ClumsyMonkey.net

Check out the cemetery, at least! It's seriously so pretty.

Bah!

Did ANYONE go to my links other than Josh? I spent hours making that post.

You did not

I totally did.

I've been to London and Paris a couple of times. Both very nice cities. Lots to do and see. Ten days seems a little short to me, it's enough to visit those two cities, but if you're gonna make the trip all the way to Europe, you might as well take some time to see what else there is, Holland for instance

i went to the links.
and i showed my friend who's sitting beside me.
soooo.

Yay Dom!!!

Here are my thoughts on places in Europe that I've been to:

London - you have to come here. End of story! If you're staying a few days you should look into taking a day trip or 2 to places like Oxford (which I'm kind of biased about but it's gorgeous) or Bath.

From London you can get the Eurostar to Paris or Brussels which is quick and fun. I think if you're young (which you are!) and book ahead it's not too expensive, but I'm not 100% sure. You can also fly - which I tend to do because there's an airport 20 minutes away from my house that has really cheap flights. (and by really cheap I mean sometimes they're £1 plus tax). For cheap flights to/from/within the UK try www.easyjet.com and www.ryanair.com - the airports aren't as close to the middle of London and sometimes the airports the other end aren't exactly in the places you're going to (especially with ryanair) - but the flights are really cheap and I know in Brussels they laid on a coach to take us from the airport to the city centre. There are lots of other cheap airlines around. I used to have a list, I'll see if I can find it.

Paris - I <3 and you should definitely go there. Lots to see - museums, old cathedrals, general sightseeing and shopping.

Brussels - has a lovely old square, but other than that I didn't like it that much (apart from the parts that involved OLP) - lots of dodgy foreign men trying to talk to you if you're female - but you shouldn't have that problem. Lots of fish restaurants!

Amsterdam - great. Again easyjet will have really cheap flights from London. It's good just to wander around, lots of cobbled streets and big squares with cafes. Also the famous red light district! And more serious things like the Van Gogh museum, and Anne Frank's house.

Berlin - I haven't been for ages, but I loved it. I think things will have changed a lot since it was only a couple of years after the re-unification when I went.

Zurich - is really nice, up in the mountains. I don't think we went into the city that much, as we were staying in a youth hostel further down Lake Zurich (I think)

If you want to stay in youth hostels there's a pretty big network across Europe and you should be able to book online. Depending on how much you want to spend, it's probably worth looking at www.expedia.co.uk or www.opodo.co.uk or lastminute.com as they often have cheap deals.

As for travelling between places - flights can be very cheap as I've said before. The train network's also a lot more extensive than in north america and you can get a pass for all of europe or sections of it (at least I know you used to be able to - it's been a while since I looked!).

STA travel whose website that you found are the main student orientated travel agency over here so should be useful..

I think you need to spend at least 2 weeks over here.

Thanks Soozy I was awaiting your post. Me and my gf are debating whether we want to see just London and Paris and spend 4 or 5 days in each, or if we would rather do a lot of places for a shorter time... right now I found a thing through STA where you design your own tour and they put you up in budget hotels (she doesn't want to stay in hostels). So this is what I want to do...

London 4 night (1 day in Bath I believe is included...)
Edinburgh 3 nights
Dublin 3 night
(they have a special deal that includes rail and hotels so thats why these three cities in the isles)
Paris 3 nights
Nice 2 nights
Florence 2 nights
Rome 3 nights

Then depending on how much money we had left and if we could get a cheap flight we would go back to one of the cities we really wanted to see more of or maybe pick a new place to spend a couple days before coming back home.

Her worry is that she won't be able to see everything she wants to see in London and Paris, so she wants to just be in Paris and London... We're still in discussion about this. Right now I'm hoping the total including spending money (even though neither of us are going to shop a whole lot... maybe 75 euros/day average with more in London, Rome and Paris and less in Nice, Edinburgh and Dublin) might be around 3500 depending on the type of deal we could get for a flight overseas.

The main problem I've found is that the rail system in Britain is seperate from the mainland in that you have to buy seperate passes for each which really sucks, but it's cool to hear that there are cheap airlines that might be useful.

Just so you know, I was in London for two full weeks, and still didn't see everything I wanted to. And they were PACKED days.

Not that that helps you at all. But yeah.

It depends a lot what you want to do. If you just want to see the touristy stuff, like Big Ben, Eiffel tower, etc you could squeeze that into one day even. But if you really want to visit places, like museums, theaters, etc, even 5 days is probably not going to be enough.

ya I figured that. I mean there's also SOMETHING to see no matter where you are. She wants to take her time and not feel rushed whereas I would rather move on and see other places. Thanks though everyone for the help!