Europe trip cont'd...

[nitarora]

Thanks for everyone's help previously. It's much appreciated.. :)

So the itinerary is unravelling as such:

Fly from Toronto to Paris (mid Sept)
Paris to Italy
Italy to Barcelona
Barcelona back to Paris, then back to Toronto
(total trip is 10 days)

A few questions I have are:

1. How should I travel within the countries? Should I fly or take the train? Is Ryanair dependable? They seem super cheap but what's the catch?
2. What use are the trains to us?
3. What kind of hotels should I be looking for? Should I book them online?

Any other help would be much appreciated.. Thanks!

[HighFlyer]

Would strongly advise you to cut Italy out, or keep only Italy but not the rest. Otherwise the most memorable part of your journey would be the train ride.

[overboost]

Depending on how much time you got, I would choose to fly. If you can get cheap tickets via RyanAir or EasyJet then go for it. However sometimes they cost about the same as a ticket through a major airline.

There's no catch with RyanAir, they are that cheap and that's it. They offer no-frills flying and get you from point A to B. They tend to land at the smaller airports. For example, in Barcelona, you will land at the Girona airport, which is 1hr away and requires you to take a shuttle into the city at a cost of about 20euro roundtrip. The airport that they land at in Paris is called Paris Beauvais, which is tiny and also takes about 45mins to get into Paris via shuttle bus.

Hotels in Barcelona are very reasonably priced and 70-100/night gets you a nice 4-star hotel. The same cannot be expected in Italy. Prices there are usually double anywhere else in Europe. If you need suggestions for hotels in Paris or Barcelona let me know. But start off by checking out priceline-europe.com or venere.com Also note that a lot of the hotels in Europe will charge your room at the time of booking (instead of after checking out). Read the fineprint before you book. Priceline-europe doesn't charge your credit card until at all, you settle the bill with the hotel when checking out.



Thanks for everyone's help previously. It's much appreciated.. :)

So the itinerary is unravelling as such:

Fly from Toronto to Paris (mid Sept)
Paris to Italy
Italy to Barcelona
Barcelona back to Paris, then back to Toronto
(total trip is 10 days)

A few questions I have are:

1. How should I travel within the countries? Should I fly or take the train? Is Ryanair dependable? They seem super cheap but what's the catch?
2. What use are the trains to us?
3. What kind of hotels should I be looking for? Should I book them online?

Any other help would be much appreciated.. Thanks!

[Goldilocks]

RyanAir is fine as long as you are not on a really tight schedule. You get what you pay for.

They tend to get delayed very often. If you are using them to get you some place in order to catch a connection to somewhere else I would not do it. Trains seem much more reliable and quite nice in Europe, plus you see the countryside while travelling.

[jjj3663]

your itinerary looks a bit tight. you might want to cut back and so less places but see more of it.

easy jet and ryan air are fine. althought flights might be cheap and fast, but they tend to have lots of delay. and don't forget to factor in the time and money use for transporting yourself to the airport to fly and leaving the airport to get into the city.

[someguy]

Ryanair has the best record of all european airlines in terms of arriving on time. They have an average turn around time (flight lands to departs) of only 28 minutes.

I'd recommend ryanair.

[nitarora]

your itinerary looks a bit tight. you might want to cut back and so less places but see more of it.




What do you think we should cut back on??

Thanks for the website overboost...

[beemer2005]

How about deciding what to visit in each city, rather than how to get from city to city?

My friend, the artist, loves Paris and spent days visiting only the Louvre and D'Orsaiiles.
And on a side note... he told me how some tourists were looking at paintings by Van Gogh and were saying to each other: "Hmm I don't think this painter is too talented."

[CoolEddie]

10 days is too short for Paris, Barcelona and Italy. You make Italy sound like it's a quick trip. You could probably just do Paris and Barcelona plus maybe one other destination. Since your trip is so short and your destinations are so far away, I would stick with flying. I've never had any problems with any of the cheap airlines. They do tend to use airports that are usually a little further out. But that's no biggy in my opinion. Well worth it!

[Pete_Coach]

Ryan Air has a good record but, you need to know where yo are wanting to go and if you can get a one way ticket from where you are. It does not land at Charles DeGaull airport or most major airports for instance. If you fly from Canada you go into DeGaull but Ryan air flies from another airport quite a distance away.
Also, Italy is a big country and you may want to be a bit more specific than saying Italy (Rome, Venice, Milan, Florence?)
I would not go to Italy (whatever city), that is, if Barcelona is key to your trip. Go to Spain and Portugal instead.
If Italy is your choice, then skip Spain. There is a tremendous amount of things to see and do in each of your choices and 5 days in each place is a good amount of time. Just don't try to see Europe in ten days.

[jayk]

how much did you pay?

Thanks for everyone's help previously. It's much appreciated.. :)

So the itinerary is unravelling as such:

Fly from Toronto to Paris (mid Sept)
Paris to Italy
Italy to Barcelona
Barcelona back to Paris, then back to Toronto
(total trip is 10 days)

A few questions I have are:

1. How should I travel within the countries? Should I fly or take the train? Is Ryanair dependable? They seem super cheap but what's the catch?
2. What use are the trains to us?
3. What kind of hotels should I be looking for? Should I book them online?

Any other help would be much appreciated.. Thanks!

[nitarora]

I haven't booked anything yet.

Although round trip fares from TO to Paris are $700 right now with AC (I hate that airline)...

Hotels are looking quite expensive. If my wife can stay cheap like me, we'll go two star and pay 100 bones a night. If not, we're looking at $150 a night anywhere.

And I'll prob. need to book from Paris to Rome round trip. Shouldn't be more than 200 CDN for the both of us..

Thanks to everyone's advice, I've cut out Barcelona now and we're only going to Paris and Italy...

[Goldilocks]

For Paris hotels try Priceline, we used them this past July and we got a 4* for 112 Canadian incl taxes.

Take note that the Beauvais airport where Ryan Air departs from, depending on traffic is over 1 hr away from downton Paris and it is in the middle of nowhere.

[Ben Jr]

Try Virgin Express for your flights, I've found some decent deals within Europe with them and they fly from major airports. Ryanair generally leaves on time for me anyways, however I think Rome/Paris may be the 2 worst airports they fly into.
Each a 12Euro one way, hour bus ride to the airport from downtown.

[xanatos]

1. How should I travel within the countries? Should I fly or take the train? Is Ryanair dependable? They seem super cheap but what's the catch?
2. What use are the trains to us?
3. What kind of hotels should I be looking for? Should I book them online?


Flying often is cheapest, I don't fully understand why. But yeah in Europe it can be cheaper to fly halfway across Europe than to buy a single train ticket from one end of a country to its other end.

Ryanair/Easyjet do make a fair amount of money off luggage fees. For awhile Ryanair allowed a dismal 10kg checked in. But most people travelling Europe travel pretty light, but you can get hit with charges that way. Oh, be sure to be on time (that goes with all flying though...)

An alternative to hotels is some neat hospitality services like www.couchsurfing.com. People who offer accomodations for free. The obvious issue here is of trust, but the site allows for feedback, plus optional verification (member pays a fee to have address and name verified with their bank records). During my travels I met a guy who stayed in various Italian cities for 6 weeks without paying for a single hostel/hotel.

Otherwise have fun ^_^
-xan-

[Fragle]

Depending on how you're travelling and your budget, you might want to consider night trains ie. from Paris - Barcelona. Buying a first-class ticket on an overnight train makes for a safe, comfortable ride and you can combine the sleep/travel so you don't waste too much time on the travel.

I once did an overnight 1st class from Barcelona to San Sebastian, and it was a wonderful break from the lack of sleep in 2nd class..

I agree with the other posters about cutting italy out of your trip. There is quite a bit to see in Paris, you could also visit other french or spanish towns. I've also flown both Ryanair and Easyjet in Europe, great experience for the price but you won't necessarily fly into the major airport so there are usually extra time/costs involved in actually gettting you into the city.