First I'd like to say what a great find this website has been. It has really helped me get a headstart in planning out our vacation this year. I stumbled accross this site looking for a tour to Europe. We will be flying out of LAX (or surrounding airports). . The travellers include my parents (54 and 52), my sister (20) and myself (24). . We have never been to Europe, but we do travel often, so we are not complete newbies to travelleing. We wanted to visit Europe during September 2006 and since this is our first time to Europe we just want to do the major "touristy" things. We were hoping for a 12-14 day trip including England (Londong mainly), France (Paris mainly) and Italy. Looking at the tours on this site, it seems you can do either England-France-Switzerland-Italy, or Englan-France-Switzerland-Holland-Germany in that time frame. Ideally the first option would be what we are lookign at.

I would like some help on the itinerary.

Firstly, is September a good time to visit these countries. I am open to other months as well but the reason i thought September may be good is to avoid the summer rush. But if there are significant saving in say going in October, then that would work too.

Secondly, what would be a good price point for a trip of this magnitude including airfare.

Thirdly, what would be good tour company whith this kind of age dynamic. My parent are very "cool" and we are generally able to enjoy our vacations together without much conflict of interest. Our main goal during this tour would be to just experience the history of Europe.

Please feel free to offer any insight/advice on this trip. I really appreciate any help.

In response. I traveled to many countries last October to November lst and the lines are less or non existent during that time and the prices are lower. the downside was t he weather was miserable we had buckets and buckets of rain. I was traveling with my 76 year old Mother so th e walking was slow. If I could do it again (and will) I would pick September. DH is from Italy and he has always said thats the best Month for travel in Europe. Hope this helps. Also be extremely careful with cab drivers. We were robbed twice in Rome by cab drivers, even though we had negotiated a price before hand. It will certainly be a memorable trip. As far as the price I spent $5,000 on airfare, accomadation and then an additional $l000 on extras. I tried hard to keep to my budget.

I happen to have a 2005 Trafalgar book that lists a London, Paris and Rome trip for a totaly 11 days.

You could extend your London stay before the trip and Trafalgar offers a "London Week" tour. Or, since London is such a great city with so many tourist-friendly things to see and do, you could just do that on your own. I've booked London hotels on the Internet in the past and arranged all my own sightseeing and activities.

I hope this helps.

We started our tour Aug. 20th and ended on Sept 5th. We had hoped to book for Sept but the tours were already booked full, as it was our weather was pretty nice the whole tour. We did seven countries. I think the first part of Sept would be perfect! most of the school kids are heading back home to get ready for school to lessen the crowds.

London was the most expensive place we went, with the pound being worth $1.80 of American money. That meant everything was about double the price to us. We would not go to England again just because we didn't think it was special enough to pay so much more for than the other countries in Europe. We thought France, Italy and Germany were the most intersting places where we wish we had more time there and will go back again. We also loved Lucerne, Switzerland and Amsterdam, holland.