The Itinerary

Now, when planning with friends, your itinerary must be a fluid concept. Last week, I carved out an itinerary using various airline websites, Eurail schedules, and the excellent reviews at hostels.com and hostelworld.com.

The original itinerary goes as follows:
Leave Edmonton June 15 at 11:55am, arrive Montreal at 5:50pm for a 2h layover. Leave Montreal 7:50pm for Paris, France and arrive at 8:30am June 16. In Paris, our hostel is in the heart of Montmartre, which is only a 15 minute walk or so from the Sacre de Coeur (one of my personal favorites from Paris). Paris will hopefully make a much larger impression on me than it did in 2001. I have to admit that I am still a sucker for Italy ...

We leave for Barcelona on June 18 and the original itinerary specified a 12h Eurail train ride through France to Spain, but new information might save us, oh, 11 hours of that time. Regardless, we check in to our Barcelona hostel - our home for the next three nights - called Center Ramblas. We leave Barcelona for Madrid at 9pm on June 21.

In Madrid, we check in to our hostel Musas Residence and stay for four nights, leaving for Toledo on June 25. Toledo is only a 1/2h away and is actually a cute little medieval town that everybody labels as a "daytrip town". The original plan was to stay in Toledo for June 25, 26 and then head back to Madrid, fly back to Barcelona all in one day, staying at Center Ramblas on June 27. Then, we would head back to Paris for two more days and leave for Edmonton at 10:30am on June 30.

Summary:
Paris: June 16, 17; Barcelona: June 18, 19, 20; Madrid: June 21, 22, 23, 24; Toledo: June 25, 26; Barcelona: June 27; Paris: June 28, 29; HOME: June 30

Sable recently introduced me to skyscanner.net, which posts budget airline prices and "pocket change" flights between European cities. Assuming that you can stand an hour of bumpy flight time, a flight between any given city in the Portugal-Spain-France vicinity is only 20-40 euros. THUS, I was contemplating doing only a one day daytrip to Toledo on June 25, going back to Madrid, and flying to Lisbon, Portugal all in the same day. We would stay in Lisbon two nights, fly back to Barcelona or even Paris on the 27. In total, the flights in Spain will cost 109 euros. Ridiculous! I know.

Summary of desired changes:
Paris: June 16, 17; Barcelona: June 18, 19, 20; Madrid: June 21, 22, 23, 24; Toledo: June 25 (day); Lisbon,Portugal: June 25 (night), 26; Barcelona: June 27; Paris: June 28, 29; HOME: June 30.

In an effort to be a good travelling buddy, I will consult my travelling partner on this one. But, hopefully, our small budget will allow us to take some new and exciting directions in our travel itinerary, including a couple of days in the paradise that is Portugal.

Next entry: Getting the group together.