1 month in Europe with kids

Remember that your first and last days in Rueope will be wasted days--going to and from your hotel. And every time you move from city to city will also be a wasted day.

The best time to avoid Paris will be two weeks before and two weeks after the Olympics--whenever they'll be there. I'd go as far away from there as possible during the Olympics.

A month sounds as if it's a long time, but your list of desired cities to see is long. Have you considered taking a cruise of the Mediterranean during your trip? You could get on a ship in Athens, see the Greek Islands and other cities/countries in the Eastern Med and end up in Italy.

For Italy, I suggest trying to take the "big 3" cities in 2 weeks alone--Rome, Florence and Venice. All are important travel cities and worthy of 4 days each.

Paris and London are easily traveled between on the Eurostar in less than 3 hrs. Both cities are worthy of 5 day minimums.

Other alternative great cities are Budapest, Vienna and Prague--easily reached by train. We also very much enjoy Madrid and Barcelona. There's a fast train going from Paris to Barcelona too--less than 7 hours.

I suggest you get one of Rick Steves' comprehensive travel books to see what interests you. Europe is larger than many people realize, and you need to travel as efficiently as possible. We have long ago begun to travel slower--and have seen so much more.

What do you mean by "No critics"? Do you not want people telling you the idea in general is a bad idea? Or do you not want any critiques - which I would call well-informed suggestions - to your plan? If that's the case, then this all looks good, your plan is great, yay!

But if you want to utilize the full force of this forum -

1) What do your kids like? History, science, art. Do they like museums? Would they rather be active outside?
2) How and why did you pick these destinations? What draws you to them? That will also help us get to know you and give more specific advice.
3) Do you have exact dates set yet, or is this just a general time frame? I'm guessing it's 4-5 weeks? If that's the case, I would do a week in each LOCATION (not country).

Personally, I would not step foot into ANY part of France this summer, but that's just me. The Olympics start on July 26th, but I think it's a safe bet that the city will be crowded well before then. The athletes and staff will be in in the weeks before. For me, it sounds like a nightmare, but I know others will say that it's worth it got the excitement and atmosphere. You mileage may vary, so do what's best for your family.

I would, though, suggest starting in London. This way you don't have to "backtrack" to Britain and then come back to the Continent. We spent eight days in London last years (boys were 10 and basically 8) and loved it. I'm happy to give more details about that if you want; I also wrote a long trip report that's posted on here.

Looking at your list, I would do 5 days to a week in London, then take the Chunnel - sorry, EUROSTAR - to Paris for another 5 days to a week. Part of me says make sure you are out by the 26th, but again, I really don't think it will make much of a difference if you are there on the 21st or 28th. Train to the French Riviera, rent a house and RELAX. London and Paris are big ticket items. This is a long trip; pace yourself and build in some relax time. Then train to Venice (looks like it takes 8.5 hours and passes through Milan; maybe stay a few nights in Milan?) and end in Rome. Depending on time and interest, add Florence?

Portugal and Greece are geographic outliers and shouldn't be included here.

I'll also add that an alternative would be to go London-Paris-Alsace-Southern Germany/Austria (Munich, Salzburg, maybe Vienna). But that's just me. Southern France and Italy will be HOT, although I've heard that Italy is actually better in August than July. And with global warming and heat waves, you're likely to be hot in Munich, too.

Hope this helps!

I will add to the great comments from your first two posters.

Minimize travel time. Don't try to see a city like London in 2-3 days.

Plan your trip by RESEARCHING things to do per each location on TripAdvisor. You will probably find out that for a city like London, Paris or Rome than you will want to spend more time there after you do your research.

One month is not enough to do justice to the long list of places you mentioned.
A few years ago, we did FOUR weeks JUST in Great Britain (England and Wales ONLY). We didn't even go to London except to the airport.

Pick 2 or perhaps 3 countries, preferably close together. You could do London, Paris and the French Riveria on a trip.
You need about three weeks to do justice to Italy, doing Rome, Florence and Venice as well as the Naples area and a few cities like Ravenna, Bologna, Pisa, Lucca and Sienna.

As for kids ages 4 to 6, consider leaving them at home with grandparents. I did travel in Europe with my kids, starting with my 5 year old son and 11 year old daughter. Any kid under 10 will be ready to leave any museum you visit after 20 minutes.
My son still don't remember much of where we visited before he turned 10.

Things my kids liked was going up the Eiffel Tower, a Seine River cruise, gondola ride in Venice and especially the Sistine Chapel.

We took our 6 & 9 year old grandkids and their parents to England and Ireland for 3 weeks last year and they loved it, museums and all. Our lessons learned, don’t try to do too much in one day and stay in one place for minimum 3 days (London was 6 days, not including travel) but all kids are different and only you know how they travel. London is great for kids, The Museum of Natural History, Scholastic kids cruise on the Thames, whole variety of kids’s teas, Tower of London, Diana’s children’s park, Harry Potter. Shakespeare Theater family tour. We saw the Lion King play. With the amount of countries you want to include, you might think about how much planning it’s going to take and how much time you’re going to have to spend getting from place to place. Europe really is not small.

Thinking of taking about 4 to 6 days per country,including travel. Will it be sufficient?

Are you kidding? In places like London, Paris and Berlin you will even not scratch the surface of the cities with 4-6 days - and you have not seen the rest of these countries which are all by the way extremely manifold and heterogenous in itself. London for example has culturally nearly nothing in common with the rest of England which has only partially commons with the United Kingdom.

Amd sure you can do this and you will be exhausted by all what you see and eat but been there on a map point does not mean that you have visited a country.

I would allow 8 days for London and to also take the train to York, where your sons would probably enjoy walking on the city walls. If your sons are into Harry Potter, you need to go to Warner Brothers Studios but will need to reserve long in advance. If your sons don't have regular access to a good Natural History Museum, the one in London is a must, as is the British Museum with the mummies.
As much as I love Florence, I would not advise you to go there because it's primarily a place for art lovers. Or let the parent who's an art-lover take a day trip to Florence from Venice without the other spouse and the boys. Rome will be hot and very crowded for your dates. I think Greece and Portugal are too far away from the places you have already prioritized.
If you haven't reserved flights yet, I would fly into London and out of Venice. Or possibly fly to Venice from London, then Venice to Paris and home from Paris. This would put Paris at the end of your trip, when maybe the Olympics will be over?

Of course they will critizise you LOL. Its only good manners and dictatated by the forum rules. ( Be unfailingly polite. )

Paris and including London, French Riviera, Venice, and hesitating in
also including Rome Greece or Portugal. Thinking of taking about 4 to
6 days per country,

Sounds fine to me. I would start in London though and I guess depart home out of Rome. So, London to Paris by train then there is a fast train to Marseille followed by a not so fast train to Venice that for all practical purposes would work better if you spent a few nights in Milan. Or fly Marseille to Venice, there are a few non-stops a week. From venice the train to Rome, then Home.

Sweet Trip

Please forgive me if you've already done this, but to put a firm foundation under your planning and flesh out what others have said, both you and your adult travel partner would benefit from devouring the information available right here online including the following:

Travel Tips for European travel basics, and especially to learn about what you didn't know that you need to know. https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips

Explore Europe for information on the places you want to go, especially what there is to see and do there. https://www.ricksteves.com/europe

Our Tours for examples of the itineraries used for the Rick Steves tours.
https://www.ricksteves.com/tours These can provide highlights that may be useful. Those tours move quickly because all the logistics are already worked out and the transportation is primarily by bus. Taking planes and trains which will be slower.

Speaking of trains, the Man in Seat 61 (https://www.seat61.com/index.html) has good advice on using them. You can find information on the Eurostar there.

These are links specifically to the Beginner's Guides to Train Travel in:

France -- https://www.seat61.com/train-travel-in-france.htm

Italy -- https://www.seat61.com/train-travel-in-italy.htm

With your family of 4, you might find renting an apartment an option if finding a hotel room for the 4 of you is problematic. You can use Booking.com to find something appropriate. When you put in the number of adults and kids on the opening search page, it will ask you to list the ages of the kids. At the ages of 6 and 9 they both should count as kids. In Europe everybody counts. You risk being thrown out of the hotel if you don't include everyone who will be staying in the room.

You can filter by all kinds of criteria, including price and location. Many folks on the Forums use Booking.com to identify possible places to stay, but then check with the hotel directly to book. Sometimes that leads to a better room at a cheaper price. If AC is important to you, be sure to verify that the lodgings you're considering have it. Many, even in the south of France and Italy, won't. It will be even rarer in London and Paris.

I agree that Greece and Portugal are outliers and starting in London makes more logistical sense than in Paris. Based on my experience, it would be much more efficient to fly from home nonstop to London, Eurostar from England to Paris, fast train from Paris to your city choice in the south, fast train or fly from there to Venice, fast train from Venice to Rome, and fly home nonstop from Rome. Using Google Flights, you can look for the basic multi-city flights for the four of you to London and back home from Rome. If you decide to fly from the south of France to Italy, using an intra-European airline with separate tickets from the other flights will be cheaper for the 4 of you, possibly cheaper than taking the train.

You no doubt already know that y'all will travel at the pace of the slowest one in your group. Also make sure all of you have up-to-date passports with expiration dates far enough in the future for the countries you'll be visiting.

Finally, budgets are subjective things. If you do the research with the sources linked, you'll get a better idea of the possible actual costs for your group. I also think your time budget is insufficient, even if you cut Portugal and Greece. If you feel like you can't cut anything else, you'll need to be very selective in setting priorities for things to see and do in each city. Also your arrival city will be a blur unless you allow enough nights to get over jetlag and to see and do your priorities there.

Having traveled with a 10 year old I would say less is more. I would pick 2cplaces and do 2 weeks each. We did London and York. Train museums city walls ghost tours were great did playground breaks did steam trains. What does he remember...the Day i let him ride every underground line and the toilet exhibit .
Did Venice Florence Pisa and via Reggio ( Beach resorts when he was older.

I would start at your southern most point and work northward to try to avoid the worst of the heat. Probably only marginal help, but every little bit helps

I would avoid Paris, unless you want the experience of the Olympic mob scene.

Any ideas for possible itinerary on budget please?

What 'budget'?

The US Federal 'budget' is in excess of 3 trillion dollars of annual spending

Sounds like a lot of fun! While it was quite sometime ago, we took our kids on a European vacation when they were around that age. They loved London-- British Museum, Science Museum, Harry Potter's Platform 9¾, an oxford harry potter tour, globe theater tour and st paul's. They didn't like the national gallery much and couldn't get into the changing of the guards. In Paris, the loved Eiffel tower, seine boat ride, struggled with art museums again. The loved walking around Venice. Pantheon and colosseum in Rome were big hits. The loved Barcelona. They loved the train rides, flights and driving trips for the most part and were happier moving city to city rather than lingering longer in one place. Hikes and city walks and big cathedrals always were enjoyed! We sought out playgrounds. Sometimes food was challenging as they missed comfort dishes. Gelato solves all problems though! Beaches were also always a winner even when the swimming was iffy.

I have no advice about dodging the olympics (or embracing them!) Sorry.

Have a great trip.