TravelCharika

Western Europe

The classic first trip to Europe, from the Atlantic to the Channel. 5 stops, 2,602 km end to end as the crow flies.

London
Photo by Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
May, June and August are a sweet spot at every one of these 5 destinations.

The stops, in order

Month by month

Place JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Lisbon 14° 15° 16° 19° 22° 24° 26° 27° 25° 22° 17° 15°
Barcelona 12° 14° 15° 17° 20° 25° 27° 28° 24° 21° 16° 14°
Paris 7° 10° 13° 16° 20° 24° 26° 26° 22° 17° 11° 9°
Amsterdam 6° 8° 10° 13° 17° 20° 21° 22° 19° 15° 10° 8°
London 7° 9° 11° 14° 18° 21° 23° 22° 19° 15° 11° 9°
Sweet spots 000255451010

Each cell is that destination's own verdict for the month — sweet spot, ok or avoid — with its typical daily high, from the same ten years of climate readings its page is built from. A dot marks a busy month. The last row counts the sweet spots, and the best months are marked.

Between the stops

Lisbon → Barcelona 994 km, about 2h 08m in the air
Nonstop, about 14 a day · 5 airlines
By bus: about 11h 34m · BlaBlaCar Bus · AVE 03191
Barcelona → Paris 841 km, about 1h 57m in the air
By train: about 7h 19m · TGV INOUI 9708 · 1
By bus: about 8h 50m · FlixBus N728 · TGV INOUI 6920
By road: 1,058 km, about 10h 14m
Paris → Amsterdam 420 km, about 1h 26m in the air
Nonstop, about 13 a day · 4 airlines
By train: about 3h 57m · EST 9321 · B
By road: 504 km, about 5h 21m
Amsterdam → London 347 km, about 1h 20m in the air
By train: about 4h 47m · EST 9133 · 24
By road: 539 km, about 7h 50m

Distances are great-circle and the flight time is estimated from them. A road, train or bus line is listed only where it was measured — flights from AeroDataBox, roads from OpenRouteService, trains and buses from public timetables via Transitous — and none of it is a fare; the searches on each stop's page are where prices live.

Trips that share stops

Every verdict here is the destination's own: ten years of climate readings, the public holidays that crowd it, and what the flight costs. Nothing is said about Western Europe as a whole that was not first measured at each place in it.