4 Week Europe Itinerary

When you're traveling as a family of 5, I can see that there might be some times when a private driver could be worthwhile, but I'm not sure the Venice-Munich trip is the right time to try it out. You mentioned stops along the way, but I think your time for such diversions will be quite limited unless you just mean brief pauses at highway overlooks. ViaMichelin, which folks here say tends to be optimistic, estimates the driving time between those two cities at 6 hours, assuming no traffic delays. The usual advice is to pad the VM times, so let's say 7 hours. You'll have to stop for lunch somewhere, which will probably take at least an hour and could easily be over 90 minutes. (If you take the train, you can eat on board, so no extra time is required.) So now you're at 8 hours or more. How early do you expect to be able to get your family up and moving? How late are you (and the driver) willing to arrive?

Pisa isn't on the way from Rome to Florence. Pisa and Lucca are a common side-trip from Florence. Some of us would prefer to limit it to Lucca.

Couple ? on that...
I am looking at multiple scenarios for Venice to Germany. I am also looking at renting a car in Venice and dropping off in Amsterdam, I know that add to price, but it really is pretty reasonable, so possibly

Then Rome, Florence, Lucca, Pisa. Would it be better to train to Pisa and Lucca and that eve train to Florence or would it be better to go straight from Rome to Florence and then daytrip over to them.

And has anyone done business with onedaytrip.com? ( private transfer driver)

""Then Rome, Florence, Lucca, Pisa. Would it be better to train to Pisa and Lucca and that eve train to Florence or would it be better to go straight from Rome to Florence and then daytrip over to them.""

I think going Rome to Florence and then doing day trips would be easier.. ... not have your luggage to deal with

4 weeks on the move is a long time. Take into account that you'll need some time for chores - laundry, shopping for incidentals. Your time in Italy seems well-paced, but you may be trying to cram in too much in one week in Germany. Keep in mind that you can only move as fast as the slowest person in your group. That can really cut into your sightseeing time when you're changing locations every night or two. One more thing to consider is that European cars are smaller than American standards. Even a car that seats 5 comfortably will not have much luggage space. And the larger the car, the more difficult it will be to find parking and to manage narrow streets in old city centers.

We are mostly staying in apartments, so we will have washer. So that should cut some of the chore time.

We definitely don't want to drive in cities too much, because I was looking at mid size SUV, just not sure which city to pick up and and which to drop off. At first I was going to just do Germany, but really having trouble deciding our transportation to Germany from Venice, I see pluses to all of it.

We used onedaytrip.com last fall to travel to Budapest from Ljubljana. For two couples it was convenient and reasonably priced. We felt the money was well spent when we considered the long time that would have been required to travel by bus/train. They responded quickly to my email and also offered scenic stops on the way, which we, unfortunately, were not able to take advantage of. Often private transport is the best solution.

I've given you more time in Germany, and pared back other places.

May
26/ Rome
30/ Florence
June
2/ Venice
5/ Germany - with a car
(Munich-3, Fussen-2, Rothenberg-2, Heidelberg-1, Rhine-2, Cologne-1)
16/ Amsterdam
19/ Paris
23/ Fly Home