feedback on itinerary please

My first impression is that you're making a bunch of stops. My second thought is why don't you fly into Munich and out of another city at the end of your odyssey? That's multi-city or open jaw'd flight. My preferred places on your itinerary are Munich, Salzburg, Venice and Florence. That's where most of your time should be spent. Bacharach is just an hour or so from Frankfort Airport, and the town's maybe 300 yards long and it's a 1 night stop. Munich is worth 4 days on its own, and Salzburg is worth 2 nights. If you take a night train down to Venice, you're missing incredible scenery. I just don't handle night trains well. Venice is a 2 night stop or more. Florence is a 3-4 night stop. Siena is a day trip from Florence and a 1 hr. bus ride into city center. Lucca and Cinque Terre are a little off the beaten path West and NW of Florence. You might want to study your geography some more and fine tune your itinerary.
Only you know where you really need to visit.

I was in Colmar briefly last month and loved it. There are frequent trains between Colmar and Strasbourg - also lovely. From Strasbourg there are fast (TGV) trains to Paris and to Stuttgart. If you want to go to Frankfurt you'll have to change trains in Stuttgart.

Cathy, As this is your first trip to Europe, my first suggestion would be to read Europe Through The Back Door prior to your trip. It provides a LOT of good information on "how" to travel well in Europe. Use the country-specific Guidebooks for more detailed planning on hotels, sightseeing, etc. My first impression in reading your proposed Itinerary is that it's far too busy! As some of the others have mentioned, using open-jaw flights would be really good idea. Most importantly, you haven't allowed for travel time between destinations which will be at least half a day, and in some cases the better part of a day. I think it's safe to say that you'll have to either increase your time or skip two or three of the places you've listed. A few other comments..... > Skip the 1 night stop in Mainz. You can be in Bacharach in about an hour from the Regionalbahnhof at FRA, and that would be a good place to get over jet lag for 2 nights. > I'd suggest more than 1 night in Munich. It's an incredible city with lots to see, including day trips to the Castles or Dachau. > "2 nights in Florence/Siena/Lucca" - with only 2 nights, you WON'T have time to see all three locations. Two nights is barely adequate for Florence alone. > "Train to Gimmelwald" - yes, IMHO, the Berner Oberland is worth 2 nights. I was there for almost a week in September, and didn't have time to see as much as I wanted. The trip from the Cinque Terre to Gimmelwald will take the better part of a day! > Where in Switzerland will you be visiting with friends? That will have a bearing on transportation. continued.....

Cathy - Part 2... > Colmar is definitely "worth it", again IMHO. It's a beautiful smaller Alsace town in the Route de Vin area, with the wonderful Underlinden Museum (one of the best small Museums in Europe, IMHO), nice hotels, great restaurants and terrific ambience with canals. From there it's easy to take a day trip to Strasbourg to see the magnificent Cathedral (if you have time). I'd suggest making a list of all the places you want to visit, arranged in order of priority from most important to least important. Delete the last two or three on the list and then start working out a logical route for the others. Try to increase time in the top few destinations. Keep in mind that two nights will only give you about a full day and an evening for touring. Regarding the rental car, it would be a really good idea to drop it off in the same country you rented. The charges for dropping a car in a different country can be HUGE. One final comment - for travel in July, I would highly recommend pre-booking all your accommodations, as soon as you have the details finalized. Good luck with your planning!

Cathy, there are a number of "Surrey"s in the world. Will you have just crossed the Channel or will you have flown half way around the world? I wonder because if it is the former, while Mainz is nice enough and I have enjoyed my visits there, you might get your teeth more into the rest of your trip. Is there a reason why you want to have a car when Mainz - Bacaharach - RodT - Munich - Salzburg is so very easy and cheap to do by train? When would you plan on your journey? The answers to much of your questioning will be dependent on that.

Thanks, everybody! Based on your suggestions, we revised our plan a bit. We are leaving from Vancouver BC Canada in July, flying into Frankfurt. We want to stay somewhere nearby the first night. (We crossed Bacharach completely off our list.) We will stay 2 nights in Munich, 2 nights in Reutte (castles), 2 nights in Salzburg, then take a train to Venice, 3 nights, 2 nights in Florence, 2 nights Cinque Terre (Vernazza), then a week in Switzerland with friends, ending in Colmar 2 nights. We are reading ALL of Rick Steves' books, including Eruope Through the Back Door and everything else, TWICE, so all of our stops are based on his recommendations. We are flying in and out of Frankfurt and have already bought our tickets. We are planning to book all of our accommodations in February, for our 3 week trip in July. We are thinking of taking the train as far as Salzburg, then renting a car for four days, then train again for the rest of the trip.
So based on our changes, do you have any other thoughts on this itinerary?

Two nights are fine for Reuette, Vernazza, and you could cut one night off Venice (and I love Venice) but I'd give everything else three nights (except your fist night is ok). For us, two nights is ok for a very small village or if there isn't much to do, we stay three nights everywhere else and at least four nights for big cities. We all know how hard it is to trim, especially for your first trip, but it will be a more enjoyable experience if you do. We think three nights gives us a chance to get feel for the area, otherwise faster is ok if you just want to see sights and go. Don't forget, two nights is 1 1/2days.

Cathy, You can easily take the train from Salzburg Hbf to Venezia Santa Lucia. The trip is as short as 6H:13M, with at least one change. Depending on which train you choose, this may involve a Bus from Villach to Venezia Tronchetto and then "cable line People Mover" to Venezia Santa Lucia. Have a look at the Deutsche Bahn website for all the details. Cheers!

Super! Thanks for the tip. I will definitely check out the website.

I would keep the 3 nights Venice actually - if you are coming fr Salzburg...unless you take the night train; if you leave Salz in the morning, you won't hit Venice til mid-afternoon and by the time you get to your accom, you'll prob lose most of the day, so if you only stay 2 nights, you are only gonna have about a day and a half - I've been to Venice 3 times, 6 nights total...love love love it. You did mention renting a car in Salz for 4 days...would that be to drive to Italy? I would really think that thru - renting in one country and dropping in another is crazy expensive - I looked into it once and it was like $600+ extra drop off fee...

We WERE going to take the night train from Salzburg to Venice but someone who replied here said then we would miss some incredible scenery, so we changed it. Would you recommend going also to Murano Island when we are in Venice?
We are only renting a car to get around in Reutte and Salzburg - to stay in some remote B&Bs and to look at some villages that aren't on the train route. We are taking the train everywhere else. I think we will rent a car only for 3 or 4 days, all in Austria.

I'm glad you're renting a car in Austria, especially outside of Salzburg. You might see if you can drop off the rental car in Innsbruck, as the train to Venice will be going through there anywhere. You've received very good suggestions above as these guys really know the territory. Have a great time.

This site is AWESOME!!! Thanks, everybody! Another question: we are planning to drop off our rental car in Austria before we take the train to Italy. Do we have to go to Innsbruck to catch the train to Venice, or is there a train station near Salzburg that will take us there?

We did the night train fr Salz to Venice in 2010...would I do it again??? Maybe...I was more worried about wasting all those hours thru the day - sleeping wasn't easy (we had a private berth) - worst was the little tiny pillows (had I know, I would have picked up cheap pillows and left behind)...and the fact that the train didn't leave til like 1am...I think we hung out at McD's for an hour or so...lol Re :Murano - we have gone to the island all 3 trips...honestly, that's where I buy a lot of my small, easily portable souvenirs, which is why I like to go...the glass museum was interesting, we saw 2 glass demos (one where they let you watch for 5 min then take you to the crazy expensive showroom..the other we stumbled upon and watched a guy making these glass ornaments in about 2 min flat - was nice). Torcello is interesting as is Burano (where we didn't see a whole lot as it rained soooo hard). You could really do a half day to all 3 islands, but there is so much to see on Venice proper you may miss lots of other stuff...but my 2cents - I enjoyed visiting...