Dream World b4 the Real World

Like the title says this is going to be my dream trip before I hit the real world. I plan to have a day trip to the Vatican when I am in Rome and also one day trip to Versailles and Luxembourg when I am in Paris. I plan to meet up with friends who are living abroad in Amsterdam and in London so that should cut down living expenses considerably. I budgeted for $75 a day with a $300 budget for excursions and $200 budget for souvenirs. My plane tickets and train passes have been paid for by my parents as a graduation gift so that is not included in the $2800. I figure I can save hostel expenses by taking the night train between Venice and Vienna and also the night train between Rome and Paris. I left Switzerland out of the itinerary because I spent 2 weeks there when I was 19 so I already done it extensively. I think this trip allows me to see the maximum amount of countries and destinations given my limited time constraint. On a side note, anybody know how to pick up some soccer tickets while I am over there as I would really like to see a European match once in my life.

Pretty good itinerary and budget! One thing — I would somehow find a way to get Florence in there. You could lose a day or two from Venice (beautiful but small and expensive city) and Rome to fit it in.

I would have to agree with mim…I’d chop paris to 4 days and Venice to 2. That gives you 3 extra days to add Florence as a base to also visit Siena and Pisa

Ok so I added Florence for 3 days by paring down Paris to 5 days, Rome to 3 days and Venice to 2 days. I hope 2 days is enough for Venice, correct me if I am wrong. I plan to purchase the 10 day in 2 month rail pass. From my calculations I should be on the train 10 times (including side trips) but this doesn’t include the overnight trains. My concern is that the train conductor might charge me for 2 days on my pass since it is pass midnight. Is anybody familiar with this situation. My particular concern is the Vienna-Venice and Rome-Paris (Paris-London doesn’t count as I know I have to buy a seperate ticket for that).

Thanks for all of your input!

You’ll probably want to use your railpass for the overnight trips instead of the couple of day trips. That way you will only be charged the 20-40 euro supplement for night trains (depending on your accommodations) rather than full ticket price (which can be over 100 euros sometimes). And you can just buy a point-to-point ticket for day trips, such as Florence-Pisa (ticket costs something like 6-8 euros). Italian trains are usually really cheap so use your rail pass for trips which aren’t (overnights, long trips in France or Germany, etc).
For the overnight trains, also, for the rail pass, you only use the day of arrival if you depart on a direct overnight train after 7pm. Thus if you leave at 9:30pm and arrive at your destination at 8am the next morning without changing trains (or at least without changing trains before midnight) you would only write down the day you arrived.

You will be able to see Venice in 2 days. It’s relatively small.