shoemak38 Family - Europe trip planning summer of 2014

shoemak38 · Post by **shoemak38** » Sat Aug 24, 2013 11:35 am

As I start looking at planning and giving choices to the family on what to do and where to stay during our trip next summer in Europe I thought I would give the different web links I viewed to the forum so they can dream with me.
Our youngest daughter graduates high school June 8 and current plans are to leave the next week on our trip. Long-range plans are to fly to Paris stay there X days drive or take the train to the French Riviera (I'm leaning on driving and staying one night in a town in a wine growing area to be determined). We would then drive it along the Mediterranean coast and fly home from Rome.
The following are my first two selections for hotels to stay in a town called Mentor, which is on the French / Italian border and a short drive to Monte Carlo.

http://www.hotel-de-londres.com/fr/hote ... photos.php

http://www.hotel-ledauphin.com/menton-f ... ome-01-00/

loria · Post by **loria** » Sat Aug 24, 2013 11:12 pm

where will you stay in paris? i know of a wonderful b and b in Montrouge that is about 5 minutes from the city and 20 from the city center on on the number 68 bus line --which bisects paris and gets you ANYWHERE -- martine and her husband gilles live there, and martine a most wonderful hostess. and a great cook and for a reasonable price will cook for you if you need (breakfast is included in price of course and it is amazing) la villa perier --

shoemak38 · Post by **shoemak38** » Sun Aug 25, 2013 9:39 am

Thanks Ioria

I have not selected a hotel in Paris. My problem is we are a family of five which means I'll need two rooms or find hotels which have units with multiple bedrooms.

I spent yesterday in a more strategic level, sketching out what the vacation will be like and determining what my budget would look like versus a vacation to St. John. The first item of research was deciding whether it makes sense to fly into Paris and fly out of Rome. The second part was to see if I was going to use the Euro pass or rent a car and drive. On that front the cost differential between using Paris and Rome is only the roughly $300 fee for dropping the rental car off at a different destination. The cost of renting a car is about the same as using the trains.
The second part of my planning was determining cost per day per person (you can tell what I do for a living). Europe will be slightly cheaper than St. John ($250 vs. $290). Obviously I'm not planning on staying in five-star hotels. Part of my reasoning for not staying in luxury hotels is cost, but also philosophical. You get a better flavor for the culture in the family-run hotels. The final part of the equation was determining hotel locations-stays. I've focusing on spending four days in Paris, driving down to a town on the French Riviera and staying four days and then driving to Rome spending four days there. One of the things my father taught me back when he took us through Europe during his Army days, was that you get what I call tourist fatigue i.e. without breaks after a while; you don't appreciate the cultural sites. Using that philosophy is my reasoning for spending a few days on the French Riviera doing a mix of sightseeing and sunbathing before heading to Rome.
After my post yesterday, I realized an added benefit of posting the different links on the forum I discover during my planning over lunch at work I have a nice place to store bookmarks so that other members of the family can view them plus I’ll get feedback from all the peeps

paris link
http://www.waytostay.com/paris-apartmen ... -20140614/

shoemak38 · Post by **shoemak38** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 12:13 pm

This is the twon I plan to stay in on the French Riviera. Why here, because I stayed in this town 35 years ago when I was in the Army visiting Monaco. I selected Menton back then became it had a English colony.

Some sightseeing over lunch

http://www.tourisme-menton.fr/-Menton-French-Riviera-

linne · Post by **linne** » Wed Aug 28, 2013 10:26 am

Hello Shoe!

As far as I can see, your plan for visiting Europe looks fine. A good idea to begin already now to decide, what to do and where to stay. I always plan a lot before travelling. We sometimes have to change plans on the way, but you still save time not having discussions on the journe, and you are more aware of the things you see. And it’s also entertaining to read about the destinations.

So good luck with the rest. I agree with you about the reason for not staying on luxury hotels and taking a break between seing culturate sites.

Linne

shoemak38 · Post by **shoemak38** » Sat Aug 31, 2013 11:15 am

Now that we’ve made the decision to go to Europe I noticed American Airlines has round-trip to St. Thomas via Miami for $650 over the Fourth of July week oh well.
Question what I’ve noticed in my research phase are apartment rental companies in the major cities who rent by the night this appealing to us as renting an apartment with two or three bedrooms is better than getting two hotel rooms. Does anybody have experience utilizing any particular company? As the only hassle I see is coordinating with the greeter for the unit.
Our next hurdle is waiting until November /December as our son needs to get approval for his vacation which does not happen until late November or early December.
A couple more websites for your viewing pleasure

http://www.ricksteves.com/
http://www.rentinrome.com/rome-apartments
http://www.homeaway.co.uk/p3582029

jmq · Post by **jmq** » Tue Sep 03, 2013 9:37 am

The first item of research was deciding whether it makes sense to fly into Paris and fly out of Rome. The second part was to see if I was going to use the Euro pass or rent a car and drive. On that front the cost differential between using Paris and Rome is only the roughly $300 fee for dropping the rental car off at a different destination. The cost of renting a car is about the same as using the trains.

I am a huge proponent of "one way" travel. Our 3 trips to Europe were: into Geneva / out of Zurich; into London / out of Paris; and into Milan / out of Florence. Even on our recent trip to the VIs: JFK into San Juan / puddle jumper to Virgin Gorda / ferry to STJ - STT / non-stop return from STT to JFK.

Re train vs drive, not sure that I would choose to drive BOTH of those legs of the trip. Driving can be challenging in Europe - you really need an active co-pilot who stays on top of the GPS for you, not to mention negotiating the Limited Traffic Access Zones (ZTL) in Italian urban areas manned by cameras that can and will result in a hefty fine tracking you down (France could have similar restrictions)

Train travel is very robust and reliable in Europe and a cool part of the experience, and booking ahead of time can get you better pricing on some routes, although you have to be mindful of who you purchase from - some train travel websites or 3rd party ticket aggregators will charge you extra $$$ compared to the actual/official train operator sites.

Specifically, I might look at doing the train from Paris to the French Riviera as that would be an "in country" journey likely requiring fewer changes, more options, less cost, and can be purchased from the French train operator. For example @ http://www.sncf.com/en/passengers where they advertise 3 hr high speed service Paris - French Riviera.

Re pricing differences on who you book with, on the highly useful website
http://www.seat61.com/France-trains.htm#How to buy train tickets for France it notes "You can easily use http://www.voyages-sncf.com if you follow the advice here. As I write this, a quick price comparison shows http://www.raileurope.com charging $130 from Paris to Marseille (for example) when http://www.voyages-sncf.com is showing only €44.90 (about $64) for exactly the same date and train. So do a price comparison before buying".

That other multi-country leg might be a more complicated train trip with multiple changes between regional lines/service providers etc. and cost of the train pass required might be comparable to driving (?), depending on how many folks are in your party.

toes in the sand · Post by **toes in the sand** » Tue Sep 03, 2013 11:19 am

We visited europe last april. One of our stops was Paris. I found a nice 2 bdr apt that worked pefectly for us. We rented it through AhParis! and were very pleased both with the apartment and the price . I have read some negative reviews about Ah Paris but all went well with our stay so I can't say how their customer service is beyond the routine. I know that a company like that has to depend on the property owners to be honest and service oriented to be successful. Luckily the owner of the apartment we stayed at was wonderful. He helped to make sure we had a great stay

shoemak38 · Post by **shoemak38** » Thu Sep 05, 2013 12:20 pm

Jmq thanks for the train links. With a family of 5 is the reasoning for renting a car. My family is use to long drives we do 2-4 hours driving day trips all the time. I’ll relook at the train vs car choose again after I book lodging.
Toes thanks for the AH Paris link I like their prices

more lunch time links

http://www.pbase.com/annforcier/cote_da ... ute_cagnes

http://partner.mygenieinparis.com/en/p/ ... sting.html
http://www.ipreferparis.net/

more links for whatever reason Google chrome created 50,000 bookmarks from my France links spend 2 hours on Sunday fixing the problen so I'm going to add all my links here

http://www.beyond.fr/villages/menton.html
http://www.viamichelin.com/web/Restaura ... 1EVTJOZz09

toes in the sand · Post by **toes in the sand** » Tue Sep 10, 2013 12:41 pm

shoe, if you decide to go with AHParis, please use caution as I have read many good and bad reviews. The bad reviews seem to follow the same apartments though as do the good reviews. Like I said, we had a wonderful apartment owner to deal with. We stayed on rue Berthollett. It was very convenient to the bus, OK for the metro and a great market street close by in the 5th ar.

shoemak38 · Post by **shoemak38** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 5:16 pm

Now looking in this area for the beach part of trip.

Snagit Capture by SHOEMAK38, on Flickr

Terry · Post by **Terry** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 6:22 pm

When I went to Italy a few years ago with my daughter, we found a combination of trains and a car were perfect together. I rented the car in smaller towns through a travel agent through AutoEurope. I ordered the GPS also and they sent it to us before our flight and I sent it back to them when I got back home. It was a Godsend!

Driving isn't difficult if you have a person guiding you with the GPS. And you get to see some gorgeous countryside.

Sounds like you've got some good planning going on!

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