2 weeks, 4 countries, HELP!

Mid March of this year? Like in the next couple of weeks? I hope not, as that doesn't leave much time!

How much time do you actually have? Meaning how many nights will you actually be in Europe? For the sake of assisting you without this information I will assume you will be gone from home for 2 weeks. So that's 14 nights. Note that it's easier to plan by how many nights you will be somewhere. Okay then, that is actually 13 nights, as you will arrive in Europe the day after you leave the U.S. That's assuming you are coming from the U.S. Your profile doesn't say where you're from. You also can't count the day you leave. So you would really have 13 nights with 12 days. Every 2 nights somewhere gives you one full day. You want to go to 5 major cities in 4 countries. That would give you less than 3 nights in each city, or just over a day. And then you have to account for transportation time between these places. If you are flying in to Frankfurt but don't want to spend time there what was your plan? Frankly, with the time you have you should forget about Italy. You don't have time. Since you have to end up in London to fly home, I would suggest you take the train from Frankfurt to Paris, spend half of your time there, then take the Eurostar train to spend the remainder of your time in London. You would have an adequate time to do those places justice and maybe do a day trip from each of them.
Maybe if you could provide more information it would help others to answer your questions.

I wish you'd have run your itinerary past this forum prior to purchasing your airline tickets.
Unfortunately, Andrea's right about the best bang for your buck--given the limited time you have. You don't want to cut your time short in Paris and London--two premier travel cities.
If you had a couple of more days (than 14 days), I'd say take the train over to Munich, and spend 3 days.

Then take a day train down to Venice and spend two nights.

From Venice, you can fly cheap on EasyJet.com to Paris for 3-4 nights.
The Eurostar fast train can get you from Paris to London in less than 3 hours. Spend the balance of your time there.
This itinerary is possible, but it's still a rush trip.
Save Rome for a later trip. You could spend a week there easily.
Sorry you're not big museum people, but Paris and London's most popular museums are must see's.
I would suggest you figure out your itinerary, and then read about those cities on the incredible Wikipedia to decide what interests you.

I've never visited this forum before, so I wasn't sure what details to post.

We are arriving into Frankfurt around 9am on March 19th of this year. I know it's short notice.

We depart London on April 2nd. We are in Europe for a total of 14 nights.
We only plan to spend 1 night in Munich and travel to Venice on the 2nd night for 3 nights there. 2 nights in Rome, 4 nights in Paris, 4 nights in London.

I'm thinking of telling hubs that we need to pick between Venice and Rome or shorten our time there so that we can spend more time in Paris and London.

We realize it's a lot for a short amount of time, but we're going to make the most of it.

Thanks!

Have you already arranged for transportation between these destinations? What do you hope to see in Munich? It's a lot of effort to get there to spend only a few hours. Figure it will take you a half day or longer every time you change cities.

Skip Munich and Rome.

@ chott

"We depart London on April 2nd. We are in Europe for a total of 14 nights.
We only plan to spend 1 night in Munich and travel to Venice on the 2nd night for 3 nights there. 2 nights in Rome, 4 nights in Paris, 4 nights in London.
I'm thinking of telling hubs that we need to pick between Venice and Rome or shorten our time there so that we can spend more time in Paris and London.
We realize it's a lot for a short amount of time, but we're going to make the most of it.
Thanks!

good luck and happy trails.

also, let us know how it works out for your trip and winging it.

I know that many folks are commenting on the transportation aspect of your trip -- so I'll focus there, assuming that you're looking for suggestions on cities to visit vs. things to do in those cities. I'm also guessing that you're either using FF miles or got a great airfare, so perhaps were restricted on that front to the selected citiies.

If you're set on those cities (Munich, Venice, Rome, Paris, and London), then the goal becomes a matter of making the transportation between the cities as easy and smooth as possible - maybe even paying more to do it. Night trains? Airlines (you'll lose a day)? Experience trains to get you point A-to-point B?

If you're willing to remove cities off of the list, then you've received a variety of suggestions. I've spent a week in London and 4 days in Rome (different trips...and other cities as well). I haven't been to Munich, Venice or Paris before -- and I have made decisions to drop desired cities off of a list as I decided that it was too much logistically (which I think others are pointing out).

Regardless, I think that I would keep an interesting city in or near Frankfurt/towards whereever you go next as Night 1 of your trip -- in my opinion, I always sort of expect something to go wrong with travel and need flex on Night 1. You need about 24 hours flexibility time for things to go wrong (in my opinion). I don't know enough about Frankfurt/Munich/etc. to advise on that. I'd probably look for something with good transportation connections to your next city.

If you're wiling to consider different cities - consider keeping it in Northern Europe for ease of travel -- a few days in Germany, and 3 or 4 days in/around each of London and Paris. You might also decide that London and Paris are gateway cities that you'd more easily get back - and elect to do a day in Germany and go immediately to Venice, Rome, and spend a final few days in London.

Bottom line, I think that you should either focus on London and Paris OR Italy and London. It's a tough call -- I love Italy -- but I think that I'd probably do the Northern Europe thing.

I think you are correct in working with your husband to choose between Venice or Rome. While I don't mind fast-pace travel, 1 night in Munich and 2 nights in Rome don't appeal to me. Another note is that you may want to consider flying between a few of your destinations instead of taking the train (as it will eat up your whole day Munich --> Venice/Rome and --> Paris). You could take a night train, but some will warn you that it is hard to get a good night's sleep on them. See which city (Rome or Venice) appeals more to you, what you're interested in. Compare prices (look at skyscanner.com for flights) and think about convenience/the amount of time these train trips would take for Munich to Italy and Italy to Paris. Then take the Eurostar to London.

.

Basically what I would do is something like
- Day 1 - arrive in Munich (or another German city), spend 3 nights
- Day 4 - travel to Venice or Rome, stay 3 nights
- Day 7 - travel to Paris, stay 4 nights
- Day 10 - travel to London, stay 4 nights
You could also make this a little slower-paced/relaxed by dropping Venice/Rome or Paris - and spread your days out more between just 3 cities instead of 4.