Maksym Shkurupii's Spring Break Grand Tour: London to Rome, the Long Beautiful Way

The brief sounded straightforward enough: two weeks, Spring Break, a family of four with 13-year-old twins, and a wish list that spanned three countries. But Maksym Shkurupii, a Victoria-based travel advisor, saw something most planners would have missed. On a map, "London, Paris, and Italy" isn't one trip — it's three. And most families in that position would either sacrifice a destination or spend half their holiday in airport queues.

Shkurupii did neither. Instead, he built a 14-night, 7-city, 4-country grand tour almost entirely by rail, at approximately $18,000 CAD all-in, and engineered the journey so that the travel days themselves became some of the most memorable moments of the trip. "No airport security lines between cities. No checked-bag roulette. Just station to station, city centre to city centre — with one of the world's most spectacular train journeys stitched right into the middle," he explains. That journey was the Bernina Express, and it would become the centrepiece of the entire itinerary.

London to Zurich: Setting the Pace

The family flew Air Canada overnight from Victoria via Toronto, landing at Heathrow at 8:30 am. Their home base for three nights was a two-bedroom serviced apartment in Westminster, walking distance from Big Ben. For Shkurupii, the choice of accommodation was deliberate. With teenagers, the apartment is the move: everyone gets space, the kitchen handles breakfasts, and the laundry means packing half as much. One anchor activity — the Warner Bros. Studio Tour, The Making of Harry Potter — had been reserved months in advance. The rest of London was left wide open for wandering.

From St Pancras, the Eurostar whisked the family to Paris in two hours and twenty-five minutes, saving an entire vacation day compared to flying. Three nights in the 16th arrondissement followed, on a quiet residential street ten minutes' walk from the Eiffel Tower. Disneyland Paris served as the city's pre-booked anchor, with crêpe stands, the Seine, and the tower itself left to spontaneous discovery. Then came a first-class TGV Lyria ride to Zurich — four seats facing each other around their own table on the upper deck, four and a half hours of countryside rolling past while the family played cards and watched Switzerland appear through the window.

The Move Most Planners Would Miss

After a restful night in Zurich, the family did something that looked, on paper, like a minor logistical detail. They took a short train to Chur, a small city in the Swiss canton of Graubünden, for a single overnight stay. It was, Shkurupii notes, "the single cheapest hotel night of the trip — and the one that protected the single best experience of the trip."

The reason was elegantly simple. The Bernina Express departs Chur at 8:17 am. Rather than face a pre-dawn scramble from Zurich, the family woke up five minutes from the platform, boarded rested, coffee in hand, and settled into four reserved seats in the panorama car — floor-to-ceiling glass on all sides. For four and a half hours, they crossed the Bernina Pass: glaciers pressing close against the windows, the famous Brusio spiral viaduct curling through the landscape below, frozen lakes sitting in silence at 2,253 metres. And then, in a single afternoon, palm trees appeared in Tirano, Italy. A UNESCO World Heritage railway, under $600 total for the family. The Chur positioning night, quiet and cheap and overlooked by most itineraries, was the invisible decision that made all of it possible.

Italy: Venice, Florence, and a Roman Finale

From Tirano the family continued by rail via Milan to Venice, where two nights awaited them in Cannaregio — the real, lived-in Venice north of the tourist crush, two minutes from the station, ten minutes' walk from the Rialto. A family-run hotel with breakfast included meant no morning hunt for food before boarding the next train south.

Florence was a single night done right: a family room near Santa Maria Novella, the Duomo at sunset, gelato, the Ponte Vecchio before the crowds arrived. Then ninety minutes south to Rome, where the trip exhaled. A two-bedroom apartment with a balcony in Monti, Rome's most storied neighbourhood, meant the Colosseum was ten minutes on foot and espresso bars were downstairs. The family had space to spread out and, finally, slow down. Wheels up from Rome at 12:25 pm on the final day had the kids in their own beds in Victoria by midnight.

The Invisible Work Underneath

A route like this looks simple in hindsight. Shkurupii is clear-eyed about what actually goes into it. Every train seat was reserved before the family left home — including the Club Four table on the TGV and all four panorama seats on the Bernina Express, both of which sell out months ahead in March. Apartments were chosen for the longer stays in London and Rome, where space and a kitchen pay dividends over several nights. Faster-moving middle cities got well-located rooms with breakfast included, so no morning was wasted. One-night stops in Zurich, Chur and Florence worked only because every hotel was chosen minutes from the station.

Only two activities across the entire trip were pre-booked: the Harry Potter Studio Tour and Disneyland Paris, "the two that genuinely sell out for Spring Break." With teenagers logging 15,000 to 20,000 steps a day, the freedom to wander, Shkurupii believes, is the itinerary. The open-jaw flights — into London, home from Rome — meant the route never doubled back on itself, not even once.

Who This Trip Is Built For

This itinerary rewards families with curious, energetic teenagers who thrive on variety rather than repetition, and parents willing to trust that movement itself can be part of the joy. It suits travellers who understand that a great advisor doesn't just book things — they sequence them. The Chur night alone, an idea that a self-booking family would almost certainly never find, illustrates why professional design makes the difference between a good trip and a genuinely extraordinary one. Families expecting resort-style stillness, or travellers who find multi-city packing stressful, would be better served by a different shape of trip entirely.

The broader lesson Shkurupii takes from this experience is one he now applies across his practice: the transit is part of the product. "With teenagers and 15–20,000 steps a day, the freedom to wander is the itinerary." That philosophy — hold the anchors lightly, engineer the journey, let the spaces in between breathe — is as transferable to Japan as it is to Europe, as relevant for a couple as for a family of four.

What Comes Next

Having personally traced this route and validated every decision it contains, Shkurupii says the experience has permanently changed how he presents it. He can now describe the exact quality of light through panorama glass above the Bernina Pass. He knows what Cannaregio smells like in the morning before the gondoliers arrive. He can tell a family precisely why waking up in Chur matters, and make them believe it, because he has done it himself.

As for his own wish list, Shkurupii is already looking east. Japan and South Korea are next on his itinerary — and if his approach to European rail travel is any guide, clients can expect a masterclass in thoughtful design to follow. "A route like this looks simple," he says. "Here's the invisible work underneath it." That invisible work, it turns out, is exactly what sets the best travel advisors apart.