First time to Europe (mom and 14 yo)- travel itinerary help

I would start by buying or going to the library and look at guide books. Look at Europe Through the Backdoor(Kindle version is only 13.99 on Amazon).

I would look at a map of Europe and plan your journey so that you can keep back tracking to a minimum. I do this to also help with deciding where to fly into and out of, otherwise known as flying Open Jaw. Also look at the DB Bahn website, it is excellent for looking at train schedules in Europe(www.reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en).

I also use Google Earth to look at areas I'm interested in going. I feel it helps give me a little better lay of the land.

For people without the constraint of a base near Bern, flying into London and out from Switzerland or Italy allows a pretty logical route between cities.

If you are based near Bern and making weekend trips, then you only have about 6 weekends and would be better off flying to the further destinations, such as London or Rome; see www.skyscanner.com. If your time away is only 3 or 4 days, we would not try to see more than one major city. If you want to include Venice, Florence, and Rome in one excursion, for instance, then that takes about 10 days.

Rick’s Train Travel Time & cost Map gives you an overview of faster train travel times in hours, as well as regular (full-price) 2nd-class fares, to help you plan travel time on your calendar. There are just a few overnight trains departing Switzerland - German City Night Line service runs to Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, or Prague.

Switzerland has lots to see in its different corners, including architecture and language influence from its neighbor countries. In Munich, for instance, you could reserve ahead for the BMW factory tour (you can't see inside the actual factory at Ferrari) and also consider the excellent Transport Museum arm of the Deutsches Museum, in addition to castles and Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial.

Thank you for your replies! I am currently reading Europe Though The Back Door, and will follow up on your map, guidelines and Google advice.

One clarification, my son and I will be traveling during the week while my husband is at work. He will have a car, but will likely use public transportation to get to us when he can. I am thinking that I need to reduce the distance of our itinerary and maybe consider some places that I did not think of that might make good weekend destinations i.e. Prague? Also thinking that keeping to the northern part of Italy might be best. Son and I could maybe fly into Rome as our last destination and head for home from there.

Thank you for the advice about BMW and Ferrari as well! We did not realize that it was not a true factory tour, although that might not matter to my son. He would be thrilled just to be there.

Prague is too far for a weekend unless you fly.

Berne is the capitol of Switzerland, however its airport is very small. The city is in the middle of the country, however that doesn't mean it's accessible to surrounding countries. The Alps are a very strong physical barrier to travel in this country.

Zurich is about 75 miles from Berne, and they have a much larger airport. Unfortunately, Zurich Airport is not well serviced by budget European airlines. You can get from there to London easily on EasyJet, however. From London, you can get to Paris on the Eurostar fast train in about 2 hrs. and 20 minutes. You can also get to Amsterdam fast from Paris via train.

Berne doesn't appear to be a very good place for weekend trips--other than around to other Swiss towns. The scenery is obviously great in the mountainous areas of this country.

Italy is a totally separate trip. I'm not familiar with the train system of Switzerland, but you can catch a train down to Italy. The Cinque Terre is a very popular place to visit the Mediterranean coastline , and it'd be a good place to start your Italian odyssey. Trains in Italy are inexpensive and run very often.

The Ferrari Experience in Modena is a popular museum, but don't expect to see the factory. While you're close, take the Lamborghini Factory Tour--just west of Bologna. It's best reached by rental car as the factory's out in the country.

You don't mention the time of year you will be traveling, that will affect where you want to go. You should also let us know where you or your husband have been in Europe before since there are some places that would be automatic for first time travelers such as Rome and Paris. Switzerland is geographically isolated and not easy to reach by ground even though it seems so close to everything.
Your son is fortunate to be able to have this experience at an age where it will teach him so much about the world. Hopefully cars will be only a portion of what he takes away from the experience.

Thank you. Yes, I see that Prague is a longer trip than I thought. I am starting to really understand that it takes much longer to get around internationally from Switzerland than it seemed. The Bahn website has been very helpful. Summer crowds will likely make travel slower I am sure. We will be there from late June/ early July through mid August.

I am leaning toward either flying into London then heading to Brugge/Amsterdam then Paris,

or to London, Paris then Geneva or Zermutt area. Hubby can decide if he wants to travel to us in Geneva area or to Paris if we go that way. Figure on traveling for about 2 weeks or so then heading to Bern area and staying for 2 weeks, taking some day trips. After that maybe heading down to Northern Italy for a week or more. Probably Venice and Florence area. Hoping hubby can take a week vacation and fly to meet up with us. Then we will either fly back to stay longer in Bern ( eventually flying out of Zurich) or part ways and son and I will head to Rome for a few days and fly home from there. ( concerned about the heat though).

Fortunately my son loves history and is a good travel companion. Putting in a day or two or car experiences because it is his passion.

Any thoughts in this rough plan? Thanks again for the advice and feedback!!

These, left hand sidebar, are the airlines that fly out of Berne. Easyjet, Ryanair and
Vueling are some of the budget carriers. http://www.europe-airports.com/airlines/.
Click on the airline and at the bottom of the page it will tell you where they fly.

To purchase train tickets in Italy use, http://www.trenitalia.com.
or http://www.italiarail.com. The second is more user friendly.

Another good site to use is Rome2rio to see travel times and options.

You and your son have an amazing opportunity! Enjoy it.

Thank you for the links! I know everyone says how transportation friendly Europe is, but with all the choices it can be overwhelming. Narrowing down the carriers that operate locally is helpful!
Yes, we are so grateful for this opportunity. We have been talking about vacationing in Europe for years. Getting the chance to visit and be temporary Europeans for 6 weeks or longer is a dream come true.
Thank you again for the information.

The website Rome2Rio.com might be useful for you to see all of the transportation options between the places you want to see. It will show you all of the different ways of getting from place to place but also estimated times for each method. I use it all the time!

You also asked for some ideas in Switzerland. I love Lugano. It is very Italian in language and food but very scrubbed clean and on time like Switzerland. It's also beautiful. I also liked Neuchatel, a sweet town on a lovely lake, with more French influence.

Thank you for the Rome2Rio tip. I downloaded it, and also for the Switzerland advice. Neuchatel appears frequently as a transfer station when I search train routes out of the country. Now I know to get off and look around before catching my transfer. I will check out Lugano. That is new to me.
Thanks to you both!