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Honeymoon to Europe Itinerary (14 nights) - Help

Hi all, My Husband and I are flying in / out of Munich for our honeymoon (9/5-9/20) - 14 nights - and would like to take the train visiting parts of Austria, Venice, Cinque Terre (a must), Switzerland, and ending again in Munich for a few days at Octoberfest. Culture, good food & drink, and nature / beaches are high on our list. Has anyone done a similar trip using only the train to go to these places? If so, do you have any recommendations for an itinerary that you particularly liked and can share? Thank you in advance.

Posted by
2531 posts

Have you read all the related materials on this website and also Rick's books? Many videos are available as well.

Posted by
8222 posts

You're itinerary is just a little too aggressive for the time allowed. Munich is a 4 day town, Salzburg is a 2 day town, Innsbruck is a 2 day town, Venice is a 3 day town, the C/T is a 2 day place, and you'll be passing through Florence which is too important q city to bypass. It's a 3 day town.
You should save Switzerland for another trip.
Next time, try to book open end flights into one city and out of another for time efficiency and where you won't be backtracking.

Posted by
922 posts

My advice is to look at Rome2rio.com and figure out how far it is between your destinations. For example, the train from Munich to Venice is 6.5 hours, effectively killing a day. From Venice to Cinque Terre it's another 5+ hours by train. So just travel time will eat up almost 2 full days. I would take a look at what's realistic travel/time-wise and then plan the trip. For more ideas, take a look at the tours offered through Rick Steves. This will give you an idea of what is realistic to see in a 14 day/night trip. Seeing Munich, Austria and Switzerland is an easy trip to plan. Adding Venice and the CT makes it much more complicated but doable.

Posted by
333 posts

K, are you counting the day of arrival and departure in your total day count? Is this your first time over? As others have stated, your itinerary may be optimistic. I have thought at times that some distances are doable until I get over there or take a look at a map with travel times. Look at the DB website for train schedules to get an idea of travel times or the ViaMichelin website. Everyone travels differently. Some on here, while being helpful, may think that spending 1 or 2 nights in a place is too aggressive. My wife and I on the other hand are fine with 1 or 2 night stops as long as we see or do what we wanted to do. So, take some time, think of what is important to you and your husband, and come back here with specific questions.
Congratulations on your upcoming(?) marriage.

Posted by
7175 posts

This would be the only way that I would do it. And, of course, more time would be useful, because you end up with mostly long travel days.

Arrive Munich. To Salzburg (2N)
To Venice (3N)
To Cinque Terre (3N)
To Lauterbrunnen (3N)
To Munich (3N)

Posted by
158 posts

I think you can do it, there's no rule that you have to see everything in each city. We recently did a similar trip, but skipped Cinque Terre since it was in wintertime. It was Barcelona --> Milan --> Venice --> Monselice (day trip) --> Innsbruck --> Salzburg (day trip) --> Munich. Everything was train travel except Barcelona to Milan. We traveled 16 nights, to 7 cities. I liked taking direct trains when possible, and taking the train early enough to get to our destination while it was still light out. Something like this where you make a loop to all your destinations would be my plan:

Munich (1 night) 9/5-9/6
- 2:00 hr train ride direct, runs frequently
Innsbruck (2 nights) 9/6-9/8
- 4:45 hr train ride direct, runs once a day
Venice (3 nights) 9/8-9/11
- 5:45 hr train ride w/transfer in Milan, once/day?
Cinque Terre (3 nights) 9/11-9/14
- 6:45 hr train ride w/transfer in Milan, once/day?
Lucerne (2 nights) 9/14-9/16
- 5:20 hr train ride w/transfer in Zurich
Munich (3 nights) 9/16-9/20

Posted by
1254 posts

How about this to put some numbers on paper for discussion:

Munich 2 nights
Cinque Terre 2 nights
(Pisa stop) Florence 3
Venice 2 or 3
Salzburg 2
Munich 2 or 3

This would still be more rushed than i personally would like, but others have travelled more distance in less time and survived.

You will easily eat up a day travelling from Munich to CT and close to a day from Venice to Salzburg.

I put 2 nights in Munich to start to give you a chance to get over jet lag and have some actual vacation time for a day instead of just waking up after one night and spending the whole day on a train.

I added stop in Pisa and 3 nights in Florence because a) Italy needs you to take a photo of you keeping that Tower from falling over and b) Florence is a great place to visit and dine and c) a stay here would help slow down the break neck pace of your trip.

You can try and add a stay in Switzerland or Vienna or whatever, but this is a zero sum game. Each night you add, you have to subtract a night from somewhere else and take into acouunt the additional wasted travel time.

Posted by
11429 posts

If the flights are still changeable, flying into Venice to start your trip would save a lot of time.

If your flights are fixed, then others have already offered viable itineraries, given your time frame

Posted by
4132 posts

I think the trick will be, as djp suggests, to save all of Munich until last. Which will make for a long first day, but otherwise I think you will be shortchanging yourselves.