Europe's
climate is as variable as
everything else about the Continent. In
northwestern
Europe - Benelux, Denmark, southwestern
Norway, most of France and parts of Germany,
as well as the British Isles - the climate
is basically a cool temperate one, with the
chance of rain all year round and no great
extremes of either cold or hot weather.
There is no bad time to travel in most of
this part of the Continent, although the
winter months between November and March can
be damp and miserable - especially in the
upland regions - and obviously the summer
period between May and September sees the
most reliable and driest weather.
In eastern Europe , on the other
hand, basically to the right of a
north-south line drawn roughly through the
heart of Germany and extending down as far
as the western edge of Bulgaria (taking in
eastern Germany, Poland, central Russia, the
Baltic states, southern Sweden, the Czech
and Slovak republics, Austria, Switzerland,
Hungary and Romania), the climatic
conditions are more extreme, with freezing
winters and sometimes sweltering summers.
Here the transitional spring and autumn
seasons are the most pleasant time to
travel; deep midwinter, especially, can be
very unpleasant, although it doesn't have
the dampness you associate with the
northwestern European climate.
Southern Europe , principally the
countries that border the Mediterranean and
associated seas - southern France, Italy,
Spain, Portugal, Greece and western Turkey -
has the most hospitable climate in Europe,
with a general pattern of warm, dry summers
and mild winters. Travel is possible at any
time of year here, although the peak summer
months can be very hot and very busy and the
deep winter ones can see some rain.
There are, too, marked regional
variations within these three broad
groupings. As they're such large countries,
inland Spain and France can, for example,
see a continental type of weather as
extreme as any in central Europe, and the
Alpine areas of Italy, Austria and
Switzerland - and other mountain areas
like the Pyrenees, Apennines and parts of
the Balkans - have a climate mainly
influenced by altitude, which means extremes
of cold, short summers, and long winters
that always see snow. There are also, of
course, the northern regions of Russia and
Scandinavia, which have an Arctic climate
- again, bitterly cold, though with some
surprisingly warm temperatures during the
short summer when much of the region is
warmed by the Gulf Stream. Winter sees the
sun barely rise at all in these areas, while
high summer can mean almost perpetual
daylight.
There are obviously other considerations
when deciding when to go . If you're
planning to visit fairly touristed areas,
especially beach resorts in the
Mediterranean, avoid July and August, when
the weather can be too hot and the crowds at
their most congested. Bear in mind, also,
that in a number of countries in Europe
everyone takes their vacation at the
same time (this is certainly true in France,
Spain and Italy where everyone goes away in
August). Find out the holiday month
beforehand for the countries where you
intend to travel, since you can expect the
crush to be especially bad in the resorts;
in the cities the only other people around
will be fellow tourists, which can be
miserable. In northern Scandinavia the
climatic extremes are such that you'll find
opening times severely restricted, even road
and rail lines closed, outside the
May-September period, making travel futile
and sometimes impossible outside these
months. In mountainous areas things stay
open for the winter sports season, which
lasts from December through to April, though
outside the main resorts you'll again find
many things closed. Mid-April to mid-June
can be a quiet period in many mountain
resorts, and you may have much of the
mountains to yourselves.
