European tour - an outsider's POV needed

[BuzzieLittleBee]

My friend is planning to visit from Australia at Christmas/New year. She has family here, and a couple of friends, and will spend mid-Dec to 2nd Jan with them (covering London, Devon, Midlands and Cotswolds). She then wants her kids (10 and 16) to have the chance to 'see Europe', and has found a coach tour with the following itinerary...

London to Paris, 2 nights in Paris
Paris to Lucerne (7hrs), 1 night in Lucerne
Lucerne to Venice (5hrs), 1 night in Venice
Venice to FLorence (3.5hrs), 1 night in Florence
Florence to Rome (3hrs), 2 nights in Rome

I've added the travel times as estimated by google maps, but in reality they'll be longer, as it's currently 11pm, and they'll travel by day and presumably stop en route!

To me, this seems utterly crazy. I totally get why she wants her kids to have a small taste of Europe, but I just can't imagine there being much enjoyment in this trip (esp during the first week of January when the weather isn't great, and it gets dark early).

I don't want to piss on her chips (as it were), but I'd like to put forward a more sensible/enjoyable alternative.

It's also a coach tour, and - drawing on stereotypes - I imagine it will be full of Americans of a certain age (much older than her/her family) and probably some Chinese/Japanese tourists - that's who I generally think of as being the target audience for these kinds of trips.

So - if you had 8 days (7 nights), and were a family of 4 - what would make sense to you? I don't imagine money will be an issue, as this tour is listed on the company's website at £2,300 pp!

The buildings on the canals in Venice are what make it special. The grand palaces, the churches and the bridges. It’s not remotely the same in Amsterdam. Both cities have their delights but Venice is a wonder of the world in my view. Could be flooded in January though!

Vienna is a good call for that time of year.

That's the other major factor, not every city will be at it's best in Jan/Feb.

I’d really encourage her to consider something less tiring than all those hours on a bus for almost no sightseeing time.

You say they have 8 days, this would be my suggestion:

Day 1 - morning train from London to Paris
Day 2 - spend day in Paris, evening flight to Berlin (book airport hotel so no wasted time that night or on the morning of departure, getting into the city centre takes 30 minutes which is more than doable on the sightseeing days).
Day 3 - Berlin
Day 4 - Berlin
Day 5 - early flight to Rome
Day 6 - Rome
Day 7 - early flight to Málaga (or somewhere easily accessible with frequent flights)
Day 8 - Málaga and fly back that night or next morning - do they return to London base or straight back home? If the latter, I’d look for a well-connected city for this last stop - Madrid, Barcelona, Geneva if they want the Swiss mountain experience?

If they’d rather do 3 cities instead of 4 that would make for a more relaxed itinerary. They can take advantage of evening flights where you don’t have to be at the airport before 6pm, so have the whole day to visit the city. Then morning flights which get you into the next city by 10am - and that’s only with a 6 or 7am alarm, if you plan it well!

That’s still pretty full on though. Why not 2 and relax a bit?

What is the point of Malaga for, essentially, a day? All that travel for that? They could get a train from Rome to Florence or Pisa. Some of the distances and planning ideas are wild.

As said on the thread, it depends if they want to tick off “Europe destinations” or not. For some, a 4 hour train is the same as a 1.5 hour flight plus the extra couple hours at the airport. It’s still the same amount of time spent travelling (if planned wisely).

I’m Australian and I agree with you. Never in a million years would I take my teenagers on a whistle stop coach tour in winter.

I’ve taken my kids to Europe a few times and I think trains are preferable to flights. But if they’re set on Italy then I’d take Eurostar to Paris, fly to Rome or Venice then trains within Italy. Vienna is a good suggestion too.

Australians do holiday differently because we live a different lifestyle. I can lie on a sun lounge next to a pool in my own backyard. So a busy city stops holiday is something different and fun. I do usually plan to finish with a relaxing few days in Singapore or similar on the way home but sounds like they’re on a tight schedule.

This has all been really useful - thank you!

I think I'm going to suggest she 'does' Paris as a daytrip from London (she's got a while there, so she has time). There's definitely some excitement about getting on a train in the morning and spending the day in another country. They can 'tick off' the ET, Arc de T and a couple of other iconic bits in a day. Then they can focus the tour of europe on places further south.