Stage 4–Back to Europe

Jan 27, 2012 by Joel

Since Europe is the whole focus of this journey then it makes sense that most of my time is spent in Europe itself. Which is the case when you combine the two stages in Europe with the many ports which make up the cruise.

This second stop in Europe is going to take me to another four countries and multiple different cities. At this stage most of this stage has not been really that closely looked at or planned as it is still a fair way off and even if I left it another few weeks I would still have a good two months buffer.

This being said this stop is a few days longer then my first stop coming in at 16 Nights. However there are a few extra stops in this stage, and the travel between the cities is just as much part of things this time.

The Stops

Stops in this stage are a little more in order, following a path then before, unlike my first stage in Europe which required kind of looping back on itself. This will definitely make for easier transport between destinations, and save on transport that kind of back tracks on it self to get to the final destination.

Nice, France – This seems to be a fairly nice area from my understanding and actually does get me pretty close to see some other area’s as well. So a few days here is pretty much a definite.

Paris, France – It would really be hard to go to Europe as a whole without spending a few days in Paris and seeing the famous landmarks of the city.

Brussels, Belgium – There is from what I can tell quite a lot to see in Brussels, not least some of the fantastic older architecture. While I do not have a lot of time in the city, I have found the best use will likely be with a Brussels Card. I also have a friend near by so hopefully will get to spend some time with them.

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Amsterdam is somewhere different, here there are many unique aspects and while I am not interested in experiencing any of the maybe more off beat things here. I am interested to see what a city built around this has to offer. One thing here will be giving it a go getting around on bikes, which is by far it seems the favourite mode of transportation.

Reykjavik, Iceland – Originally this was suppose to be purely a transit stop, however it did not take long to realise that even just 2 or 3 days here could be well worth the time.

Even though this will round out my time in Europe it definitely will not conclude the time that I spend in Europe. There will not be any more time in this trip to see some of the other places in Europe that I still have a wish to see.

Sight Seeing

Like the first stage in Europe I believe that I will predominantly look at taking tours to see the main sights. However in saying that there are a couple of areas that I will likely look at seeing by hiring a car.

The other part of this stage is that I plan to do most of the transit between cities by train, which will allow me to see quite a bit more of the countryside, and for the most part will not actually be that much different to the time it might take at airports and flying.

I really cannot elaborate here to much as I am still to start doing much research on any of these cities except for Paris, so will leave most of this side of things for the daily updates or if I find that it will be helpful some posts with more detailed research on each city I am heading for.

One More Stage

So there is just one more stage to come in outlining this trip which is Canada and USA. This will round out the journey and you will have some idea of what to expect along the way.

As usual please feel free to make any comments or suggestions on my chosen stops, because if you can suggest something better especially on these stops it will be the easier end of the journey to change. I look forward to your comments below.