11 days in Europe... where to go?!

How about London - Paris - Amsterdam? If you can commit to a specific date and time, you can purchase advance tickets much more inexpensively for the Eurostar train service b/n London and Paris (~2h30m; $63), and Thalys train service for Paris and Amsterdam (~3h15m; €35). You have to purchase those tickets ASAP, though, or the price will continue to rise :-( You might also investigate flying b/n those cities, but I doubt the time savings would be there, and the trains are much more relaxing. Good job on booking those open-jaw tickets! EDIT If you looked into flying b/n cities, you could do London - Rome (or wherever) - Amsterdam.

From Paris you could rent a car for a couple days and go to Normandy, as well as visit Bayeaux and a couple other locations up that way.

You are right. To see all these cities in just 11 days is probably still technically possible but certainly not enjoyable. In 11 days I would do just London, Paris and Amsterdam. Easy fast train connection between them. Travel time between London to Paris and Paris to Amsterdam is just little over three hours so it makes sense logistically. I would leave 4 days for London, 4 for Paris and 3 for Amsterdam. To get to Dublin, Rome or Florence would be logistically more complicated, you would have to fly, resp. take night train (if there is any) and that would take a lot of time from your sightseeing.

This is a duplicate request. Do London, take the Eurostar to Paris and fly to Amsterdam. You're not there long enough to do Italy and Ireland in that short amount of time.

London > Paris > Amsterdam, all by train. This is a whirlwind itinerary--you won't be able to do justice to these great places, but you will get a real taste. Absolutely, you do not have time for anything else.

Thank you all so much for the information & suggestions, it's much appreciated! It sounds like 3 places is probably the most doable in our time frame. I'll have to talk to my friend and see what she thinks and then try to figure out an itinerary. Keep the suggestions coming :) Thanks again!
Jason

11 fulll days, max three sleeping places to me.. moving takes time. Even a 2-3 hour train ride is a full half day gone. Get up , pack, eat( or grab a snack at least) get to train station ( this can take from 10 minutes to 30 minutes, where are you staying?), i like to be about 20 minutes early at least to find my way around. Train rides( from Paris to London is 2.5 hours with minimum check in time of 30 minutes but having done it 4 times, make it at 45-60 minutes, there is security and it can have lines) from Amsterdam to Paris was abit more then 3 hours as I recall..( no sucurity there though) .. then arriving , finding your transport to hotel, check in, now you are free for rest of day, assuming you have taken a morning train, you now have 1/2 day left,, and likely want lunch! lol So you can see that it will work out to 3.5 to max 4 days in each spot, which in my opinion is a nice short taste of three amazing cities( whether you choose Paris, Berlin Amsterdam or Paris London Amsterdam) .. PS if you fly from place to place you will spend more time in transit as airports usually require 1.5 hours for check in ( for inter-europeon flights) and airports are not in city centers so longer comutes to and from airports.

I have no problem moving around a lot - over Christmas we visited Munch, Verona, Venice, Bologna, and Milan (eight nights). But those locals aren't so far flung - I would be weary of getting myself from Dublin to Florence and up to Amsterdam for return flight.

If you are in your mid-20's, you probably won't mind walking a lot and moving a little fast in order to see more. There is a lot to see in London, so even if you've been there before, you'd still want to stay at least 2-3 nights. I just came back from Europe last week, and I visited 3 cities in 8 days. That pace was just a little too slow for me. (I'm also in my mid 20's.) You could do London (2 days) - train to Paris (2 days) - fly to Florence (1 or 2 days) - Rome (3 days at least) - Amsterdam (2 days). If you really don't have time, go to Rome but maybe not Florence, although it is a very beautiful city.