i'm thinking of doing one of the european tours late Dec to start Jan..... wanna fit christmas and new years into the tour...

but am scared of how cold it'll be...

from sydney, australia.... so not really used to european winter's...

anyone been at a similar time??

how bad is it ?

I did it last year wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. And I came from Cairns.

Flew out of Cairns on boxing day and spent new years there. (But I was only in Italy - Simply Italy tour)

Just pack warm colths, make sure you have and good warm jacket, gloves and beanie (blocks the wind from your ears) or you can what until you get over there and buy those things, there are stalls everywhere if your at a tourist attraction. They also make great soveneirs.

The coldest place we went to was venice, the town we stayed still had snow on the ground from a fewe week before we were there. Around (-3c)

Depends on were you are going each country over there is defferent, if you going to the Alps for example there will be snow, the south of italy/greece the temperature will be warmer.

Watch the SBS world news they do a world weather reports, so you can get an idea of the tempreature before you go.

hey Jen,

thanks for that...

i'm thinking doing Europe Vista or inspirations.... so that covers a few countries.... France, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Belgium

i read layering is a good idea.... as indoors its usually warm, but outdoors is cold...

think i'm just gonna bite the bullet, and do it...

Kav,
Its best to choose a departure in early december and finish off close to christmas.You will still get to experience the festive atmosphere. Christmas markets tend to open around 2 weeks prior.

Europe in early winter is quite comfortable a bit like our mid winters but heading towards Jan the daylight is extremely short( possibly as low as 6-7 hours of partial daylight) and it tends to rain or snow a fair bit.Its not that pleasant to travel in those conditions.

The Western European countries will be quite wet, cold but the Alpine and Eastern European countries will be very cold,dark and snow quite heavily during that timeframe.Mediterrenean Europe is like winter in Australia.

Check historical almanac on www.wunderground.com

Also the cost of the airfares is something to consider. Closer to Christmas the airfares to Europe are the most expensive- even more expensive that peak summer prices.Early Dec will still have the shoulder prices for airfares.