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Spoon · 05-04-2011, 01:17 PM

For our trip we had to make a stop in HK as well (Vancouver > HK > Rome > train to Paris [extra] > HK > Vancouver), so our travel agent told us to get Cathay Pacific's Asia or World pass. Don't remember a lot of the details since it's been 3+ years ago. I think our airfares were just under 2k per person plus another $100-200 or so for the train ride from Rome to Paris (per person).

The train ride between the two cities was a personal choice, since I wanted to see the scenery etc. But thinking back, I wouldn't do this again since the ride was way too lenghty (around 12hrs I think). If you plan on just visiting one country alone though and visiting different cities along the way, travelling by train might not be a bad idea (budget wise) since they have special passes for them; the shorter rides might actually be enjoyable. For our train ride from Rome to Paris, the price was actually about the same as travelling by air. So if I knew what I know now, I would've opted for air (but I can at least say I've experienced it).

Hotels were roughly $200 CDN per night for both cities (CDN's probably a lot stronger now than when I went though, so bonus for you!). Nothing extravagant, but the locations were good. We went in late October and maybe had a bit of luck on our side, cause the sun followed us for the whole two weeks and only had a light drizzle on the days we were leaving the city.

Also to help us plan our own itinerary, we used Google Earth a lot to plan our daily trips. Saved us a ton of travelling expense and time cause for each day we would just visit everything that was for example on the northern side of our hotel instead of running all over town. And if you still can't decide where to go, try looking through Wikitravel (http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page). We probably browsed through it for a week or two before we finally decided on our destinations.

Keep in mind though we took our time in our trip. We're not the type who want to visit 20 different historical sites in a day just to say we've been there. It was quality over quantity. So while 1 week in one city was enough for us, it might be too long for others (This is in reference to Rome. Paris on the other hand was huge, so we only visited several districts during our stay).

05-04-2011, 01:17 PM	#9
Spoon I contribute to threads in the offtopic forum Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: VAN/RMD/BBY Posts: 2,596 Thanked 1,022 Times in 450 Posts Failed 54 Times in 30 Posts	For our trip we had to make a stop in HK as well (Vancouver > HK > Rome > train to Paris [extra] > HK > Vancouver), so our travel agent told us to get Cathay Pacific's Asia or World pass. Don't remember a lot of the details since it's been 3+ years ago. I think our airfares were just under 2k per person plus another $100-200 or so for the train ride from Rome to Paris (per person). The train ride between the two cities was a personal choice, since I wanted to see the scenery etc. But thinking back, I wouldn't do this again since the ride was way too lenghty (around 12hrs I think). If you plan on just visiting one country alone though and visiting different cities along the way, travelling by train might not be a bad idea (budget wise) since they have special passes for them; the shorter rides might actually be enjoyable. For our train ride from Rome to Paris, the price was actually about the same as travelling by air. So if I knew what I know now, I would've opted for air (but I can at least say I've experienced it). Hotels were roughly $200 CDN per night for both cities (CDN's probably a lot stronger now than when I went though, so bonus for you!). Nothing extravagant, but the locations were good. We went in late October and maybe had a bit of luck on our side, cause the sun followed us for the whole two weeks and only had a light drizzle on the days we were leaving the city. Also to help us plan our own itinerary, we used Google Earth a lot to plan our daily trips. Saved us a ton of travelling expense and time cause for each day we would just visit everything that was for example on the northern side of our hotel instead of running all over town. And if you still can't decide where to go, try looking through Wikitravel (http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page). We probably browsed through it for a week or two before we finally decided on our destinations. Keep in mind though we took our time in our trip. We're not the type who want to visit 20 different historical sites in a day just to say we've been there. It was quality over quantity. So while 1 week in one city was enough for us, it might be too long for others (This is in reference to Rome. Paris on the other hand was huge, so we only visited several districts during our stay). Last edited by Spoon; 05-04-2011 at 01:30 PM.