United Miles

United has award travel available for 30K each leg.  I have 35K miles.  Not sure if you can get anything United.  The earliest we could travel would be 5/18. 

 

Or we can book for around $1000K each.  I'm not sure we are going to find something cheaper.  I've been looking at flying into Budapest and out of Prague with the hydrofoil knowledge in tow.

 

- Shannon

United

Looks like I can use my Chase points for about $400 off airfare. There seems to be quite a few airline options.

Looks like the farthest east United will get us is Stockholm. But obviously that's north. Munich is more central. Possibly Zurich plus a nice train ride through the Alps? Is that where the Alps are? I think so.

They also fly into most major western European cities - Berlin, Rome, Paris, Madrid, London, etc.

I found a Lufthansa flight for $920 with our Chicago to Prague, Budapest to Chicago itinerary. There were some long layovers, but I'm not sure we're going to avoid those.

Hmmm, Chicago to Zurich still wants us to connect in Copenhagen. And is $900. So much for that plan. Lame.

We can get to Madrid for $850, Copenhagen for $750, London for $900, Rome for $1,000, Munich for $900....not sure any of these are helping.

Looks like it's then $200 to fly to Prague and back from Budapest (to Copenhagen). So we're at $950, where we would be anyway.

Czech Republic

We should do this:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Klet_-_Blansky_Lees

I've been comparing Ceske Budejovice (Budweis) to Cekse Krumlov. I looked at what wikitravel and Frommers had to say.

Itinerary

Here's how I see it. We want to be gone for two weeks. We want to see Prague, Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest. We might want to see Ceske Krumlov in the Czech Republic. Vienna and Bratislava are essentially one stop. We want to utilize the Memorial Day holiday as a day off. We probably want end our trip around Memorial Day to avoid peak season. We want to fly into Prague and out of Budapest. We want to take a boat from Vienna to Budapest on the Danube. We want to take trains everywhere else. So, with all that in mind, here's what I came up with.

We're Back

Hello blog. It's been a while.

We didn't go on this trip...YET!

We had a busy 2011. Let's see, we totaled our car, but were not seriously hurt. My mom had cancer. She survived. Our dog had cancer. She didn't. Shannon's brother graduated high school and started college. Shannon's mom suffered from empty nest syndrome. My sister and brother in law moved across the country for a new job, only to lose it. Again. Oh, and we got married.

So, with all that, Europe 2011 didn't happen.

But Europe 2012 aka our honeymoon IS going to happen. We promise.