Hey Katie. Well me and two of my friends are also going on a little Eurotrip, although for about two months, and I have done extensive planning and researching already.

Here are a few bits of info I can give you quickly.

1. The number one tool you have is the Eurotrip forums, they have literally endless threads and information concering virtually every part and aspect of Europe possible. I would suggest just scrolling though the pages or trying a search option for specific questions.

2. It would be helpful if you gave us your budget, as money more than anything is the ultimate deciding factor in anything you will be doing. First off, is there a reason you are only going for two weeks? Two weeks is very little time, and if you are going to be paying that much for a plane ticket, it is more cost efficient to spend more time in Europe.

3. If you must do only two weeks, I wouldn’t reccomend trying to do too many cities.

In Spain, Barcelona seems to be far and away the hottest spot in Spain, renown for its insane partying and also history and architecture. Madrid also merits a few days, as it is the capitol of Spain and you could practice your Spanish there (Barcelona mainly speaks Catalan, a dialect, but you would be better off with English there). Then you could take day trips to certain locations that fit you interests, but for the most part Barcelona and Madrid should take up the bulk of you week.

In France your choice of destinations will depend greatly on your interests. Paris is obviously a must, and commands atleast 3 or 4 days. Then with the remaining days you could go to the South of France to Nice, a very popular destination on the Mediterranean.
You could take day trips to Versailles or Monte Carlo is you want.

You will be staying in Hostels that run at about 30 USD per night, and you might want to consider reserving online as July will be packed with tourists. You can from place to place by buying a train pass or p2p tickets.

Hope this helps, but I really do suggest you read everything you can from Eurotrip.com as it is an amazing resource and you should be able to answer most of your own questions through it.

Cheers,
Kenneth

Thanks for the reply!
 
We may be going longer…but unfortunately we’re kind of limited. I’ll be playing volleyball in college and depending on where I go I’ll be starting pre-season in August. I wish we could stay longer though! 2 months sounds awesome!
 
Budget-
wise…hm, well we certainly want to keep it low, but we’re in the early stages of planning! haha thanks again for the rec’s…any more are certainly appreciated. Best of luck with all of your plans!
 
-Katie

Akkk…see below  []

haha well…shouldn’t be much of a problem. my spanish is decent, and I know someone who’s from barcelona, so perhaps he’ll give me a few language tips!
 
Aside from the obvious cities (paris, barcelona, madrid) where else would you all suggest we visit? I would like to see some authentic stuff as well. Thanksss!
 

I absolutely love Barcelona and definitely recommend Paris.  I think Madrid is cool, but some people can take it or leave it.  Other places I’d consider are Granada, Sevilla, San Sebastian, Valencia, Santander, and Girona (a good day trip from Barcelona).  Just try not to choose too many and pack a two week trip with 10 cities []

A friend of mine who studied in Barcelona said most people, at least the natives all speak Catalan, and that English will be as common or more common than Castillian Spanish. So overall the advice she gave me is you probably will be speaking more English than Spanish in Barcelona, unlike Madrid or elsewhere, where you can put you Spanish to good use.

Your friend wasn’t totally wrong in saying that most people do speak Catalan, but the vast majority also speak Castilian.  And the idea that they use English more than Castilian is just false.   Here are some stats from a study on the use of Catalan and Castilian in Catalunya:

Catalan was their first language: 40%
Consider Catalan to be their language: 49%
Use Catalan habitually : 50.1%

Castilian was their first language: 53%
Consider Castilian to be their language: 44%
Use Castilian habitually: 44.1%

Use both habitually: 4.7%

As Augustin points out, Barcelona’s population is about evenly divided between native Catalan-speakers, and native Castsillian-speakers.  According to various studies, very many people from both communities use both languages on a daily basis; a few even communicate with their own families in both langauges.  Almost everyone in the Catalonia speaks fluent Castillian; when Catalan-language TV channels broadcast, say, King Juan Carlos’ annual Christmas message (which he announces in Castillian), it is not dubbed nor subtitled into Catalan.  That’s because it’s assumed that Catalan-speaking viewers&nbsperfectly understand Castillian.  In fact, Catalan fluency in Barcelona is lower than Castillian fluency; almost Barcelonans understand Catalan to some extent (around 95%), but fluency is for a smaller majority (ranging, I’d say from 55% to 75% depending on how you define “fluency”).  Many Barcelonans primarily address strangers in Castillian; many others address strangers&nbsprimarily in Catalan, but if you don’t speak Catalan, they will automatically swtitch to Castillian.

English is not as widely spoken as Castillian; that’s false (just as Augustin pointed out).  Signs everywhere in the city are bilingual (Catalan and Castillian). 

As for getting around, taking the train is the obvious answer, but you might also consider a flight, 2 summers ago I took a plane from Paris to Madrid for less than 100 US, and then headed north by train to Barcelona and then the south of France before taking the train back to Paris to fly home. Im assuming you will be flying in and out of the same European city, if you dont have that planned out yet, Paris will probably be cheapest, but Madrid is worth looking into as well. Then by flying the first leg I was able to save time and money and then just had a straight shoot heading north as I stopped various place along the way.

hm good to know…does anyone know when the best time to book flights is? should i be doing that soon?

I would say the sooner the better for your ticket from the US to Europe, if you decide to fly within Europe its probably ok to wait, in my experience cheap tickets are easy to come by… but still doing it sooner couldnt hurt.

One other point that I wish I knew before I went. If youre interested in seeing a bull fight, its much more a part of the culture in Madrid than Barcelona, so I would deffinatly do it there, and its only 1 day a week, I believe its Sunday, but double check that.