Plan out my trip to Europe next spring

I plan to travel to following places in summer, can someone help to plan my trip
Munich, Vieena, Venice, Rome, Pisa, Zurich, Paris, London

I am booked into nearly everything. I have already spent a scary amount of money, with even more frightening amounts coming due at later dates. The only night that is not booked is the train from Paris to Venice, and that has to wait until March. I’m not terribly worried about it.

So here, finally, is the plan:

Fly overnight to Amsterdam March 29-30
Amsterdam March 30-April 1
Paris April 1-May 2
Cycling Tour in Provence May 2-7
Extra day in Avignon/day trip to Nîmes May 8
Overnight train to Venice May 8-9
Venice May 9-12
Overnight ferry to Patras May 12-13
Athens May 13-16
Delphi May 16-19
London May 19-24
Oxford May 24-26
Bath May 26-29
Salisbury May 29-June 1
Queen Mary II June 1-7
New York June 7-11
Train back to Toronto June 11

Now all I have to do is figure out what I want to do when I’m actually there and gather my equipage together.

Does a little dance of happiness and anticipation

I totally forgot about booking my New York stay and the train home, so I went ahead and did that. I’m a bit miffed that I had to book through Amtrak instead of VIA, because I get a 5% discount from VIA. I looked at the hotel I stayed in the last two times I was in New York, but they weren’t going to give me any kind of a deal, so I found a different hotel in midtown.

I also checked to see if there was a free hotel in Delphi, and there was. And for much less than the hotel in Arachova! Which is fortunate since the ferry is going to be more expensive (they only have outside rooms available. Woe is me.) and now I have to pay for the extra night in Athens. I’m very happy that I’ll be in Delphi, after all. I wasn’t really looking forward to figuring out the buses to Arachova and hiking over to Delphi.

I also decided to check and see if I could book the Venice hotel and I could. Well under budget. So that’s done.

I also sent an email to get the application to see Stonehenge before opening hours, so that’s in the works.

Wahoo!

• Book trains: train to Paris, to/from Avignon, overnight train to Venice. I can’t do any of that more than 60 days in advance, so it looks like that will have to wait until March. Unless I get the cycling people to do the trains for me…
• Finish booking ferry from Venice to Patras. (In progress)
• Book Athens. (within the next few days/week)
• Make dress for formal night on Queen Mary 2 (by the end of the week)
• Acquire stuff I need for the trip: power adapters, travel steamer, travel curling iron, travel hat, luggage stuff
• Plan my travel wardrobe so I don’t have to pack my all of my clothes.
• Call all the places I’ve reserved with to give them my new credit card number, since somebody stole the previous one. (in progress: by the end of January)
• Figure out what cell phone plan to go with (by the end of January)
• Apply to see Stonehenge before regular opening (In progress)
• Start locking down all the stuff I want to do while I’m there!

I’ve booked my flight from Athens to London. I was going to book with EasyJet, but fortunately a search to find out what the checked baggage fees are led me to a warning that it might not be worth it financially, so I booked with British Airways. The cost is more, but it’s much lower than what I budgeted and I get one free checked bag and two carry-ons.

I’m in the process of booking the ferry from Venice to Patras. The new schedule is out and I’ve had to make some changes in my plans. I’m so glad I haven’t booked the Grande Bretagne yet, because the ferry gets in to Patras Thursday night, not Friday morning. Happily, by staying longer in Athens, the rate is a little bit less.

Once I have the ferry booked, I’ll lock in the Grande Bretagne. It’ll mean paying for the entire stay up-front, with no cancellation possible, but I’m hoping that once I get there I’ll be upgraded to an even swankier room. :) Once I’ve done that, I’ll have some place to stay for every night except for when I go from Paris to Venice by train, and for when I’m in Venice.

I’ve even sent an email to one of my relatives in England and heard back, so hopefully I will get a chance to meet at least somebody I’m related to.

• Book trains: train to Paris, to/from Avignon, overnight train to Venice. I can’t do any of that more than 60 days in advance, so it looks like that will have to wait until March.
• Book Venice. (January)
• Book ferry from Venice to Patras. (In progress)
• Book Athens. (within the next few days/week)
• Make dress for formal night on Queen Mary 2 (by the end of the week)
• Acquire stuff I need for the trip: power adapters, travel steamer, travel curling iron, travel hat, luggage stuff
• Plan my wardrobe so I don’t have to pack all of my clothes.
• Call all the places I’ve reserved with to give them my new credit card number, since somebody stole the previous one. (by the end of January)
• Figure out what cell phone plan to go with (by the end of January)
• Apply to see Stonehenge before regular opening (I have to check if they’re accepting applications for next May yet)

• Book hotel in New York
• Book train home from New York

So I waited a month to hear from apartofparis.com about the particular apartment I wanted to book. I sent another email early this week, having checked to see that the apartment was still available. It was. Yesterday, I was getting fed up and was about to call them but checked the availability beforehand and guess what! It was not available. So they don’t get my business.

They had other apartments (one with a terrace that I really liked the looks of) but their customer service stinks, so I looked around at some other sites. I found a nice apartment on parisaddress.com; they got back to me in hours, and now I have a place to stay in Paris next April. It’s a bigger (and much more expensive) apartment with actual storage, and it’s not far from the first one, and while I am somewhat disappointed in not getting to live on Rue Quincompoix, I will bear it as best I can.

Aged P talked me out of the self-guided cycling tour and into a guided tour with actual people, which will be a lot more fun (and also a lot more expensive—darn that single supplement!). The problem with the guided tours is that I’m a little constrained by the dates I’ve booked into other places, but I actually found one that is leaving exactly when I want to go, so that’s booked. It looks like a lot of fun.

I finally got around to calling to book my passage on the Queen Mary II. Since the apartment and cycling trip are going to cost more than I planned, I decided to cut back a bit on this, so no glass balconies for me. The “sheltered balcony” looks more like a solarium, but at least I’m still getting sun!

I also booked my flight into Amsterdam, so now I have a way to get there and a way to get back.

• Book trains: train to Paris, to/from Avignon, overnight train to Venice. I can’t do any of that more than 60 days in advance, so it looks like that will have to wait until March.
• Book Venice. (January)
• Book ferry from Venice to Patras. Next year’s schedule isn’t out yet, so I have to wait. I’ll keep checking back. I hope they still have the ferry that leaves exactly when I want it to. :)
• Book Athens. (January or February)
• Book the plane from Athens to London—at the rate I’m going, I’ll probably do this before the end of September.
• Figure out what to do with my extra luggage whilst I’m cycling through Provence
• Start contacting family to let them know I’m descending upon their country and would love to take them out for tea.

I just bought a bunch of guidebooks (to Paris, Amsterdam, London, and Venice). Two of the guidebooks are pop-up maps, which I love because they are tiny and easy to use – no awkward folding issues and they fit almost invisibly into a back pocket. At least, they used to. The current ones have a mini-guide inside (including useful phrases, which I think is really funny in the London version) – handy, but it has the effect of making the guide a bit unwieldy.

I nearly bought the Paris version of the pop-up map, but didn’t because a) some browser clearly didn’t get the pop-up concept and ruined one of the maps by folding it oddly and b) it was enormous, what with the built-in compass on the front and the pen and the 50-odd pages of guide! I’ll see if I can get a hold of just the map, or a smaller version like the London and Venice maps.

Anyway, I’ve been whiling away the hours reveling in all this travel porn. I don’t know why I’m so surprised by the sheer number of museums Paris has.

During the planning stage, I found out that Delphi was all booked up for next May already, so I had to take the leap from planning to booking and got a place in Arachova (which might turn out to be better). Turns out that a bunch of places I thought would be fairly safe to leave until October needed to be booked now, so I went ahead and booked almost everything.

• I’m waiting to hear back about the Paris apartment, although I’m not concerned with availability, just the price for the extra two days (and now that I’m locked into Amsterdam, that’s not really as flexible anymore)
• I’m waiting to hear about the extra days in Provence, which will affect how long I stay in Venice. I think I might not take an extra day at the end of the cycling tour after all and move Venice up a day, but I’ll have to look at a) the prices and b) how much extra time I want to spend in Avignon
• The Venice people said “call us in January,” so I will, and a good thing too because of the situation with the ferry to Patras.
• I didn’t read the ferry schedule to Patras very carefully—it’s actually a day and a half journey, not just overnight. I was a little concerned about that at first (it cuts into my time in Venice!) but I think it will turn out well. I mean, a day sailing along the Italian coast? How lovely and relaxing! And it’s like two nights at a hotel. Fortunately, there’s a ferry schedule that fits in with my travel plans, but I’ll have to wait until next year’s schedule goes up to book, so that will wait until January.
• I nearly booked the Grande Bretagne in Athens, but didn’t because the “cheap” rates need to be paid immediately and can’t be exchanged, and I want to continue earning what little interest I can on my savings. I also remember last March when I was doing preliminary “research” that they had a two-night deal, so I’ll wait and see if I can get something like that.
• I tried booking my berth on the QMII, but the registration part of the website doesn’t work. I think it will be better to call and talk to someone, because I think they’ll try to book me a flight from Toronto and because if they send the travel documents to Toronto 2 weeks before we sail, I’ll have a hard time getting on board! So that will be done later this week.
• Overnight train to Venice and other trains have to be booked; that can wait until later—probably January
• Flights can also wait; although I saw a really great deal on a flight from Athens to London ($54!), I decided to wait a little bit longer. Now I think of it, though, I’m kind of locked into Amsterdam, Delphi, and London, which are the only places I’m flying to or from, so I might as well book them now… I’ll see…
• Buy travel guides to Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, London, etc…

I spent a whole night, when I should have been sleeping (in readiness for my 50 km ride the next morning), planning out where and when I will be, determining exactly how much of a hole I will put in my savings (as it turns out, one the size of Tunbridge Wells).

I was planning to have the whole thing booked by the end of October, but at this rate I’ll be mostly done by the end of next week.

The dates for the various cities are somewhat governed by two things: I want to take the Queen Mary II back and it leaves June 1, and I want to spend April in Paris, for no really good reason other than it seems like a great idea. Obviously, the Paris dates are very flexible.

Here’s the plan:
Fly overnight to Amsterdam March 29-30
Amsterdam March 30-April 1
Paris April 1-May 2
Edit: Cycling Tour in Provence, with some extra days added on May 2-8
Edit: Overnight train to Venice May 8-9
Edit: Venice May 9-12
Edit, again: Overnight ferry to Patras May 12-13
Edit: Athens May 13-16
Edit: Delphi May 16-19
London May 19-24
Oxford May 24-26
Bath May 26-29
Salisbury May 29-June 1
Queen Mary II June 1-7
Edit:New York June 7-11
Train back to Toronto June 11

I had originally been thinking of Rome instead of Venice, but it’s easier to get to Athens from Venice (I don’t count flying as easy, ever). I had also hoped to spend some time in Scotland, but I would rather spend time absorbing places than travelling to them, so Rome and Scotland (and Vienna and Shrewsbury and Mykonos and Delos, etc.) will have to wait for other trips.