10 days in Europe, Paris (one week) + Northern Italy

You can always make the case to spend more time in these fabulous destinations.

But I think your plan is great.

I, too, think the itinerary looks fine and well-allotted for your time frame.

The only part of the plan I might be a little wary of is your last day when you'd travel from Vernazza to Milan to fly home. It's an awful lot of travel in one day with the approximately 3 hour (?) train from Vernazza to Milan and then a transatlantic flight. We did something similar one year, traveling from Sorrento to Rome to catch our flight and it was a looooonnnngggg day (and we were only flying to Chicago). The other thing to consider is that Italian rail is prone to strikes...

But perhaps someone who has done the CT - Milan - North America-bound flight can weigh in from personal experience.

Either way, hope you have a great trip!

I agree with Angela about giving yourselves plenty of time to get to Malpensa. It's wise to be there three hours before a flight across the Atlantic.

If you leave Vernazza at 04:51 and connect in Monterosso, you'll arrive at Milano Centrale at 08:20.

The scheduled travel time for buses from Milano Centrale to Malpensa is 50 minutes.

If you can't get to Malpensa with good time to spare on Sunday morning, you'll need to spend Saturday night in Milano.

Thank you all very much for commenting. I suspected that coupling a trip to Milan and flight home in the same day was long and risky. I'll adjust.

Thanks!

-Lou

looks like a good plan to me. One suggestion is to consider taking a guided tour in Venice and Florence (not a private tour, but a scheduled one). Personally I've found that the tours are very informative and a better way to get a sense of the history of a place and understanding what you're seeing than walking around following a few pages out of a guide book. The tour companies recommended in the RS book are pretty good. In Paris they also have those get-on-get-off buses; I don't get off, but like riding around a new city the 1st day I arrive to get a sense of the layout of things and so I can recognize where I am later on foot.