help please.

my husband and i have 3 weeks in Europe In september

we will be flying in from Edinburgh.

I know what we would like to see but am unsure how to coordinate it.

I would like to visit Brugge ,hire a car perhaps for northern france, husband would like to visit Lille and i would love to see Mont St Michel, would like to do a rhine cruse, visit Munich and also visit Lucerne in Switzerland. if we have time may even take a flight from Zurich to Barcelona for 3 nights and then head back to london for our flight home. On our last trip we heeded the 3 night rule and that worked very well

Happy to take trains or fly when necessary, and I am thinking at this stage the only time we probably need a car is for the France part.. but also Lille may be accesible in a train trip from Brugge.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

We are from Australia so I am unsure of time required to travel distances... it doesnt look far but I am sure distances can be decieving as far as %26#39;real%26quot; time that is required.

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Can you be a little clearer please. Is Edinburgh your start point? Or, where are you flying to from Edinburgh. Knowing exactly where, in %26#39;Europe%26#39; you are planning to start your trip, will certainly help with trying to sort out your itinerary!!

You are certainly planning to travel %26#39;far and wide%26#39;. Don%26#39;t be surprised if you can%26#39;t pack it all in!!

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thanks for your quick reply.

we are starting off with 3 weeks in the United Kingdom and our last point of call is Edinburgh in Scotland.

From Edinburgh I know I should be able to get a cheap flight across to Europe or may even take a ferry, or if I need to catch a train into London and then The Eurostar across..

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

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You need some guide books - you%26#39;ll have trouble settling on your itinerary without knowing what is located where and how long the trip will be.

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OK, now you need to decide where you are going to fly TO from Edinburgh, ie which will be your first stop that cheap flight will take you to.

I don%26#39;t see much point in you taking a train from Edinburgh down to London and then Eurostar, that seems like time wasted IMO.

Taking a Ferry to Europe is only worthwhile if you have your own car. I don%26#39;t think you can take a UK hire car to Europe (but I could be wrong, others in this forum may know better). - SO then you have the hassle of getting rid of your UK car, getting to the Ferry, and hiring another car on the other side. IMO that is a lot of unnecessary hassle!

Unless you decide to change your UK itinerary so that you finish up at London, instead of Edinburgh, so that you can take the Eurostar to Lille, then the option of flying from Edinburgh seems like the most sensible to ME.

Once you have determined your travel option from UK to some nebulous place on the Continent, then you can start to think about where else you will go, and how you will get there.

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thank you for your replies... i have been doing a lot of researching and this is how i think it might go. I can fly to paris from edinburgh and arrive in the afternoon. we have been to paris once before for 3 nights so dont need to do any museums this time I am thinking 2 nights and what we will prob do is just soak in the atmosphere on the first afternoon. prob do Moulin Rouge early sitting as we didnt last time, have dinner somewhere and then just enjoy being around the eifell tower area.. On the second day take the train to Versailles and return to paris accomadation, On the third day maybe train to Chartres and book a night in this area and then hire a car from there and drive to Mont st michel. Explore Mont st michel the next day and Normandy area.. not sure how long to allow for this but eventually drive to Lille and drop off car. When finished in Lille train to Brugge for 3 nights, then train to Munich for 3 night and then train to Lucerne for 3 nights. From Zurich we basically could go to Spain for 3 nights and then back to London.

unsure how to do rhine river cruise and from where??? also how long realistically we need to do the driving part of our trip in France .. does this seem reasonable??

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Er.....

Well, in 3 weeks you have 21 days and 20 nights to fill, so already with staying in 5 different places for 3 nights you have filled 15 of them, leaving 5, with 2 in Paris, 1 Chartres, not to mention Normandy you have 2 left - or NONE left, so where are you going to fit that Rhine Cruise in??

I am impressed by the fact that you%26#39;ve obviously spent a lot of time thinking about all of this, but perhaps you are still being too ambitious. I can also see you ending up doing a lot of time travelling about, and not much time relaxing or actually enjoying anything.

I KNOW that when you are a long way from home it%26#39;s tempting to pack a lot in, in case you never get back, but I think you need to review your plans again, perhaps loose 2 (or 3) places, be a bit more flexible of how many nights you will spend here %26amp; there, and then, perhaps, you just MIGHT fit in that Rhine Cruise - there are several options of cruise companies and leaving from different destinations, but the %26#39;classic%26#39; seems to be from Amsterdam to Koblenz - which would fit better if you go one-way, in-between Brugge and Munich!!

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