What are some travel ideas in Northern Europe?
Icey asked:
I’m studying abroad in Newcastle, UK and I’m going to have about 9 or 10 days to just travel around Europe when the semester ends. I have absolutely no idea where to begin. I love nature and hiking and seeing beautiful and natural scenery, so I would prefer to see things like that (lakes, mountains, forests etc. etc.) Where are some great scenic areas in England, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Finland,Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Do you have any personal favorites? What are some cheap and efficient ways of getting to these places?
I’m studying abroad in Newcastle, UK and I’m going to have about 9 or 10 days to just travel around Europe when the semester ends. I have absolutely no idea where to begin. I love nature and hiking and seeing beautiful and natural scenery, so I would prefer to see things like that (lakes, mountains, forests etc. etc.) Where are some great scenic areas in England, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Finland,Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Do you have any personal favorites? What are some cheap and efficient ways of getting to these places?
Although I love nature I do want to go to a few famous cities in Northern Europe, so which ones do you personally recommend and why?
Train travel would be the cheapest. Ask a travel agent to help you.
If you’re in Newcastle there are a lot of places you can go for weekends which, assuming you have the money, will leave your ten days free for foreign travel.
If you like hiking, there’s Hadrian’s Wall which more or less starts in Newcastle and there’s also a bus service which takes you to various points along the wall – so you can go out there, do a day’s walking, and then come back again. Or two days walking staying in a BB and make a weekend of it.
A little further down you have the Yorkshire Dales – I was there a couple of weeks ago and it is lovely, the main walking route is the Dales Way which (again) has the usual services for walkers such as being dropped off at points along the walk, and there are also people who will transport your bags from one BB to the next so that you don’t have to carry them.
There’s the Lake District over to the west, if you want to give some of our English mountains a try. Depending on where you’re from you might not be too impressed, but although we have no bears or wolves it is possible to get lost, killed etc if you’re badly equipped, don’t check the weather forecast, or just plain dumb enough. North Wales is also good if you like your walks to be spiky rather than flat.
Most of Scotland is pretty, the people are friendly, the difficulty here is getting from A to B. Do you drive?
Elsewhere in England there is Devon and Cornwall, these are down in the South West and there’s the South West Coast Path which is a lovely, lovely walk (and very long). Sorry haven’t dug out any links for you but these are easily searchable.
Get around England by booking your train tickets three months in advance, on specific trains, and use a Young Person’s Railcard for a further discount (not sure if it applies to the advance tickets but I don’t see why it wouldn’t). You can’t really hitch-hike these days, it’s not illegal but people don’t tend to stop to pick you up like they used to 20+ years ago.
Outside the UK I haven’t been to many places but I did enjoy Luxembourg. Tiny little country but so pretty – even the capital city is nice (it has a river valley which takes up most of the town centre, and some casemates). You can go outside the city by train and walk in Echternach (known as little Switzerland) or up towards Vianden Castle (the walking route joins up with the train tracks at each station, so you can walk as much or as little as you like and don’t have to do circular routes).
Germany is also nice, and this would tick both your boxes because Berlin is a fantastic city. Full of history, and just outside town is the Grunewald which is a big wooded area with lakes and so on – not exactly remote, but I’ve had a fun day’s walking there more than once.
I enjoyed Rome a lot, what I liked about it was that there is something to see everywhere you look. You don’t need to plan a sightseeing route, just wander around. Especially if you like going in churches.
I also had a great time in Prague. I went from Berlin to Prague by train and there were some lovely stops along the way – I wished I had had time to break my journey. It went along a river for the longest time, and was so scenic and seemed to be a popular place for both walking and cycling.
If you want cycling of course you can’t beat Holland due to its flatness. It’s got special cycle lanes that (unlike those in the UK) aren’t just a painted bit at the side of the road but (outside the cities at least) go off on their own through the countryside. I’d stay in Amsterdam just because it’s fun. I like to visit Delft while I’m there, a lovely little town with a very old church, and a little seaside resort named Scheveningen.
Most of this (outside the UK) was recommended to me by really helpful people on Yahoo Answers, so I am sure there will be better advice than this. Hope this will give you some ideas though!
Oh, travel. I find trains in Europe are cheap and reliable, much better than ours are. To get there from here, you should be able to get cheap flights from one of the nasty budget airlines. Personally I wouldn’t bother with the Eurostar. It’s got all the worst bits of train travel and all the worst bits of plane travel mixed together, plus you have to get yourself down to London before you even start.
Hi there, as you only have around 10 days for your trip, I would visit just two places so you have enough time to explore both well. As you’re already in the UK, how about going to Scotland and Ireland? In Scotland you could start off in Edinburgh or Glasgow and then take a tour of the Highlands which are stunning. Then you can go onto Dublin and explore Ireland from there, both have amazing scenery which I’m sure you’ll love. I work with London Luton Airport and we have a section on the website where you can have a look at more info on trips to Scotland and Ireland, including flights and accommodation. Here’s the link:. Hope this helps!
Claire
You’d have to either fly to Ireland or take the ferry. Ireland is good for nature, so head west. You can fly into Cork, Shannon or Knock airports.
I’ve been living in that area, and right now, If I could travel, I would go straight to Islay in Scotland to indulge myself in whisky tasting. Or perhaps some other region since I was there last year. Maybe Speyside. Scotland is lovely if you love whisky. On the other hand, if you want to see nature, then I advise you to get a cheap flight to Bergen, Norway to check out the fjords. Norway in a nutshell is a good choice for this kind of trip:
Scottish nature is nice, but Norway is better in that respect,