Hello, All!
We (wife and I) have posted a couple times looking for suggestions and have changed the itinerary a few times, but think we have finally settled on something that we would both enjoy. I just wanted to post and see what you guys think and look for other suggestions. I know at the end of the day, we will decide what is best for us, but you can never have too much information! We will be going in May of 2016 (I know it may seem odd to plan so far in advance, but we really enjoy it). This itinerary is a little more than we had originally planned, but it hits a lot of what we want to do without travelling TOO much.
The lodging that we have found that we have liked the most and has been the most affordable is on AirBnB.
Night 1 - Fly from Midwest (Kansas City) to Brussels
Night 2 - Bruges - Nothing Planned - Just relax from Flight and explore some
Night 3 - Bruges - Day trip to other Belguim cities.
Night 4 - Bruges - Explore Bruges
Night 5 - Paris (by train) - Explore Paris at night
Night 6 - Paris - Museum Pass/Explore Paris
Night 7 - Paris - Museum Pass/Explore Paris
Night 8 - Paris - Explore Paris / rest
Night 9 - Annecy (by Train) - Explore Annecy at night
Night 10 - Annecy - Bike around Lake Annecy
Night 11 - Annecy - Explore Old Town / rest
Night 12 - Cremona, Italy (By Train) - Pretty much just check in. This is a long train (8-9 hrs if I remember right.)
Night 13 - Cremona - Explore Violin shops/Museum
Night 14 - Cremona - Explore Cremona / rest
Night 15 - Genoa, Italy - Explore Genoa at night
Night 16 - Genoa - Visit Aquarium and day trip to the close, small towns
Night 17 - Genoa - Day trip to CT
Night 18 - Genoa - Explore Genoa / rest
Night 19 - Flight out of Genoa - Back home!
1.) How much can we fit in one day from Bruges? Could we visit Ghent and Antwerp in one day or is that too much?
2.) Is 3 nights in Bruges too much for a trip like this? If it was in the middle or at the end of the trip I could see only doing two, but since it's where we start and I have heard about jet lag ruining some people's first day, I figured maybe we should do 3 in case the first day is a "lost" one and just use the first day/night to relax. Flights look like they land pretty early (8-9 AM).
3.) Should we cut a day from Cremona? I'm not sure if two days to explore the city is necessary. I haven't seen many people going there, so haven't seen a lot of information. I saw on another site that someone spent three nights there and loved it.
4.) If we do cut a day from Cremona/Bruges where would you put the day(s) at?
5.) From reading here I know many will question Genoa, but it's somewhere that my wife found and is extremely excited about. She really wants to visit the aquarium and it is relatively close to CT so we could day trip there. The old town will be fun to walk through and around the docks will be too. I figured four nights is okay since we plan on doing a day trip to CT for a full day and a partial day trip to some of the small surrounding towns.
Thank You again everyone!