You have time for Paris, a couple overnight trips, and London, and a couple day trips.
Out of Paris: Chartes, Reims (champagne) Loire Valley, Normandy beaches.
London: London itself, which could keep you busy for days and days, then there Bath/Stonehenge, Hampton Court, Windsor, Stratford-upon-Avon, etc.
Certainly you could find a soccer match.
You could fly to London (many flight choices) or do Eurostar.

I would say probably spend like 4 days in Paris (take the RER from the airport into the city, this is the cheapest way to get into Paris), go to Versailles for a day (buy tickets at FNAC so you don’t have to wait in line. FNAC stores are everywhere in Paris, just google), and pick another day trip or overnight trip from Paris. Cil already recommended several of these. I would also add Strasbourg, which is a lovely little city in eastern France near the German border. It takes about 2 hrs by train to get there. It’s very German inspired but also parts of it are very French. You can see all the big stuff, like the astronomical clock and the museums, and take a river boat cruise through, in 1 day, so it’s doable as a day trip or overnight trip.

After Paris, I’d say Eurostar to London (2 hrs and you go from central Paris to central London), spend about 4 days there hitting the big stuff, take 1-2 day trips (I really want to see Stonehenge, so that would be top of the list for me, but you might want to see something else.) Cil also recommended some good ones for this too. Depending on when you leave out of Paris, you could either Eurostar back that morning (if your flight is in the afternoon) or come back the night before if your flight is early.

So your schedule could be something like,
Sept 3- Land at CDG. RER into Paris. check into hostel/hotel/b&b.
8/4-10- France. Paris, Versailles, any other outside trips you want to take.
Sept 11- Eurostar from Paris to London.
8/11-19- London, + any outside trips to Stonehenge, Bath, etc. 19(evening) or 20(morning)- back to Paris.
8/20- fly out of Paris.

So basically everyone is saying only the two countries in 18 days? What about other countries are they feesable? Any other itineraries?

You could also maybe try for belgium/the netherlands, OR Scotland/Wales in Britain. If you’d be interested in Amsterdam, it is doable in about two days (I got there one afternoon, spent an entire day there the next day, and left the next morning… could’ve seen a couple more things if I had left in the afternoon instead). I’ve never been to Belgium except transiting through, but you could try Brussels, Bruges, or Antwerp. The Eurostar train also goes to/from Brussels, so you could go to Belgium after France, and take the Eurostar from there to London instead. (it’s about the same length of time I believe). It takes about 2 hours to get to Brussels by train, and 4 to Amsterdam, from Paris. You would probably take the Thalys train which is kind of like the Eurostar (high-speed). If you have a rail pass, this requires extra seat reservation fee. If you are going to do this itinerary, I would recommend getting a Benelux-France Eurail pass; you can hop on pretty much any local trains for free with this and the seat reservation fee for the Thalys is only like 10-15 euro. Or you could take a slower train, but I’m not sure how much slower they are.

If you wanted to do Wales/Scotland while you were in Britain, you would probably spend less time on the Continent (just in France) and then come over to Britain and see some places in England (incl London), travel to Wales for a couple days (Cardiff, Swansea, are the bigger places but you can go to the countryside or wherever too), and then up to Scotland to see Edinburgh, Glasgow, etc.

I think the recommended time period for each country is about 6-7 days, but if it’s a smaller country (Belgium for example) you could probably pull it out for 3-4 days depending on what you went to see.

I agree with Edinburgh and/or Glasgow. And/or Amsterdam.
I also agree that it’s nice to spend 6-7 days per country, but of course there are no hard and fast rules. I am not one of those people who disapproves of the occasional “cramming” when it comes to travel.
If you’ve got the money for transport, that’s great, but remember travel takes up time and too much rushing about wears on a person.

The best vacation ever can never be planned. it just happens. all you can do is hope for the best. no expectations, no disappointments.

Ok what do you think about this itierary? Too much? just right?

sept 4 7am- arrive paris cdg, train to nord station eurostar to london arrive in london around 1pm
sept 9 6pm- depart london to paris via eurostar
sept 14 9pm- depart cdg to venice via air france
sept 16 pm- depart venice to rome via train
sept 19 pm- depart rome to paris
sept 20 am- depart paris to home!

let me know how this looks!

Italy is pretty far away from the other two. However, if you’re determined to hit it, you might cut out venice and just stay in the Rome the whole time (you’ve only got 3 days dedicated to Rome as opposed to 5 each for London and Paris). Also, depending on what time your flight leaves the morning of the 20th, you might be pushing it a little bit getting back to Paris on time for it. Remember, the train from Rome is only going to take you to central Paris. From there, you’re going to have to take the RER or a taxi out to the airport which takes at least half an hour, probably closer to an hour during morning rush. Since you’re flying internationally, also, you’re going to want to be at the airport no later than 2 hours before your flight leaves. So if your train from Rome gets in less than 3 1/2 hours before your flight leaves… well… do you really want to risk missing your flight home?

I should have clarified our return trip to paris from rome on sept 19 will be a flight back so we will get back late saturday night stay the night in paris and head to the airport on the 20th

ah gotcha. that seems fairly doable then. I still think you might need more time in Rome, but other than that, looks good!
Although you could probably take a cheaper flight (ryanair or something) than air france to venice. And you could also consider a budget flight to London, straight from CDG, rather than RER to Paris and then Eurostar to London. It might be cheaper and could possibly be quicker depending the eurostar train times and costs. They don’t have eurostar schedules up for sept (just through may) but a search on the same day of the week (thursday) gives a $129 ticket for a 6:45pm train that is 2h23. In comparison, easyjet flight on sept 3 6:00pm -> London Luton airport is $41, flight time 1h15. trains from Luton to central London leaving every 10-20 min are 12.50 GBP taking approx. 50 min. So probably about the same length of time but much cheaper!

Its doable if you are flying. But like Kayling said, avoid airfrance- its expensive. RyanAir has cheap flights to Venice but the airport is about an hour out of town.

I personally would leave out London for another trip…You arrive in Paris, one of the most beautiful cities in the world and then you’re immeditely off to London the same day? doesn’t make sense. Also why would you fly to Venice? All it seems you’re doing is hitting the big cities. I’d scale down your trip. maybe stick to france, belgium, Holland and maybe Germany and Switzerland. My itnerary would be sometghing like this

Paris: 3 days (with a side trip to Versaille)
Brussels: 1 day
Bruge, Belgium: 1 day
Amsterdam 2 days
Munich 2 days
Venice: 2 days
Then 3 days to make your way back to Paris (maybe stopping in Lake como or varenna italy

My advice is don’t over plan too much. Leave some room for chilling out in you find a place you like and always assume that you’ll come back again to see the rest of europe

This is my opinion about a short trip to Europe: do the whole thing in Spain.

Spain has everything Europe has to offer, and then more. You have all the great architecture, history, massive Gothic cathedrals, great landscapes, old stone villages, great nightlife, great food and wine, good weather, etc…

AND, it’s relatively reasonably priced for Western Europe.

And in addition to all that, there are a bunch of uniquely Spanish things – tapas, flamenco, bull-fighting, Gaudi architecture, etc etc…

Plus Spain is a big enough country that Catalonia for ex is totally different from Andalusia, which again is totally different from Galicia..

That’s my best advice – Paris for a couple days, train south, maybe to another French town on the way to Barcelona, San Sebastian, Madrid, Toledo, Grenada, etc..

There’s more in Spain that is absolutely worthwhile to see than you could do in six weeks.. I backpacked there for six weeks and didn’t see TONS. Been back a few times, and there’s still tons I want to see(especially Galicia..)

Key for Spain is AVOID THE COASTAL TOURIST AREAS…

If Spain doesn’t appeal to you, I would head in the directions of Scotland and Ireland.. I’m not a fan of London personally, but that’s just me.. Big dirty insanely expensive city full of Asians was my impression… I don’t mean anything against Asians by that either, but if I wanted to eat in a Bangladeshi restaurant, I’d go to Bangladesh…

Ireland is freakin’ great – especially the west..

For a two week trip starting in Paris that includes Venice, I think Spain is out of the question. Better to do spain and portugal (maybe a sidwe trip to Morroco) on a separate vacation.

Save Venice for when you’re rich with kids..

But then again, maybe see it while it’s still above water.. The major Italian cities are very much Disneyfied rip-off tourist-traps.. – Venice is the worst.. BEAUTIFUL city though – absolutely love it.. But my lesson for the major Italian cities is this – NEVER go there in the summer. I went to Venice first in January, and it was OK…

But unfortunately Venice is probably the most shining example of an absolute cultural jewel having been nearly ruined with tourism. Same applies to places like Prague, (parts of..) Amsterdam.., etc…

Venice is expensive…I usually stay outside the City limits (i.e Padua) and take the train in. I think the mistake that many first time travellers make is spending too much time in the big cities. My fondest memories of europe usually involve small towns…of accidentally coming across a local festival and being invited to join in, of camping in a farmers field and being invited to share in for a family dinner, etc. You won’t generally find the same hospitality and friendliness in a big city