flight options and fares but book on the airline's own website.

PS If it was me I'd do Rome, Florence and Venice........

[ Edit: Edited on 24 Mar 2023, 20:58 GMT by leics2 ]

Thank you for your amazing recommendations... so nice of you to take the time to help!

Rina

It's definitely not too late to plan a May-June trip to Europe. First decide when and where you want to go. Then look for flights. Don't wait too long to buy tickets as fares usually rise the closer you get to the desired departure dates.

Besides the suggestions by leics2 I'd recommend a 10-14 day trip to Austria and perhaps to a nearby country such as Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. From Vienna, Bratislava is an hour away by train; Budapest, 2.5 hours; and Prague, 4.5 hours.

Austrian Railways has discounted fares. See this link:
https://www.oebb.at/en/tickets-kundenkarten/oesterreich-europa/sparschiene

Consider this rail/boat day trip offered by Austrian Railways on the Danube from Vienna to Melk to visit the Benedictine abbey there with its gorgeous library. It's one of the major stops of cruise companies such as Viking. See this link:
https://kombitickets.railtours.at/en/kombitickets-austria/wachau-ticket

Consider an open-jaw ticket: Fly into one destination (Vienna, for example) and fly out from another (Prague or Budapest, as examples). See this link: https://www.google.com/travel/flights

I leave April 19 for a 46-day trip to Europe. Much of the trip already has been planned and booked. But, for flexibility, we'll leave the rest as we travel in Poland and eastern Germany.

Our trip begins from Miami, where we board a ship to Civitavecchia, Italy, with stops in the Azores, Spain and France, including Corsica. The price was right for a 15-day voyage: US$2,459 for two, mandatory gratuities and port fees included. We then fly from Rome to Vienna to see friends. We've already bought (online, with a U.S. credit card) a Sparschiene ticket from Vienna to Krakow, Poland, to begin travel to Zakopane, Wroclaw, Częstochowa, Torun and Szczecin. We then travel to Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Mainz and Frankfurt before heading home on a nonstop flight.

There have been, and continues to be, labor strife in Europe this spring, particularly in France. Keep that in mind as you make your travel plans.