We'll be celebrating our 30th next April (2013) and I need to start planning for the trip. Can't believe we never went before (we did plan this for our 20th but scratched this for family reasons). Date is 4/28, so we're looking between mid April to mid May. 10-14 days. Want to visit London, Paris, Vienna and Rome but don't want to be "always moving" either. Suggestions appreciated in advance.
Best Regards,
Danny
Congrats!!!
Glad you finally decided to go!!!
The weather will still be a little cold but manageable in April, May or June will be best to avoid the summer heat!
Day one/two (You'll lose two days traveling): Fly to London and settle in. Get some good night sleep and make sure you're recovered from the jet lag. It is very important you do that. If you fly in early enough, find a nice place for dinner and there are plenty around.
Day three: Do the usual sightseeing spots such as Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, the Big Ben/Parliament, the London Eye Those can be done easily in one day. You can reach all of them through the Tube/sub. Most of the souvenir shopping can be done in that area.
Day four: Visit the Winsor Castle. See the famous Cricket House. Return to your hotel and relax for the night.
Day five: British Museum of Art. You get to see the artifacts raided by the British Military through the centuries of colonization. Lots of cool Middle Easter and African stuff! Conclude the night by book a good Broadway show for the evening. Your hotel will have show information and tickets can be purchase at the hotel lobby (usually). The three usual suspects are of course Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserable, or Wicked. If you have seen Phantom of the Opera and consider yourself a fan, try its sequel, Phantom, Love Never Dies. While the reviews were OK, but it is actually very good and worth the money, plus they have no plans for International release. You have to see at least one musical when visiting London since it is the birth place of all the musicals.
Day six: Check out of the hotel and do a one way rental car if you feel confident enough to drive on the "right' side of the road. Hit Oxnard or Cambridge, than drive to Yorkshire, the original city of York and spend the night there. While on your way to Yorkshire after visiting Cambridge/Oxnard, you detour to the old Roman City of Bath and Stonehenge. When you reach Yorkshire, a visit to the cathedral is a must since it is in the middle of town and it rivals the Notre dame of Paris. Yorkshire, Oxnard, Cambridge are all college towns, so classes will be in session while streets are full of tourists. The college set is not like what we have here. You’ll get a kick out of the way they do things over there.
Day seven/eight: Return to London, OR continue north for few more hours. See the Edinburgh Castle, and St. Andrew's golf course. Edinburgh is a very small city and you can walk through the entire downtown in matter of minutes while a huge castle stares you down from a giant mountain of a volcanic rock. One more hour will take you to the Loch Ness Monster hunt, but not worth the drive unless you want to put another check mark on the map.
Day nine: Turn in the rental car and fly to Paris from Glasgow. Get comfortable and have dinner. Relax a little by walking around Paris pretend to be cool like the rest of the Parisians.
Day ten/eleven: See the Opera House, Eiffel Tower (Go up there twice, under sun light and night lights), Arc de Triumph, etc. AND go to the Louvre. You’ll need a full day in there if you enjoy arts. It is a life changing experience even you don’t care about that type of stuff. It will over whelm you!
Day twelve: Go to Disneyland. It is cool!!! Watch Country Bear Jamboree in French, you’ll laugh your ass off!
Day thirteen to fifteen: Fly to Nice France. That is where you relax for couple of days and just win and dine. Find a bus tour and go to Monaco for an afternoon, walk the streets of F1 race and visit the car memorabilia shops. Play couple rounds of poker and black jack in the famous casino!
Day sixteen: Come to term with the fact that you’re in love with Southern France and contemplating if you should ask your kids to sell everything you have in Vegas and wire the money to you, so you can buy a place in the Riviera while eating escargot and croissant for the rest of your life. OR fly home.
Day sixteen: Back home facing reality. Listen to me complaint about Obama for the next four years because he gets re-elected.
Day seventeen: Plotting a new trip a year later, with the starting point of Spain and work your way up to Holland.
