so, i finish up my degree (comp sci if any of you want to offer me a job...haha) in may, and i'm off to europe. i'm on a student budget, and have tentatively planned for a may 8th ish departues, with june 15th return...giving me about 5 weeks. i had a couple of questions...
1. flight to europe - i was thinking of flying round trip from toronto to london...are there any cheaper places to fly into? also, for travel around europe, any websites or anything worth checking out? thanks.
2. places to stay - i know student hostels are cheap, but can anyone reccomend any nice, cheap hotels in major cities? i figure a hostel is fine for most of the trip, but i'd like to have some privacy once in a while.
3. places to go...i was thinking of landing in london, hitting up paris, then maybe bordeaux (waste of time?)....and then heading over to barcelona. here's where it gets tricky. my gf wants to spend a longer time in spain (she's taught herself spanish), but i'd rather not travel too far out of the way. we were thinking valencia, but i hear there are some other amazing (and cheap) places to go visit in that country. has anyone ever been? any reccomendations?
4. after spain, i was thinking south of france. i think cannes is around there, but not sure. monaco? and is marseilles nice?
5. italian portion of the trip will comprise of florence, rome and venice.
6. from venice, we are thinking of going to munich, and perhaps adding vienna/prague/berlin portion to the trip. i'm thinking this may be overdoing it, but i've heard great things about prague, and vienna and berlin just seem like the type of places you should check out if you're in the neighbourhood.
7. last, but not least would be amsterdam, followed by dublin, and then back to london.
so, basically, i'm wondering if there's any amazing places i'm missing out on, or any good deals i can get at any of these places. i'm not a huge history buff or anything ( i won't be checking out WW2 battlefields, etc.), but do appreciate some degree of culture that does not involve alcohol. specific things to check out in these cities would also be helpful. thanks for all your help.
