8 Key Things I did During My European Summer

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I never really thought or planned on having a European summer, as it were, but I found myself on a coach with 30+ strangers gallivanting around Europe and the Balkans one year, in the height of summer.

It was busy, crowded (we were part of the problem), and sweaty beyond belief, buuuuuut we had a lot of fun!

If you’ve been planning your European summer trip or you’ve thought about it for future years, then I’ve put together a round-up of some of the things we did on our 5-week trip that I would definitely recommend you do. They’re not cities to visit or specific places to go, but they’re broader in their themes and things we did a lot of.

Eat gelato…like all of it

Italy and France, especially. But I feel like we ate the most gelato in Italy. Our European summer adventures took us to Venice, Florence, Rome, Verona, Pisa, and Pompeii, specifically, before we headed to Greece. And in every place we stopped and even on some of the road trip stops, gelato was a must.

We even went to a famous gelato shop in Venice and devoured deliciously cold gelato on what was one of the hottest days we had on the trip. 10/10 gelato though. A must!

Enjoy local food

In a similar vein, while you can find the comforts of home in most places around Europe, don’t do it. You’re there to experience Europe and all the wonders that it brings, which means trying things like souvlaki and burek and not just settling for McDonald’s.

There were so many yummy dishes we tried, everywhere from Switzerland (cheese fondue, hello!) through France, Italy, Greece, through the Balkan nations and up into Germany and the Netherlands. Of course, many of them were things we could also enjoy at home, like fresh tomatoes, feta, olives etc. But other things were new to me/many of us, and it was really fun to be able to try different cultures’ food and flavours.

Swim in the Mediterranean Sea

Now I’m not a huge swimmer, but when you’re spending three nights on Mykonos at a resort, you absolutely must don the togs / swimmers / whatever you call them in your country, and jump on in.

The water was beautiful, and while I didn’t stay in long, many of our group were in and out numerous times in the 2 full days we were there.

Visit lesser-known places

We mostly hit up the major cities and towns during our European summer, and most of the places we went, you’d probably recognise. But there were a few that we either spent the morning or afternoon in, or even stayed in, that were less-known places.

And I’ve done this before too, actually. When I went to Portugal with my family back in 2013, we stayed on the Algarve, but we did a bit of a road trip one day and checked out some of the smaller inland towns that we simply spotted on the map and decided to visit.

During the Contiki tip, one of my favourite places we visited was Lauterbrunnen, a small town in the Swiss Alps, near Jungfrau mountain. It was small, quaint, and while Contiki always stays there, and so the town is very well known to Contiki groups (and the town is familiar with having young people from Australia, New Zealand, America and more through their town), it’s not a major city like Geneva.

We headed up to the popular Jungfrau mountain, but then had some time to just wander through the streets of Lauterbrunnen, and it was really cool. Now, you’re unlikely to be climbing up mountains or being in colder climates for your Euro summer trip like we did, but the point still stands: see if you can visit lesser-known places.

Utilise free things

You’re probably going to be on a budget for your Euro summer, right? Unless you’ve saved up a lot of money to throw caution to the wind and really dive into Europe HARD with your money … you’re probably going to be watching the bills a bit.

There are so many amazing things you can do for free in Europe, especially if you love the outdoors.

Quick-fire ideas: 

• Wandering the city
• Finding lookouts (like this one we found in Nice)
• Exploring the local parks
• Heading to the beach
• Check out any national parks or lakes (we went to Lake Bled and it was stunning!)
• Visit famous landmarks (like the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Trevi Fountain)
• Some museums and art galleries are free – do a google to see which ones

Pay for some things

But then obviously pay for the things you really want to do. You’re not in Europe every day, so if you wanna see something, see it.

Lots of activities on Contiki were pre-arranged, and we could opt in or opt out, obviously paying for those that we wanted to do. If you’re a history buff, then you’ll want to pay for things like the Parthenon in Athens, or getting into the Colosseum in Rome. Perhaps checking out the clifftop monasteries in Meteora is on your bucketlist. Or the Louvre in Paris.

But make sure you plan ahead to make sure you buy tickets early so you’re guaranteed you can get in. Europe is busy in the summer!

Do walking tours

Either book a walking tour if you’re one for the history and culture of a new place (and you don’t want to just be sitting on the beach for your European summer), or you can often find free self-guided walking tours online.

When we were in Barcelona, our tour guide wasn’t allowed to do a proper tour through the Gothic Quarter due to tour guide laws, but what she could do was write us up a self-guided document, and we could take that and do it ourselves. And it was really cool, being able to stop and pause along the way and look at certain buildings or architectural elements and read a bit about them.

Stop along your roadtrips

If you’re road tripping your Euro summer, then get in some extra time to stop on a whim. There are stunning views everywhere, interesting monuments and historical points … it’s well worth pulling over and stopping if you have the time.

There were a few places we stopped at on our Contiki coach trip that were planned, like seeing the Monument to Leonidas and the 300 Spartans in Thermopylae (even though it was under construction when we were there), but if you’re road tripping yourself and not part of a tour, just see what takes your interest on the way.

So! There we have it! Just some of the broad, sweeping things we did on our European summer trip. It was so so worth it, despite the heat (and at times, bitter cold when we were up mountains in Austria and Swizterland haha), it was one of the best holidays I’ve had.

If you’re planning a Euro summer trip, I’d love to hear about it! Where are you going? What are you hoping to do?