European Honeymoon Schedule - Feedback Please!!! (Spain, France, Italy)

The inly thing I would suggest is to calculate nights instead of days. Otherwise, it's a relatively fast-paced itinerary for me but you have a nice mix of big cities and smaller ones, and the ones you chose are all different enough to give you a variety of experiences.

Zoe has good advice to think of it in terms of nights. If you have 2 nights, you have one full day to explore. I typically try to have at least 3 nights in major places (on your list - Barcelona, Rome, Venice). If I were you, I would cut at least one stop, maybe Nice or Cinque Terre, and spread your time out from there. Also take jet lag and travel fatigue into consideration when planning out your time in Barcelona. You may not be as active as you expect to be.

When flying Barcelona --> Nice and Nice --> Venice, are you planning on using a budget airline? If you are, read all the rules very closely. The cheap fares turn more expensive when you have an overweight bag, it's too large, or if you haven't printed your boarding pass.

First journey set some expectations:
This will be your first trip, not your last.
There will be newbie glitches. Relax and roll w the flow.
You will overpack. Don't! Luggage is a hassle.
The greater number of stops means the more travel time equals greater travel stress and less enjoyment time. So do you want the opportunity to create memories about transportation or the places you visit?
It is a honeymoon, allow time for the honey.

If it were us.........

Barcelona - 4 nights (count nights, not days)
Nice - 3 nights
Venice - 3 nights
Rome - 4 nights

Go for quality, not quantity. Make some terrific memories. Set aside the angst of getting the most journey for your money. The reduced schedule allows you to take a deeper dive into focusing your research on how to best enjoy your destinations. With a minimum of three nights per location consider using Airbnb to rent apartments which offer: better value, more room, a kitchen, sometimes a washer, usually a landlord who is a local expert desiring to help you enjoy your visit. Also determine best methid to enjoy the sites you want to visit. Example: how to buy tickets on line for the Sagrada and eliminating the need to stand in long lines.

If you need to add a night then add one to Barcelona and take a day trip via train to several well know close destinations. Need to add another night, then add to Rome as there is a wealth of opportunities to enjoy.

Your next trip, when you no longer have training wheels, is the time to expand your horizons.

As the other responders do, I count how many nights I will be somewhere. Expect that it will take longer than you think to change locations. Typically a minimum of half a day.

Have you purchased your airline tickets yet? It's a good start that you plan to fly into one place and depart from another. Too many people waste time and money backtracking to where they started.

It's not really clear how many nights you will spend in Europe, but based on the number of days you plan to be there I would limit it to 4 places to stay. You could easily spend your entire time in Italy and not have to spend time flying from place to place. If limiting it to Italy you could start in Venice and then work your way to Rome. I would advise spending at least 3 nights per location to give you at least 2 days there.

Marbleskies says it well: "Go for quality, not quantity. Make some terrific memories. Set aside the angst of getting the most journey for your money. The reduced schedule allows you to take a deeper dive into focusing your research on how to best enjoy your destinations."

in short...go slow and enjoy the trip. Do not try to see all of Europe in the first trip!!!! I would make the trip: Barcelona, Nice, Rome...and save the others for later....

I think you considered the day/night business since you have some fractional days that look like they account for the transit times.

Personally, I use days. As an extreme example, you can roll into a small place at dawn, see it well, and be gone by dark. Optionally, you could pull in at noon, leave at the next noon, and would have had a complete full day having only spent one night.

Nice, CT, and Siena are in a tier lower than the other places. Rome is alone in the top one, the others are sort of in the middle. If you decide to cut, maybe work the issue in that order.

Barcelona is the most geographically disconnected so could also be a candidate for the ax.

The Nice - Venice flight, door-to-door, is going to take about as long as the train and could have a couple more sessions of luggage tossing. Cost that one out.

To clarify, here is my itinerary in nights:
Barcelona - 2 nights
Nice - 3 nights
Venice - 3 nights
Cinque Terre - 3 nights
Siena - 2 nights
Rome - 3 nights
Based on all the feedback so far it sounds like we should cut out one stop to really soak up the others. I'm considering cutting out Cinque Terre and possibly adding those nights to Barcelona, Siena, and Rome. Any thoughts?????

You've already got enough time in Siena, it's nice but small.

Give one CT night to Barcelona and two to Rome and you'll be about right - - there could be a strong argument for giving all three to Rome, however.

I think Marbleskies itinerary is exactly right. And even then, it's not a lot of time in those 4 places. Adding more places is a mistake imo.

I agree that Siena doesn't need more, but Barcelona could use one (especially since you will be dealing with jet-lag and such), and then Rome could use the other two extra days. Or 1 Barcelona, 1 Nice and 1 Rome so they each have 4 nights (I don't have experience in Barcelona and Nice so I can't comment specifically on that). If you do want to visit Florence though on a day trip from Siena, add the night to Siena and spend 3 nights there so that you can have 1 full day in Siena and 1 day visiting Florence.

You have 2 rivieras, French and Italian. They are not identical, but they share similarities.

To "economize" this trip, chose one. Logistically, skipping Nice makes things much easier for you than skipping the CT, but you gain time and flexibility either way.

Expect unexpected delays in Italy.

Add at least a day to Rome.

Consider an overnight in romantic San Gimignano.

Your plan is doable, but fast. You'll have to relax when you get home. Since you have more cities than small towns, I would want to cut one night from Cinque Terre and give it to Barcelona, but not skip Cinque Terre. Or if you cut Nice, you could add a little more small-town time, such as stop in Orvieto on the travel day to Rome