If You Have Two Months in Italy and Europe
Western Europe is about one-third the size of the continental United States. Imagine Portugal, all the way at Europe's western edge, being where the state of Texas is on a United States map. The toe of Italy's “boot” would be where the southern tip of Florida is. Vienna would be atop Raleigh, North Carolina; Hamburg would be around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Paris would be in southern Illinois.
If someone told you that you could start in Texas and spend two months making your way in a giant circle from Texas to Florida, north to Pennsylvania, and over to Illinois, you would understand that the distances make sense. The same is true for seeing Italy and much else in Europe. It sounds like a big journey, but over the course of two months' time, you can squeeze in a lot of sights.
Even better, the luxury of having two whole months to explore Italy and Europe means you can take all the extra time you want to move beyond Italy's major cities and into its villages before crossing the border and exploring not just adjacent European nations, but others beyond them. If you make it to Paris with a week still left in your schedule, then you can easily take the train to world-famous cities such as Barcelona and Madrid in Spain, Lisbon in Portugal, and Brussels in Belgium. It's less than a day's train travel between each of these cities, putting many of them within reach depending on how much time you leave in your schedule after departing from Italy.
Alert
Great Britain's trains do not operate as part of the Eurail pass network. There is a high-speed train that you can take from France to England through the underwater Chunnel, but you will have to buy a separate ticket. Eurostar (
Or, if you go in the direction of Croatia and Greece, you can extend your journey eastward beyond Athens into the Greek Isles. High-speed ferries connect many of the Greek islands to one another, giving you even more opportunities to see the ruins of Roman civilization. You might even make the short crossing from, say, the island of Rhodes over to the southern coast of Turkey, where even more archaeological treasures from the beginning of civilization are within easy touring distance of the major port cities such as Marmaris and Bodrum.
You might even make time to go north into Turkey and tour the ancient city of Ephesus before catching a flight home from Istanbul — which many centuries ago was known as Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire. A full-circle journey, indeed.
