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**Celeste**
celeste,
i've been stalking your blog to see how your trip went. i'm so jealous!! you have inspired me though, i talked to dh last night, and i think i'm going to try and plan a trip to europe around c'mas time when we both can get 2 weeks off. so i'm going to be bombarding you with questions, b/c the last time i went i was in a study abroad for 1 month, and my friend and i only did paris and spain (and spain was where the study abroad was), so we didn't do much traveling on our own. now that i am going to be planning the whole thing, i'm going to need much more help since i really have no clue where to start. so did you let your travel agent handle all the arrangements? do you recommend going through a travel agent?
sry in advance for all the questions!! 
Re: **Celeste**
Hey girl! I would LOVE to help you plan! This vacation was so wonderful...now we definitely have the travel bug!
Really, the only reason we decided to use a travel agent was because we had never been to Europe before. We were really unfamiliar with the whole process...especially booking train tickets. But now that we know about the process, we certainly feel confident making all of our own arrangements next time we go.
Having been over there before, you may feel good about not using a travel agent. Our particular agent made the planning process stressful. She was scatter-brained, disorganized, and didn't want to answer any of my questions. She was great at the beginning. If you use one, just ask around and get a good recommendation. We had even used her husband for our honeymoon and he did a wonderful job.
As soon as you have particular dates in mind, go ahead and book your airfare...the sooner you book the better prices you'll get (most of the time). Also, try to select your seats on the plane early....and get an exit row!!! They have lots of extra leg room, and you'll appreciate that room on those LONG flights. We flew Delta...they have a lot of non-stop flights to Europe from Atlanta.
Gosh, I could go on and on....you guys should definitely go if you get the chance...!
awesome! thank you SO much for your help!
well the last time i went i was with a friend who pretty much did all of the planning, we also went through our college campus travel agent (STA travel), so that made it easier. i would definitely need help with trying to book the train tickets.
where did you stay when you visited all of these places? last time i went, we stayed in hostels, but i don't think i would do that again because they weren't all that clean, and we really had to be careful about leaving our stuff around.
i have some ideas about where i want to go (def london, def italy, maybe some other countries in the UK). but i really need to look at a map and make a plan so that we don't spend most of the time traveling from one country to another.
i'm so glad i have you as my guide! o, and if you want to go on and on (really i don't mind, i need all the help i can get), you can email me (twtorres@gmail.com).
thanks again!
We stayed in hotels the entire time...except in Germany. There, we stayed with family.
Our Paris hotel was adorable. The owner, Marie, is so nice! The rooms are small, but any hotel in Paris has small rooms...unless you pay a small fortune! The hotel is: Hotel Grandes Ecoles - http://www.hotel-grandes-ecoles.com/ . This hotel is only a very short walk away from the Pantheon and Notre Dame...in the Latin Quarter. After seeing most of the different areas of Paris, the Latin Quarter was actually one of our favorites...it's a wonderful location.)
Venice: Hotel Ala - http://www.hotelala.it/ (Beautiful!...our room opened up to the canal on the side of the hotel...and only 5 minutes from St. Mark's Square by foot.)
Florence: Hotel Monna Lisa - http://www.monnalisa.it/ (One of our favorites! It's amazing!! Within a short walking distance to the Duomo.)
Rome: Hotel Duca d'Alba - http://www.hotelducadalba.com/ (We were initially given one room, but asked to see a few others. Our original room had a broken door handle. The difference between that room and the one we ended up in was night and day! Don't hesitate to ask for another room if you're not completely satisfied with the one you get...they're used to that over there. I think it's pretty common. This hotel is only 1 block from the Colosseum& Roman Forum!)
I would highly recommend any of these hotels. They are all located very centrally...within walking distance to lots of main sites. Our travel agent initially recommended all the hotels in Italy...that's how we found out about them. I had done a lot of research and found the one in Paris.