Planning a Europe Trip

2-3 countries max, is what I would do in two weeks. You want enough time to actually enjoy a place.

DIY. Way too many free resources to make it happen, unless you are older and want it turnkey.

What countries are you interested in? This will establish the roadmap and how many to visit, cities, adventures, etc.

It’s tough to say what I’d pick if we only hit 3 spots… I feel like I’d want to hit Italy and southern Germany / Austria for sure. I guess it would come down to convenience of getting from place to place. I know the wife would probably want to go to Greece. Just so many appealing options when you start looking at it that it’s hard to pick!

So you can spend two weeks in italy alone and not see everything. Recommend choosing 2-3 cities their max if you must go to Austria or other.

If Austria is a must, maybe fly into Rome, go up to Florence then Milan. Jumper flight from Milan to Salzburg. Train and\or day trip to Munich for some Germany.

That’s probably as much moving as I would do in two weeks, that’s still a ton to see in each of those places but might work for you.

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A large amount of flights to mainland Europe go through London from the US.

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Highly recommend not laying over in London, no reason to.

OP i'm not hating on the Nola-London flight as under the right circumstances an easy direct like that is amazing. But figure out where you want to go first, don't look at where flights go. That doesn't make sense.

For a first trip you could 4-5 countries easily in 2 weeks but realistically 2-3 is better. It all completely depends on what you want to do. People are going to tell you to explore one small area and learn it well, but realistically if you make one vacation a year it'll take you 50 years to see europe. My first time over I went to France, Germany, Belgium, and England with my parents on a horribly planned trip by my dad and we have a fantastic time.

The easiest and most recommend is to plan multiple locations that are pretty close together. I would highly suggest going to multiple countries on your first trip if just for a day or 2 just to get a nice idea. You may spend 13 days in one country and never want to go back and 1 day somewhere and love it. Europe has plenty of similarities between the countries compared to the rest of the world but there's still tons different.

yes. Flew into Rome in July on Delta. Msy to Atl, then to Rome. Came back out of Milan. Travel through Italy on high speed trains or Ryanair. Not too many issues. Both airports in Italy were a mess and all our flights were delayed. Recommend going from US direct to the destination in Europe like we did. And I think 3 cities on 1 trip is enough.

The first day in any new city schedule a private local tour. We use tours by locals. It gives you a good overview of the city. The tours are usually fully customizable.

In most major cities you want 3-4 full days. It really depends on where you want to go and what you want to do.

If you’re only talking about two weeks and you are traveling from New Orleans, I suggest you fly direct on British Airways (Premium or super economy) to London. Spend three or four days there and take the train to Paris and spend three or four days there. Go from Paris via high speed train to Basel, Switzerland hence to Lucerne or Zurich. Return the way you came via rail, spending a few days in each place and fly back to New Orleans from London.

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Madrid>Barcelona

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So you say Madrid is better than Barcelona? Crazy.

I would def disagree

I don’t like Madrid much