Travel
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France or Italy?
H and I are traveling to Europe for the first time together next March. We're planning on a nine day trip and are thinking it's better to really enjoy one country versus rushing through a few of them. If you had to pick between France and Italy, which would you choose?
We enjoy food, culture, art, food, and more food. At first we were thinking France but now I'm leaning towards Italy because I'd like to see my extended family.
Re: France or Italy?
Both countries are very different, but I love both equally.
Pasta and pizza or cheese and ecargot?
Flip a coin :P! Only half joking, I've seen a lot of Italy and a fair amount of France and both are just wonderful for all the reasons you mentioned (food, culture, art, etc). I think I'm a tiny bit partial to Italy, but that's probably just b/c I'm more familiar with Italy.
Enjoy, I'm sure you'll have a great time in either country!!
The time of year is the big factor here. March is still rather cold and wet in France. You may get lovelier weather in Italy.
Also, look at major holidays. Easter breaks can really bring in the crowds, so try to plan around any big crowd times.
Can you reschedule for May? Much better time for either country IMHO.
I love both but France is hands down my favorite country in the world.
However, since you will be traveling in March I would recommend Italy over France as you will likely have better weather.
Agreed with above posters, March weather in France is crap. Choose Italy if you're going then.
If we went to France we would mostly go for Paris. How many days would you say is necessary to enjoy Paris?
Now H and I are thinking we'll go to Paris next March (we're dealing with spring break schedules) for only four or five days and then go to Italy in a few years for the nine day trip. How does that sound? It would be tight on our budget to do a nine day trip next spring anyway so that's why we're thinking Paris for four/five days.
Where are you flying from? Does your trip time include travel/flight time? We just spent 4 nights/4 full days in Paris and had a wonderful time. It was somewhat rushed, but still pretty leisurely. If you wanted to do a 11 day trip that included flying; maybe consider Paris and another part of France, or even Paris and London. Being only a 2.5 hr train ride from one another, it's a good pair of cities to visit.
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We're flying from DC. I haven't considered factoring travel/flight time but I imagine I would like to spend the same amount of time you and your H did.
Thanks for your help, ladies!
Would you be able to share your 4 day itinerary?
I think 4 or maybe 5 days in Paris is good amount, if you're doing 11 days really consider visiting another area (take the train, SNCF, or cheap flights on EasyJet). I would recommend another place like Provenance...
Another option is to spend the rest of your time in Italy, maybe to Rome (4 days there is good) or another city like the above poster said like London, Amsterdam, Brussels, even Switzerland! You can get reasonable flights to all of these places on EasyJet.
Paris is a great town, so much to see that you could spend a lifetime, but life being life, IMO, 3-4days is a nice intro to the city and a reasonable amount of time to see the highlights. An extra day (so day 4 or 5) would be nice for a trip to the country-- Reims or Versailles.
For Italy (as a whole), 5 days isn't enough. I would say, you could comfortably spend 3days in Rome, 2days in Florence. But that's really a shame b/c you'd be so close to the Tuscan countryside, which is easily worth 1-2nights on its own. To say nothing of the Amalfi Coast, Venice, Sicily, etc. I guess you could mix it up and do 2 days in Venice, 1 in Verona, and 2 in Florence and save the south for another trip. That would be a pretty nice itinerary, IMO. However, March up north can be dicey (rain in Venice kind of sucks, IME).
Bottomline, I'd do Paris for 3nights/4days, a day trip to Reims (b/c I like Champagne more than baroque/ornate stuff) and save Italy for a future trip.