20 nights Europe Tour Itirnery - London or NOT?

If you do skip London, you'd have more time for Venice (or Florence).

With only 3 days in the major cities, you probably won't have time for even one day trip. If you want to explore in more depth by doing day trips, I'd cut the number of place and majorly increase the number of days in each one.

Here's a possibility-
London- 5 days with one or two day trips
travel day- London to Paris (Eurostar)
Paris- 4 or 5 days with one or two day trips
travel day Paris to Amsterdam (Eurostar)
Amsterdam-3 or 4 days with possibly one day trip
travel day Amsterdam to Rome (flight)
Rome 4 or 5 days with one or two day trips
On travel days you might get in a small amount of sightseeing, but don't count on much. This, or a similar plan, would also save you some money on travel expenses and possibly on accommodations as you could rent apartments.

I don't think you will need a visa (if you are citizens of Australia). Just your passports. The Schengen visa is for those staying more than 90 days and the UK usually allows 60 or more days for tourists without a visa.

I haven't been to Lucerne and only spent a day in Zurich - but Zurich is a little bland...you'd prob want Lucerne (or someone may suggest another spot in Switzerland - Bern was quite nice).

And only one night for Venice?! Sacrilege! OK, I love Venice (have spent 9 nights over 4 visits)...and if you only stay for one night, all that you will see will be crowds and you will hate it. The best thing about Venice is you only have to walk about 5-10 min away from St Marks and Rialto (not with the crowd) and the crowds magically disappear.

I don't think Florence is feasible from Rome as a day trip with only 3 nights in Rome. We only spent 2 nights in Florence and barely scratched the surface. We've spent 10 nights in Rome over two trips and thought about doing a day trip to Orvieto when we went for 5 nights last year - there are so many things to see in Rome, I could go back for another 10 nights and still not do it justice.

But I really do understand the want to see everything...but I don't think you will find day trips doable from the cities...

London is definitely worth a visit sometime, and offers many worthwhile daytrips, too (Bath for example). I presume you haven't made flight reservations yet, unless you have and you're committed to flying into London anyway. If not, you could fly into Paris and have extra days on The Continent.

Lucerne is definitely a highlight in Switzerland.

It seems that a lot of visitors to Venice stay on the mainland Lido, but both times we've been there, we stayed in an apartment or B&B in the old city itself, booked thru http://www.vacanzeinfamiglia.it/?lang=en . You get to be a temporary local in Venice!

I'm with Toni. Better to spend more nights in fewer cities and enjoy them, rather than looking at the inside of gobs of train stations. Especially if you're planning on doing day-trips. With day trips, you can see a lot without having to pack and unpack all the time. As to the exact cities to visit, that's more of a personal choice.

As to the visa question, I did a little online searching for key words such as "australian citizen europe visa" and came up with these sites (amongst many!): Check if you need a UK visa and Visas for Australians visiting overseas. Hope these help.

Skip Zurich. Stay in Lucerne. It is fabulous with plenty of day trips available. I spent 5 nights there last September. You won't be disappointed. But beware...all of Switzerland is expensive, not just Zurich.

I will just add another comment about Venice. To me transportation into and out of Venice is sort of a pain in the neck. Yes, it is very interesting/colorful/charming to ride in on a vaporetto but it takes more time than you really want it to! I think if you are going to Venice you need to do 2 nights as a minimum which gives you a full day to explore.

I also love London, but with your other itinerary points plus having to get a separate visa, I would drop London and add a night to Venice and as someone mentioned upthread, 2 nights in Florence.

London, Amsterdam, Paris fly Venice, Florence, Rome. Less is more. Germany is a big country and Switzerland is difficult to travel through. My suggestion will have short travel times between destinations. Plan as if it won't be your last trip.

I agree with all that Toni said. If travelers will be at Europe a total of 20 nights, I do not recommend traveling in a wide area of Europe. I think your experience at Europe would be more pleasant and more satisfying if you will do less traveling in Europe. Stay at a place for a longer time. I recommend : travel to
London > train to Paris > train to Amsterdam > fly to Rome.
When you are at Rome, you could go on a day trip to Orvieto.

Thank you everyone for your guidance, greatly appreciated!!!!!!!!!!
@ Toni and Rick , we are yet to get an Aussie passport, so will definitely need Visas. I agree with your thoughts that increasing time at each location will save us travel time and money. However, we want to see as many places without rushing too much. Hopefully we will go back to Europe for deep dives at a later stage in life :-)

@ Nicole P , Cyn and Steve, yes we like to go to Lucern,need to do more research on Swiss. Thanks for the link for the B&B, will use it for bookings in Venice.

@ pam, I was under the impression(some reading) that Venice is not worth more than a night , specially within 3 weeks’ time. Will try to add another night.

@ Ray , rightly said making an itirnery is definitely a compromise with limited time at hand. Hopefully we will make the best of our time.

@ Richard and Ron , thanks for the advice. Will checkout the day trip to Orvieto.

Look at these two Rick Steves Tours which seem good for you:

Best of Europe In 21 Days Tour:
http://www.ricksteves.com/tours/europe/europe-21-days
Fly into Amsterdam, fly home out of Paris; open jaw. Leave London and England for a future trip.

Best of Europe In 14 Days Tour:
http://www.ricksteves.com/tours/europe/europe-14-days
Fly into Paris, perhaps a day or two before tour begins. When tour ends, fly from Rome to Amsterdam. Spend 2 days in Amsterdam, then train or fly to London. Spend several days in London, fly home. Buy an open jaw airline ticket; into Paris, back home out of London.

I think I would do the second tour, the 14 days, because it gives you some flexible time before and after.

The great thing about Rick Steves Tours is that all your hotel reservations, train tickets, bus travel is planned for you. So as a first-time-Europe traveler, you are not buying the wrong train ticket, arriving at the wrong station, and so on.
Another great thing is that the Rick Steves Tours have a guide to tell you the history of what you are seeing, troubleshoot problems for you that come up, give you advice on restaurants or attractions on your free afternoons away from the group. If you have a medical emergency, they are there to help.

The tour price also puts a cap on your spending, so you know what the trip will cost. Remember to add extra money for meals not covered by the tour, and transportation and hotels in case you do the 14 day trip and then travel more afterwards.

Rick's Tours are perfect for the first-time-Europe traveler.

To the OP - what country's passport do you intend to travel on?

And to Rebecca - a Rick Steve tour is a much more expensive way of travelling than you can do on your own.

" we are yet to get an Aussie passport, so will definitely need Visas. "

Just to clarify: are you saying you have no passports at all, or that you have passports from a country other than Australia? The country of the passport you will be using is the one that determines which visas, if any, you will need. But you need a passport to travel internationally; visas are only gotten, if needed, after you have the passport.

If you have no passport, get started on this now; it can take some time to get all the documents together and get them processed.

Thankyou Rebecca for the links, the 21 days trip looks good. However, I agree with mph that the overall cost for two through rick is more expensive upfront (around USD 11,000 + airfares and other extras)…that too minus the destinations we wish-listed. We are relatively young (under 30) couple and don’t mind exploring on our own and are aware of the risks (occasional overspend, more travel time etc.) that a discovery type travel usually involves and prefer it, if it can be done within a reasonable budget. We can may be do the leisurely, ready-made Tours , longer stays type of travel when we go back to Europe at a later stage in life (may be with a child after 5 - 8 years). For now, we are free birds eager to fly and explore. Hehe !!

@ mph ,We are permanent residents in Australia and due for our citizenship end of this year. So, without a choice will have to travel on our Indian passports in the interim. Thank for your advice.

I have browsed this site called priceoftravel for budgeting and planning, they have some helpful articles, forum. I have decided to Keep London On. We will do Versailles as a partial daytrip from Paris. If we have some time and will, we may try to stop over in Florence on our way from Venice to Rome.

Also, I am wondering if it is better to be based in Murren or Lauterbrunnen (Interlaken area) of Switzerland. Although Rick Steve’s suggested “ Gimmelwald” sounds like a fantasy hobbit town, we prefer to stay close to shops/cafes/groceries. Also, we choose to go from Amsterdam to Munich over Berlin and geographically its closer to my next destination i.e Interlaken. Additionally, we want to do a daytrip Salzburg while based in Munich.

Both Muerren and Lauterbrunnen have a good selection of service for travelers. Lauterbrunnen is centrally located and on the valley floor, so you can easily travel up the mountains on either side. But staying in Muerren puts you closer to the best mountain views; it's great to wake up to them, and most hotels are oriented to face the view. When crossing the valley, dropping back down from Muerren to Lauterbrunnen adds only 20 minutes to your trip.