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Europe is a small continent, however, it is packed with 1001 things to do and see and so planning a journey through it can be tough because you’re definitely not going to want to miss anything. It’s definitely best to know what you’re doing beforehand and plan each destination and how long you want to spend there, otherwise, you won’t see anything. I recently travelled to Europe and so I will share my journey and you can pick up some tips on what you might like to see.
West Europe
I went inter-railing, which was brilliant as you buy your ticket and then you can just ride the trains. We didn’t plan our route very well and so spent a lot of time travelling, which was okay as the scenery is magnificent. We started off in London and travelled from West to East Europe and then back around to west in a circle. Luckily, you can go on one of these organised touring holidays that plan it all for you and so you only have to worry about being at the right place at the right time.
So we started in London, which seemed as good a place as any before heading over to Paris. We took out the two biggies first, as it seemed the logical step, what with them being so close together and it being easy to get between them with the Eurotunnel. After Paris, we headed all the way down to Barcelona which was a mistake as our next stop was Florence so we had to come all the way back up through France and down into Italy. It would have been easier to start in Barcelona. Barcelona was amazing, though, so I’m really glad we went there, although we did spend ages looking for Las Ramblas only to realise after an hour or so that we had been on it the entire time.
On Our Way East
We indulged ourselves and saw two cities in Italy. We thought we had better see Rome, as why not, but the three of us really wanted to see Florence most (I mainly wanted to see it because I love Assassin’s Creed, but we also had an art historian student in our midst). Florence was brilliant – better than Rome – with its galleries and natural beauty.
At this point, we abandoned our train tickets temporarily and got a ferry to Croatia. Now, I’d never thought of going there until a Top Gear episode showed me that it’s one of the most beautiful places in Europe. We stopped off at a coastal town called Zadar and realised that it was indeed incredible. I wholly recommend going there. Unfortunately, as we didn’t know what to expect we only stopped there for a little bit before getting the train onto Athens which, like Rome, was a bit of a let-down… and too hot!
Northward!
We intended to stop off at Istanbul, but we were warned by the British tourism board not to, because of the ongoing crisis and so we started the long, long, long train ride (and ferry) up to Stockholm which made a nice change from Athens. We also got to stay there longer because of missing Turkey. I got a different kind of Stockholm syndrome, where I didn’t want to leave.
After Stockholm, we hopped over to Berlin, which was very German, as you might expect but had a quiet majesty about it and the history was fascinating. After Berlin, came Amsterdam which was a great change of pace from Germany, considering how carefree (if you know what I mean) Amsterdam is.
Back to Blighty
We ended our European tour with a spell in Edinburgh, just in time for the festival and it was a brilliant end to an already brilliant month of travelling.
There we go; I hope that gave you some ideas for your own European odyssey.