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We have purchased our tickets with 6 days stopover in London enroute to India.
My initial plan was to spend time between London and Paris -
spend 3 days in London and 3 days in Paris (travelling from LON to PARIS via train).
However looking at the attractions in both the cities, it looks
like 4 days is sufficient to cover both; now we have 2 more days left.
I think 2 days is short to visit another country like Italy or Swiss.
What would be the best way to spend the extra two days:
1. Add another country to the list - by flight may be Italy-Rome or Swiss.
2. Is there any other place near London and/or Paris that a day or two can be spent?
3. Take the tour in London and Paris in a very slow/relaxed pace.
(this will be my last option if option 1 or 2 doesn't work out).
Any suggestions from people that live in these areas or visited? Thanks.

There is far more to England than London- in fact the best kept secret of the Uk is the English countryside. Outside of London, you can tour the university cities of Oxford/ Cambridge, spend a day at Stratford-upon-Avon, visit the ancient Roman city of Bath and club it with Longleat Wildlife Park. If you are interested in historical buildings, the Leeds Castle in Maidstone, Kent is also close by. Stonhenge , prehistoric rock formation is also a couple of hours drive from London. All these options are considering just a day out of London at leisurely pace. The most beautiful parts of the Uk otherwise are the scenic countrysides of Devon/Cornwall , Wales, Lake District, Peak district and majestic Scotland. Unfortunately you need more time to get here from London.
Re Paris- outside the main city you can do a daytrip to Monet's ( impressionist painter) house and then to Versailles, where the palace of the French Revolution exists. The gardens of Versailles are famous.
You can also head to port cities like Marseilles , or to the South Coast to nice on the French Riviera ( particularly if you like casinos!) and enjoy the ambience.
These are just off the top of my head, if you have queries about any specific places, can find out for you.
When is your trip scheduled?

Spend 2 days in London, catch a morning Eurostar to Paris. It reaches in 3.5 hours. Spend the day seeing Paris and maybe another day. Next day take a late evening flight to Rome and check into a hotel. (Try easyjet. It may cost you 50-60 euros per person). Spend the next day visiting Old Rome spots. Spend night in Rome and next morning visit Vatican. Catch a late evening flight back to London (depending on your subsequent flight and maybe save some money sleeping in the Airport lounge).

Alternately, you can fly from Paris to Zurich and do the Lucerne/Interlaken/Zurich tour for 2 days. You'll spend quite a bit of time travelling in Switzerland. Personally, Swiss Alps and Northen Italy should be a seperate 7 day trip.

If you have only 2 days for Paris, then you have to skip Versailles (Palace outside Paris) and of course DisneyLand is out of question.

sumachechi;268772There is far more to England than London- in fact the best kept secret of the Uk is the English countryside. Outside of London, you can tour the university cities of Oxford/ Cambridge, spend a day at Stratford-upon-Avon, visit the ancient Roman city of Bath and club it with Longleat Wildlife Park. If you are interested in historical buildings, the Leeds Castle in Maidstone, Kent is also close by. Stonhenge , prehistoric rock formation is also a couple of hours drive from London. All these options are considering just a day out of London at leisurely pace. The most beautiful parts of the Uk otherwise are the scenic countrysides of Devon/Cornwall , Wales, Lake District, Peak district and majestic Scotland. Unfortunately you need more time to get here from London.
Re Paris- outside the main city you can do a daytrip to Monet's ( impressionist painter) house and then to Versailles, where the palace of the French Revolution exists. The gardens of Versailles are famous.
You can also head to port cities like Marseilles , or to the South Coast to nice on the French Riviera ( particularly if you like casinos!) and enjoy the ambience.
These are just off the top of my head, if you have queries about any specific places, can find out for you.
When is your trip scheduled?

Thank you for the info; I will google the places you mentioned to see if it will work for us - need to consider the kids comfort/interests.
We will be reaching London on Apr 26 and the flight out from LHR is on May 2nd.

desipardesi;268821Spend 2 days in London, catch a morning Eurostar to Paris. It reaches in 3.5 hours. Spend the day seeing Paris and maybe another day. Next day take a late evening flight to Rome and check into a hotel. (Try easyjet. It may cost you 50-60 euros per person). Spend the next day visiting Old Rome spots. Spend night in Rome and next morning visit Vatican. Catch a late evening flight back to London (depending on your subsequent flight and maybe save some money sleeping in the Airport lounge).

Alternately, you can fly from Paris to Zurich and do the Lucerne/Interlaken/Zurich tour for 2 days. You'll spend quite a bit of time travelling in Switzerland. Personally, Swiss Alps and Northen Italy should be a seperate 7 day trip.

Wow! This is pretty much the same itenirary we had in our mind.
We were debating between the last two days for Swiss or Italy. Now I learn that 2 days is not sufficient for Swiss and also it's better to go there during summer.
I believe we will end up adding Rome to our list. I looked at the air quotes in Easyjet and it's pretty much in the price range you mentioned. Thanks for the info.

jburu;268823If you have only 2 days for Paris, then you have to skip Versailles (Palace outside Paris) and of course DisneyLand is out of question.

Yes, we thought about adding Disney to the list; since we have already visited it a few time in the US, we didn't want to add it. Thanks.

Regarding stay and baggage storage:
1. London - I checked YMCA India, London as suggested by a few members and it seems to be a decent acco and the price range is in GBP 70 with included breakfast and dinner. We might go with that. We will be carrying 8 big suitcases with us; we want to store it in the Airport - Excess Baggage, but it seems to be an expensive option - 8 GBP/bag/24 hours comes to around GBP 384 for 6 days. We are reaching few of the friends in London for just storing our luggages during our trip. The contacts that I have live way outside the city and the cab options are pretty expensive too - comes around $300 roundtrip for minivans. Public transportation options are ruled out with the luggages. Has anybody done this before and is there any alternate cost effective way to store luggages.
2. Any suggestion on Paris Hotels? Which area should we looking for? We will be reaching Paris by Eurostar and departing out by Air - so trying to be in close proximity to these and the places of attractions.
3. Rome - Any suggestion on hotels? Trying to be close to airport.

LLK Dasu;268865Regarding stay and baggage storage:
1. London - I checked YMCA India, London as suggested by a few members and it seems to be a decent acco and the price range is in GBP 70 with included breakfast and dinner. We might go with that. We will be carrying 8 big suitcases with us; we want to store it in the Airport - Excess Baggage, but it seems to be an expensive option - 8 GBP/bag/24 hours comes to around GBP 384 for 6 days. .

First of all, thanks a lot for starting this tread LLK Dasu..

We are also planning for similar stop-over on the way to India. We are going to spend 7 days in London/Paris/Rome areas. Still deciding on places to cover..

Some questions..

1. We are of 3 (my son is 8 years) and will be carrying 4/5 big suitcases as check-in luggages.. What would be cost to store this for 7 days?
Do you have link or phone number where we can inquire the price for our bags..


2. From London, we are taking Jet Airways to Mumbai and then to Chennai. We haven't used Jet before but hearing that the service will be good.. Looks like we need to do customs/immigration clearance in Mumbai and transfer to domestic terminal. The travel agent claims that after the immigration clearance, we can just hand over the check-in baggages to Jet airways people there itself and process is very smooth. .Is that true?

3. We are all USCs. I assume there is no visa required for visiting Europe. Is that right?

We have never been to Europe. So any pointers on sites to cover, helpful links are appreciated..

Thanks...

LLK Dasu/r2i_in_2yrs,

Did you both considered going for guided/package/coach tours. I saw some names like Star tours and Taj tours on this forum in the travel section. I believe coach tours go with fixed itenerary and run on specific dates every month and take care of food and accomodation.

We are leaning towards a 7-day Star tours arranged European Highlights tour in July to visit Germany/Paris/Swiss. Would like to hear from others about cost, how good/hectic these arranged tours will be with two kids (10 and 13 yrs) and on what challenges to expect.

We have USC (so I guess no visa required to visit Europe) and got a close friend in Manchester to spend some time with us in London for a couple of days. Totally we have about 10 days in our disposal to plan our Europe stop over before we visit India to spend the rest of the vacation.

Appreciate all the inputs and time to make our 10 day stop over in Europe a memorable one.

Thanks everyone.