its a dead easy place to visit. Easy to find pretty stuff to look at, easy to find good grub, easy to find good weather, easy travelling, etc, etc, etc.

for me, what makes italy unique is the ever-charming city-by-city style of renaissance with a backdrop of the classical. its varies from the highly civilised north and gets more rustic in the south especially below rome. city or country, its glaring everywhere really.

cant go wrong really. as with many places in europe, italy has its own style.

We were actually looking at taking a trip to Ireland in the semi-near future for about a week. How difficult would it be to hop the water into mainland europe and do some cruising? I know Europe is pretty small (by Texas standards) so a few hours driving/train will get us anywhere, pretty much.

And what places should I see? A few musts.

1. Paris
2. Frankfurt AM
3. Amsterdam
4.... I'm thinking Venice

Anything else that I just shouldn't miss? Maybe London. I hear London would be a nice place if it wasn't for all the Brits.

Frankfurt? Is that a nostalgia thing, because Frankfurt isn't all that hot really. It's more of a business capital with tons of HQ's and shit.

Rome is a must, if you're gonna go to Venice anyway. Brussels sucks balls. Barcelona is definitely worth it, as is Prague.

I think most European cities will be appealing to Americans, really. The inner cities are 3 times older than the US itself and all...bound to be SOMETHING nice there.

Well, with Ryanair you can pretty much get to any major city you like. It's a famous irish low cost airline and it's cheap too. E.g. my uncle has gone twice to London this month from Venice with £1 return fares. I shit you not, a single pound.

Places to see... well, the ones you named are fine. You cant go wrong really. Of course there are other places, but you cant see everything at once. I personally would select a zone or two. E.g. Ireland and Germany. Spend time in some various nearby Irish spots, then fly over to Germany and do the same thing. If you like to drive then heck you can do what you want.

At least for Venice i would avoid uber-touristy periods of the year because there are so many tourists it becomes difficult to move. its probably the same thing with other touristy places like paris. besides it all looks cooler with less tourists around and more natives. less rush and stuff.

London is ok. Most people really dig it. Ive been there loads so i tend to go elsewhere. Again its pretty easy to find cool stuff and move around.

ok, thanks for the advice. Getting to Europe is a bit of a pain, due to the length of the flight and all that happy crap, hence why we're trying to roll more into a single visit. lol @ 1pound air fare. If it's really that cheap who knows, we may make Ireland the jumping off point for all our future European adventures.

What's peak tourist time for Italy? I would imagine Fall/Winter, but that's just a guess.

If you're into trains (I am), check the offers from Eurail.

Basically, they offer packages/passes for train travel in most European countries. Their flagship is a pass that allows you to travel through all countries for 21 days. Prices are high, but not extreme (compared to buying seperate tickets or renting a car).

Remember, once you're in the EU area you can travel freely between all countries without passport controls (there will be occasional border controls and the UK still has passport shit, but that's it really).

That's nice... I'm sure they don't count for local, in-city transportation, but whatever. I remember a day-pass in Frankfurt was like 5 marks, which at the time was $3. So pretty freakin' cheap. I don't imagine prices have gone too crazy since.

*edit* how the hell does Eurail get to Ireland?!

oh, about Frankfurt, that's where I graduated high school (an Army school). So I want to see my city again. I spent a lot of time running around that place. It's also a very pretty place and celebrated its 2000 year anniversary while I was there.

I figured it'd be something like that. Would be cool to show Shiny around your old digs anyway eh?

And yeah, local transport (buses, trams, metro and probably inner city trains) aren't included in the pass I think. Don't know prices in Germany, but in Belgium you pay 5€ for a one-day pass that gives you access to public transport all over Flanders and 15€ for a 5-day one. So prices are still normal.

re: Ireland...I imagine it's connected to a ferry service of some sorts. Found it, here you go

http://www.eurail.com/eurail-shipping-lines

Apparently eurail passes aren't valid in the UK, for some reason.

Ah, ok, thanks for the clarification. When we go, it'll probably be in the winter (due to prices). I'd love to go... I've been US-bound for 10 years now.

You should be pretty fucked by the dollar-euro thing too, really.

I just checked, a Big Mac is about 4 bucks in the States, so that's 2.7€. Golly...I should go to the States. It costs like almost 3 times that here.

Well in fairness, I found round trip airfare, hotel, and rental car for 7 days to Ireland for about $350.00 a person. I even offered to pay for it. And he said no..... If you all only knew how hard it is to get me to even consider the flight (I am seriously not happy about flying) then you would know he should have jumped at the chance although I understand why.

Instead now we are going to spend more and vacation in the US some more. Skiing and snowboarding. And maybe snowmobiling, etc. Yay! Since I live in the South and we never get real snow, I get a little excited by seeing it. It happens so rarely when I travel.

Plus we get a cute condo with full kitchen while we are there so I imagine hitting the outdiir hot tub, with a glass of wine, with snow all around. Hells yeahs.

So excited. I would really like to see some of you and some of the awe inspiring places you all post pictures of. I would seriously love to take like a month and chill in Europe. /sigh too bad Satis does not get that kind of vacation time to use in one scoop.

A full month would be expensive. I'm not interested in staying in a hostel, so hotel rooms would probably be a serious killer. I could probably handle 2 weeks, though... especially if we stayed in eastern europe most of the time. Or turkey or something. Are they part of the EU yet?

Anyway, it'll happen, and probably sooner than later.

Ox, is anything from Europe valid in the UK? We don't use euros, we insist on passports to get in (unless you're a stowaway immigrant ), come on boy! Use your brain! We like to pretend we're nothing to do with Europe, which means Northern Ireland would be the same I imagine btw. Just not Ireland itself.

Wouldn't particularly recommend London itself, though never been tbh. Paris... I guess you *have* to go there if you come to Europe though I hate the place just from driving through (very rude people and the worst drivers EVER). Parents went near Venice, apparently a must, as is Barcelona and Rome too. I quite like Germany as well, though didn't go anywhere major so can't recommend cities. Not sure on Turkey, but they're more EU than we are, that's for sure.

Oh if you decide to go England, head up to Dunkirk and get a Norfolk Line ferry over to Dover; only £17.50 per person in a car so should be pretty cheap for you guys (that's what, $20?) and it's well connected for getting to London should you decide you want to (or even heading up further north, you know, to the nice areas )

You should probably go to Prague as well, in search of a known Belgian gang leader who was seen in the country just a couple of weeks ago...

@ satis: "I hear London would be a nice place if it wasn't for all the Brits." hehe, keep in mind the brits love yanks compared to the French. I have nothing against them. They wear their hearts on their sleeve and dislike typical loud ignorant yanks. Im sure you two dont fall into that category.

@ pev: turkey more EU than UK? im pretty sure thats not the case. My uncle travelled in turkey for a month and he said it's probably the most historically diverse and rich country in europe. ottoman, muslim, greek, byzantine and roman. its got problems with poverty which is why i would argue its unlike most other EU countries compared to the UK. Europe is renound as a pretty prosperous area, so i consider that a big factor. but another awesome thing about turkey is the hospitality. the people there are amazing. oh and its huge.

Well there's always a free room in my house if any of you guys would ever happen to pass by. Although i'm not exactly living in the most touristical region, a short stop could be interesting. Leuven is nice to see (and to shop, but doubt Satis is a shopping type of guy).