Which countries to visit in one month in Europe?
After a two-week tour of Southeast Asia,
I will return home for a while,
and then spend about a month touring Europe.
Even though it's called Europe, there are many countries in Western, Northern, and Eastern Europe,
so I have to decide where to go.
My candidates are as follows.
Candidate countries
United Kingdom
Above all, I want to see musicals and plays in London, a treasure trove of entertainment.
France
I want to see the World Heritage site of Mont Saint-Michel.
I also want to visit the Louvre Museum, which was the setting for The Da Vinci Code.
I want to see the stunning views of Amalfi.
Italy
Since making leather bags is my hobby, I want to visit workshops in Florence.
I want to go to the Vatican.
Venice too...
Rome is also a setting for The Da Vinci Code.
Spain
Above all, I absolutely want to see the Sagrada Familia.
Greece
I want to see the World Heritage site of the Parthenon.
I want to see the beautiful scenery of Santorini.
Turkey
I want to see authentic mosques.
Austria
I want to enjoy an orchestra or opera performance in Vienna.
Switzerland
I want to see famous peaks like the Matterhorn.
Selecting countries to visit
Since I have never been to Europe before,
every country is appealing,
and they are all places I want to visit at least once.
If I were to visit all the candidate countries in one month,
I would only be able to spend about 2 nights and 3 days in each country,
staying in just one city per country,
which is a tight schedule for seeing the spots I really want to see.
I have three months of vacation,
so I could extend my stay,
but my budget is also limited,
so I decided to keep it to one month,
and set a guideline of staying in each country for about 4 to 5 nights.
For me, the selection criteria are,
being able to experience entertainment like musicals
seeing historical buildings
That said,
this leads to,
watching musicals in London
mosques in Istanbul
Mont Saint-Michel
various cities in Italy
Sagrada Familia
which narrowed it down to five countries: the UK, Turkey, France, Italy, and Spain.
I also wanted to see the stunning views of Santorini in Greece and the famous peaks of Switzerland,
but I felt that beautiful scenery should be enjoyed slowly while sharing it with someone rather than on a solo trip,
so unfortunately, I rejected them.
Vienna also has historical buildings and is perfect for music appreciation,
but my preference at the time was leaning towards musicals,
and it is a bit far from Western Europe,
so Vienna was also rejected.
Round-trip route
Having decided on the five countries of the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Turkey,
the next step is to book round-trip tickets from Japan.
At this time, I had enough ANA miles saved up
for a round trip to Europe,
so I decided to fly with ANA.
Among the five countries, the ones with direct flights from ANA are
London, Paris, Milan, and Istanbul
I think there might be more direct flights if I used Star Alliance airlines,
but I decided to choose from ANA's direct flights.
Out of these four cities,
Istanbul is the only one located further east, so
I decided to make Istanbul either my arrival or departure point.
Paris is centrally located among the five countries,
and since it is a transit point to the UK,
I would be entering and leaving France, so I excluded it.
That leaves
either London or Milan.
When I was making this plan,
news had just come out about ANA's new routes to Milan and Istanbul, so
I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and use the Milan flight.
Now, as for whether to make Istanbul or Milan the arrival point,
well,
if I went to Istanbul,
I started thinking I would want to visit Cappadocia,
and since Cappadocia is far from Istanbul and requires travel,
I wanted to get the more difficult part out of the way first.
Therefore,
I booked my ticket with Istanbul as the arrival point from Japan,
and Milan as the departure point for my return home.
By the way, since I booked the ticket with miles,
I was able to save money on the round-trip airfare, paying only about 60,000 yen in fuel surcharges.