Europe travel ???

This itinerary is mad. If you started to do any of the legwork on getting between these destinations you’d see that. RS general guidebook has great advice on itinerary planning, but basically it comes down to making some hard choices. I’d eliminate about half these destinations to start, but these are choices only you can make at this stage.

I lived in Germany for four years and have traveled to all these places except Cinque Terre.

I have been to Paris five times, Rome twice, Florence Twice and Barcelona three times.

Your itinerary is very ambitious. You will be traveling quite a lot. Here are my basic issues with your plan:
1) Too much travel. I suggest that you do some trip planning, determining exactly what key sites that you wish to see in all your cities. Also, plan how long it will take to get from place to place. There are high speed trains in Europe, but it still takes considerable time. For Example going from Paris to Munich is quite a trip. You could take a night train (I did this myself with family once). Not sure there is still a night train. In any event, determine when you would go and how long the trip would be.
2) Your time in several places is not enough. Again, research what you want to see and you will find that you will only see the tip of the iceberg with most of your visits. Example- Munich, are you going to the Hofbrau House, see the Glochenspeal, visit the old King's Palace (forgotten the name) and visit Dachau Concentration Camp just north of the city. You can't do that in two days. Salzburg, is another, do you plan to see Mozart's house, the famous Cathedral, Castle at the top of the hill and do the Sound of Music tour. Can't do all that in one day. Also, you miss going to the Eagle's Nest in nearby Berchtesgaden or going to see the old Salt Mine.
3) Where you picked to stay. Don't recommend staying in Naples, suggest Sorrento, but if you want to see Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri and the Amalfi Coast, you need 3-4 days there. Naples does have a great museum.
4) Rome deserves 5 days at least.

5) Suggest skipping what you have listed for 6/18 thru 6/24 and do an open jaw ticket flying into Paris and out of Rome. Use those days you planned for those cities to add to those that I have covered.

Think about just getting from point to point, for example visit Venice, then Florence, then Rome, then down to the Naples area, then back to Rome. Going to Rome and backtracking to Florence is wasting time and money.

If you have more questions, feel free to message me, I will assist you in any way.

When you go to a restaurant, do you order everything on the menu? That is what you have done here.

You will be spending most of your time and money on trains and moving in and out of hotels, snd have little to see and do what you came to Europe for.

Slow down and do not cover so much ground. Cut the number of cities in half, and spend more time in each one.

Naples and Barcelona are too far off your path. See Bordeaux and whatever else you want while you are in France. Then head to Italy and end in Rome, flying home from there.

This is a very ambitious plan and unfortunately the cities are not in logistical order - for example, going from Venice to Naples by train you'll pass through Florence and Rome. Also it will be so much travel time that you won't have the opportunity to see the places you list. For example, Salzburg to Venice is 7 hours by train. Going from Genoa to Barcelona to Bordeaux in 4 days is also impractical (at least 20+ hours of train time - even flying is going to suck up a lot of time). To get from Bordeaux to St. Malo by train you have to go through Paris.

It might help to outline your priorities for travel, other than ticking off cities. If you are starting in Paris the Olympics next summer are dramatically affecting prices even ahead of the games. Check prices and availability for accommodations before you buy flights. As has been noted, you can buy "open jaw" or "multi city" tickets that fly in to one city and home from another, making it so you don't have to backtrack. Unless you're using airline points/miles to get a ticket to Paris, use Google Flights to search on alternatives. Best of luck.

Looks like a fun! RS Tours best of Europe tour also hits lots of places. Of course, they have the travel between cities well attended to. But with trains, planes, buses and car rentals, one can make their own arrangements. Pace is a personal choice. My wife and I used to always have busy, fast paced trips-- though nowadays we are slower.

There will be many folks that will tell you that you need to spend X days for such and such city or such and such city deserves X amount of time. And comments like if you're in Salzburg how can you skip Vienna and so on. Hey, they may be right. But there is nothing wrong with going with your choices. For example, I'd say from Barcelona I'd go to more places in spain because I love Spain. But if you keen to seen Bordeaux go for it! (For me, I'd just drink a glass of wine in say Madrid!)

With all of that said, I'd note one of key features of RS tours is a "vacation from your vacation", which is to say a down day every week or so to relax. I don't see how fits in your trip. Just a thought,

Have fun!

Just remember, 2 nights in a town means you have 1 day for seeing all you plan to see at that location. 2 nights in any one place should be your minimum goal. Also, travel will take up one day between locations-packing up, checking out of hotel, getting to bus or train location, actual travel and then getting to your hotel, checking in, unpacking. You have gotten some good advice from others on re-arranging your destinations.

I’m sorry to say, but this itinerary isn’t feasible unless you have a private jet. Your proposed itinerary is way too full and your stays, especially in Italy, are literally all over the place with no geographical sense to them at all.

I suggest you go back to the drawing board, consult a map and train schedules and then write out your itinerary including the time it takes to get from A to B.
It would then look something like this;
June 1; arrival in Paris at ???
June 2: full day Paris
June 3; full day Paris
June 4; full day Paris
June 5; early morning train from Paris to München, arrive München in late afternoon
June 6; full day München
Etc
Etc

Also please mind the way you write dates. In Europe, 6/1 would mean January 6, not June 1. To avoid confusion when making a booking etc., it’s always best to write dates in full.

Everybody has different travel styles and reasons for travel. This itinerary may be just perfect for you, but as others have noted, it is more about moving from place to place than exploring those places.

Do you already have your airline tickets? If not, the suggestion of an open jaw ticket was excellent. If you do, consider a cheap flight between Italy and Paris for the return. Drop the return through Spain and France, and add those days strategically to the first part of your trip.

I use public transport when I travel and it works great. However, it takes some time because you match their schedule.

However you decide to do this trip, I’m sure it will be a special memory maker for both of you.

I always suggest that people use Google maps and plot out your route. You will see that your Italy route is really ambitious. You then should use an app such as D-Bahn to look at how long it takes to get from one city to the next by train.

In looking at the places you listed, I would probably rearrange my trip in this order and spend whatever time you want in each city.

I would fly into Barcelona.

I would fly from Barcelona to Rome and see Rome and Naples.

I would then train to Cinque Terre and then Florence.

From Florence I would head to Venice.

Then onto Salzburg and next Munich.

From Munich to Paris.

From Paris, you could plan a trip to Normandy/Bayeux and take a D-Day tour if you wish.

Genoa, Bordeaux and St. Malo would be on the "next time" list. By eliminating these cities you will have additional time to enjoy the others and will not be so rushed.

Enjoy your trip.

Apologies for being so blunt, but your plan is way too exhausting. You will lose at least a half to three quarters of a day each time you relocate. Checking out, getting to the train station, waiting, actual travel time, finding and getting to the new hotel, and checking in. I'm afraid you'll have great memories of train stations, train rides, taxi rides, and hotel lobbies. But little else. Strongly suggest your cut your list of cities in half. Pick out the ones that have the most appeal, and you'll wind up with a trip that you'll long remember.

I have to agree with the majority- that your plan is extremely aggressive and is not in any logical sequence. I understand the appeal of a wide ranging trip to see as many places as possible. And if all you want to do is dip your toe into each city and hit one or two tourist sites before moving on, then knock yourself out. But you have not taken into consideration the time required to get from place to place. By my count 12 of your 24 days in Europe will be spent sitting in a train or plane instead of exploring the cities you want to see. But maybe you have a great love of trains. If so, then forge ahead. If not, then seriously consider dropping several of the outliers and rearranging your itinerary.

PS: flying out of Paris when you will have spent the previous night in St Malo is just plain nuts.

Wow! Yes, as others have said, this is an extreme itinerary. If you want to focus on France and Italy, I would do that, and cut some of the other places out. Or focus on either of the two and do a side trip for a few days into the other. It may be that you like traveling in a whirlwind style, but how much quality time you have in these places would be the question.

The RS tour Best of Europe has the following:

Day 1:Amsterdam
Day 2: Amsterdam
Day 3: Bacharach.
Day 4: Bacharach.
Day 5:Rothenburg.
Day 6: Reutte.
Day 7: Reutte.
Day 8:. Venice.
Day 9: . Venice.
Day 10: Florence.
Day 11Florence.
Day 12: Rome.
Day 13: Rome.
Day 14: Cinque Terre
Day 15: Cinque Terre
Day 16 Lauterbrunnen Valley.
Day 17: Lauterbrunnen Valley.
Day 18: Beaune.
Day 19: Paris.
Day 20: Paris.
Day 21: finished

(For details, look it up on this website.) Fly into Amsterdam and fly home from Paris, You have some extra days. You can use them to add Munich, Salzburg, Naples, Barcelona, etc if you want. Or you can substitute some of RS choices.

Again, many folks will tell you that the trip is too ambitious and RS handles the traveling with a bus and it's impractical for the do it yourselfers. An 18 year old version of me would scoff at that. Heck, even the older version of me wouldn't rule it out. There are cheap flights, there are trains and renting cars work too. We hit all the Italian cities you list and more is using trains and car rentals in just over a week -- driving in Rome was stressful and I kept failing to find parking in Siena. Good times though. Pace is a personal choice.

If you stick with your original plan, I'm sure you'll have a great time (and regret some of the choices. When we did Italy that first time for instance we regretting driving for hours just to say we made it to San Marino. Looking back however, I do so fondly.)

Have fun

I'll just jump on the bandwagon here and say that just looking at your itinerary is exhausting and I can't imagine trying to implement it. The distances you are traveling from place to place do not lend themselves well to 1 or 2 night stays. Some would work well with a rental car but not using public transportation.

My best advice, and it has been mentioned, is to look at a planning map of Europe, mark your desired locations, and then plot the time and means to get from one to the other. You'll see that it would be doable, but not particularly enjoyable. At least 9 of your 24 days are used up in traveling from place to place - that's way too much of your valuable time to waste that way. I also agree that flying into Paris and home from Rome would be much more efficient. I would think about eliminating Munich and Salzburg and save them for another trip, concentrate more on France, Italy, and maybe Barcelona.

I would limit this trip to France and Italy. Spain and Germany /Austria would require too much travel time. As others have said, fly into Paris and out of Rome. Remember: Group tours can cover a lot of cities in a short amount of time because they have much experience making the logistics work and have made many of your sightseeing choices for you without leaving you much independent time. Plus the fact that they handle all the logistics and limit the decisions you need to make saves their customers a lot of energy. It will be exhausting doing the logistics for the trip you described. I say this as someone who has been to Europe 16 times, 5 of which were group tours.

I'm not going to make any comments on your trip. But I am going to ask you to do something......

Research the travel time between each location. Then ask yourself--is this feasible? Will it leave me enough time to do some sightseeing?

Is this your first time to Europe? You have a wonderful amount of days but are setting yourselves up to move quickly.

Just a comment on Rick's 21 Day Best of Europe that David has helpfully outlined above.

I've done that tour and it is exhausting even though you don't have to do a lot of "thinking". You have the awesome and skilled RS bus drivers getting you from place to place. You have the RS guide with you every day. When you arrive in a new location the bus takes you as close as they can get to your hotel (no need to figure out how to get there from the train station), bags are collected, guide leads you to the hotel, organizes the check in and then gives you an overview tour pointing out good restaurants, etc. Either the arrival afternoon or the next morning bright and early you have an orientation to the local Metro/bus/vaporetto system and then head off WITH the guide.

There is also a day in there (Cinque Terre) where there are NO activities planned and Rick refers to it as a vacation from your vacation. Trust me on this, you need this.

For myself traveling independently OR doing a guided tour plus extra independent days, I now always schedule a "vacation from my vacation" day every week and a half or so. Sometimes if the weather is nice I take my iPad Mini to a park and read. If the weather is yucky, I'll read in my hotel room. Others might prefer to go to the movies or sit in a cafe and people watch.

Do be mindful of what LaurieBeth says to remember that 2 nights in one location = 1 full day to tour. Your 1 night stays don't even give you a full day in Salzburg, Genoa and Bordeaux. I've not been to Genoa but have spend several days each in Salzburg and Bordeaux and you can easily have enough to see with a 2-night stay.

I'd suggest you re-look at your itinerary. Give yourselves a "day off" at at least Day 15 or so. Decide what cities are actual "musts" for you. What did you want to see in Naples? What draws you to Bordeaux or Genoa? Are you wanting to hike in Cinque Terre or will this be "beach" time. Or are some of the destinations things you've read about and feel you should see?

6/20 - Genoa - 1 night
6/21 - Barcelona - 2 nights
6/23 - Bordeaux - 1 night
6/24 - Saint Malo
6/25 - Fly home out of Paris

Presumably you are flying from Genoa to Barcelona?

Do I understand correctly that you plan to spend the night of 6/24 in Saint Malo and fly home from Paris on the 25th?

Best case scenario from Saint Malo to CDG is 4 hrs. Especially for CDG the advice to be at the airport 3 hrs ahead of the departure time applies. So what time is you departure flight? If it is before 2PM your chances of success look to be slim.

Random thought--laundry?

Looking back at your trip plans for your 2017 trip to Belgium and France with the emphasis on Paris, and seeing that you are planning to both arrive in and depart from Paris I think it must have made a real impression on you.

I don't know if you have the flight tickets yet, but I'll echo that that is getting very close to the Paris Olympics and its associated crowds and very high hotel prices.

I noticed that your 2017 trip was pretty much a short straight line whereas this one is more of a grand tour.

I do worry about your 3 to 5 hour train journey from Saint-Malo to Paris Montparnasse and then onwards to Charles de Gaulle airport on your departure day followed by 3 hours ahead of departure for the formalities. Is your flight home late at night? What will you do if there are problems on the trains that day?

Thank you to everyone who has responded. I think I already knew this was too much to do, but I needed to hear it. :) We have spent today changing up our itinerary and have cut out several of the cities so we can spend more time in France and Italy. We will be flying into Paris and home from Rome. Our current plans are:
Paris 4 nights - I've been before but want to give my daughter an "overview" of Paris - possible day trip to Normandy and/or wine country or Champagne area - thoughts on those ?
Munich 3 nights - want to experience a hofbrauhaus, and see the Neuschwanstein Castle
Venice 2 nights - gondola ride of course
Florence 3 nights - Uffizi , wine
Naples 5 nights - Pompeii, Amalfi Coast, Capri
Rome 4 nights - Sistine Chapel, Collosseum, Parthenon, Trevi Fountain

I wonder what anyone's thoughts are on this?

Four nights in Paris will only give you three full days. Unless one of you has a great interest in WWII, consider skipping Normandy. There is more than enough in Paris to keep you very busy for three days. Also, if at all possible, add another day or two in Venice which is one of the most unique places ever.

With only 4 nights in Paris, I don't think you will have time for any day trips.

It's a long haul from Munich to Venice, so 2 nights will only give you one day of sightseeing. I'd steal a day from Naples annd add it here.

And speaking of Naples- I'd spend the nights in Sorrento instead, if you also want to visit Capri and the AC towns.

You have made great improvements to your itinerary! I think you will enjoy this revised trip so much more than your original idea. Now, I wouldn't overthink too many more changes. There will still be lots of opinions, but what matters is if the trip meets your needs and expectations. You made a huge improvement by the open jaw routing and cutting out several stops!

You may want to edit your original post and put the updated itinerary there as well. Otherwise many people will read the original post, not see your update post, and continue to comment on the first itinerary. My guess is that you have heard enough of those posts.......

Fly paris to munich
skip Naples, cinque terra, genoa
fly rome to Barcelona
train from salzburg to venice takes all day . nice ride. add another night to venice

In Italy, look at staying in convent/monastery. actually these are in reality in s run by nuns/monks originally for pilgrims but now cater to travellers of all kinds. no need to be roman catholic or any type of Christian. My wife and I love them. monasterystays.com

The revised plan is much better.

How do you plan to get from Munich to Venice? 2 nights is a real skim the surface stop, especially if you take the train ( 7-8 hrs)

Not sure I would give Naples more time than Rome.

Naples 5 nights - Pompeii, Amalfi Coast, Capri

Agree with CJean that Sorrento may be a better base to do your listed desired excursions

If your main interest in going to Normandy would be the invasion-related sites, I'd skip that jaunt this time around. It really takes a full-day tour to get a decent (by no means complete) look at some of the key invasion sites, and you won't have much time if you have to travel to Normandy from Paris the same day (which would probably be on a bus). Wait until you can spend at least 2 nights in Bayeux, the origination point for most of the invasion tours. Bayeux has a charming historic center, a nice cathedral, an excellent invasion museum and the one and only Bayeux Tapestry.

This trip can be done, with good planning and discipline if you intend on sticking to it. That depends on your energy level and travel style.

You do have another option going from Paris to Munich, ie, by night train OeBB Night Jet.

It's the new route Paris to Vienna which obviously stops in Munich. You spend an extra day in Paris, take the Night Jet from Gare de l"Est and arr. in Munich by 6 AM. .... easy and direct.

In the summer this is my obvious choice.

possible day trip to Normandy and/or wine country or Champagne area-thoughts on those?

We visited the Champagne region on a honeymoon trip back in September 1999, by bicycle tour. It took us several days by bike, but if you’re just doing a day trip, that’s a charming part of France.

We were there at grape harvest time; June will be a different situation. Either Epernay or Reims (or both?) would make for a nice daytrip, and the facade of the cathedral at Reims is renowned. Are you thinking of doing a tour of a winery - Taittinger, perhaps? Is your daughter a candidate for a tasting of bubbles? Pick up a bottle of Dom Perignon, while you’re in the area?

The new itinerary looks much better. I have been reading with interest and agreed with everyone that the original list of cities was way too much. Even with the new itinerary, consider a flight from Paris to Munich. I think you will need to decide which is more important to you for a day trip out of Paris, and if Normandy, go with a tour (it will still be a very long day). Take a day away from Naples and add to Venice. What do you hope to do in Naples: if mostly the Amalfi Coast, then I also agree to pick one of the cities on the coast rather than staying in Naples.

My only other input is Munich and your desire to visit Neuschwanstein. To me, this is a bit of a hike and too far from Munich to do for a day trip, but I suppose it is possible. Hopefully someone can give you some suggestions since we stayed in Fussen during our visit. We did go to Dachau while staying in Fussen, so not opposed to day trips, but we had a car which made it a little bit easier (although a car to Nuschwanstein would be a hassle given the parking situation and we took the handy buses to get around for that day).
It seems as if Munich is important to you on this trip, so I will leave it alone, but it is a bit of an outlier overall.

CNN's suggestions on where not to go -
https://www.cnn.com/travel/2023-worst-destinations-overtourism-avoid-crowds/index.html