We present deep echelle spectrophotometry of the Galactic HII regions M16, M20 and NGC 3603. The data have been taken with the Very Large Telescope Ultraviolet-Visual Echelle Spectrograph in the 3100-10400{AA} range. We have detected more than 200 emission lines in each region. Physical conditions have been derived using different continuum and line intensity ratios. We have derived He^+^, C^++^ and O^++^ abundances from pure recombination lines as well as collisionally excited lines (CELs) for a large number of ions of different elements.