Itinerary Advice Sought: Amsterdam to Rome

I've never traveled before so take my post with a grain of salt, but as a fairly avid researcher I really think only 10 days is not good for the amount of ground you want to cover. It seems like you'll spend your time getting transported almost as much as actually enjoying your trip.

Just my 2 cents. Others will be able to help you much more.

Hello Pamela W. I think sleeping on a night train is not a good idea. When you make your plans for each day in Europe, remember : 4 persons will travel and do sightseeing more slowly than would 2 persons. For each day, I recommend plan to start the day (after eating breakfast, and after toilet visits) at 10:00 a.m. And plan for some time for resting, relaxing. If you can add one more night to the trip, add one night to Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland.

Amsterdam (2nts) >> Munich (2nts) >> Switzerland (2nts) >> Rome 3nts)
I think you need to choose between Lauterbrunnen and Zermatt, a family vote may be in order.

Unfortunately, your time allotted does not match up with seeing so many great cities properly. Every time you move from city to city you lose a day. And the first and last day of every trip is essentially wasted getting to and from the airports and getting setup in a hotel.
For 10 days visiting such great cities, I'd tell you to pick two cities, and visit them fully. And you could do day trips.
My first trip began in Munich, and we took in Salzburg, Innsbruck and the Austrian Alps. They're cheaper and easier to travel to/from than Switzerland.

You are (presumably) traveling with luggage. You will need to put it somewhere while you're sightseeing. For instance, on Day 4, you have to go to Fussen first to drop your luggage at your hotel, then take the bus to Hohenschwangau.

Day 5. How are you getting from Fussen to Lauterbrunnen? It looks like a minimum of 8-9 hours travel and 4-5 train changes! Are you going to have any time left to ride the Gondola?

If someone doesn't sleep well on one of the night trains, is s/he going to be cranky?

This whole itinerary is very rushed and spends too much time in transit. Your first couple of days will be getting over jetlag, so you will not have much time to take in Amsterdam. Halve the number of destinations and fly open jaw between wherever you choose.

"I’m completely open to changing the order of places too, if another way makes more sense or would save money."

Day 1 activities may or may not happen - depends on scheduled arrival time, flight delays, jet-lag, etc. But let's be generous and call Day 1 a half day. What you actually have is 9.5 days - spread across FOUR countries??? It doesn't really make sense. And it will be more expensive to travel such long distances.

Rome would mean a long trip. Overnight trains do not guarantee the sleep you need when traveling. Rome is quite big, with lots to see, and it really requires 4 days (unless you want it to be a blur.) It is also quite hot there in summer, and it's not cheap either. I'd drop it.

Additionally you should streamline the trip between Amsterdam and Switzerland...

"Tour of Munich through its historic Old Town, see Glockenspiel... Füssen..."

Only two nights for this HUGE detour from your route toward Switzerland? The extra ground travel time doesn't seem worth it to me. There are other fine Old Town zones in Germany you could visit instead, and other castles - towns you can visit on the way south and REAL castles (N'stein was built in the late 19th century with a fake castle exterior.)

BURG ELTZ, Rick Steves' favorite European Castle
COCHEM, fairy-tale Mosel River town near Burg Eltz with a halt-timbered old town
COLOGNE: UNESCO World Heritage Cathedral... Nazi Documentation Center in former Gestapo prison... old town zone

BRÜHL: UNESCO World Heritage palaces
BACHARACH
RIVER CRUISE through the Middle Rhine Valley (also UNESCO WH)
BRAUBACH, home of never-destroyed MARKSBURG Castle

This would be a much more doable trip:

Nights 1-3: Amsterdam
Nights 3-5: Rhine Valley region (Cologne is only 2:40 hours by train from Amsterdam.)
Nights 5-9: Switzerland (Bern, the gateway to the Alps, is 5:30 hours from Bacharach.)

Thanks all! I appreciate the input and will work to accommodate it. We were going to Munich so that we could see a concentration camp. If there was one around one of the other locations we wish to visit, we could cut out Munich.

"We were going to Munich so that we could see a concentration camp. If there was one around one of the other locations we wish to visit, we could cut out Munich."

Natzweiler-Struthof is about 40 miles from the German border at Kehl, not far from Offenburg, a major town and train hub on the north-south route between the Rhine towns and Switzerland.

I estimate that eliminating Munich, Dachau and Füssen and traveling directly south to Bern instead would trim around 10 hours of train travel.

Not sure about getting to N-S... But the 40 mile trip above would not take long even if you needed to rent a car in Kehl to get there. So including your train travel time to Bern (5.5 hours) and your car travel time and your visit time at the N-S concentration camp, you'd probably have a 12-hour day - leave Bacharach at around 8 am and reach Bern by around 8 pm? It's really not a bad idea, by the way, to do nothing more than a concentration camp that one day. You will lose your appetite for food and fun anyway

With such a short period of time (why?) I suggest choosing between either Bavaria or Switzerland, and either Amsterdam or Rome. 2 places is plenty for such a short trip. Europe is cheap now, perhaps less than traveling in the US, so if expense considerations are holding you back on time it shouldn't. At least expand to 2 weeks.

Does anybody else see the irony of people wanting to avoid Paris, current scene of misery in Europe, yet still wanting to visit concentration camps, scenes of former misery in Europe?
This is not meant as a criticism, or directed at you Pamela, just an observation.

A short time in mid summer should see you travelling light, so perhaps 1 night hops down the Rhine ...
Day 1-3 Amsterdam
Day 4 Cologne
Day 5 Heidelberg
Day 6 Bern
Day 7-8 Lauternbrunnen Valley
Day 9 Luzern
Day 10 Fly home from Zurich

I would avoid the night train because of how busy your schedule is. I also agree with others that have said you have too many stops.

If you were doing a tour a schedule this busy works because you have a professional that organizes everything and you just sit back and let Europe come at you and enjoy the sites. If you're travelling on your own you should consider building in downtime to rest and do some things seperately.

FInding your way around unfamiliar places is exhausting, even when you've been there before.

I would add one night to each stop, except Lauterbrunnen where I'd add two additional nights.

To maximize the number of things you see and keep it in the 10 days, I'd consider skipping Switzerland and Rome for this trip.

We could expand the trip to 14 days which would be the maximum I could get off from my work.

We knew we were trying to see a lot so that is why we decided we couldn't fit in Paris. It wasn't because of recent events. No criticism taken. :)

We've all read the Diary of Anne Frank and my family likes history which is why we wanted to go to Amsterdam and also see a concentration camp. Hope this helps explain why we chose some of the items we did.

Please forgive a potentially silly question: Would the Matterhorn be visible just to see on the horizon from Lauterbrunnen Valley? My husband said he would be satisfied with just a visual, if possible. We live in an area where we can see several mountains, if it is a clear day so this is why I thought to ask this.

Oh, I should add to address a comment above that we expect to use our hiking backpacks instead of suitcases/luggage. It would be OK to carry our items around with us sometimes, but I don't wish to do this each day.

Thanks for taking time to comment! I do appreciate it.

It would be nearly 50 miles (as the crow flies) from Lauterbrunnen to the Matterhorn, and a little thing like the Jungfrau would be blocking your line of sight. Even once in Zermatt, a view of the Matterhorn can remain elusive, due to weather.

You cannot see the Matterhorn from the Lauterbrunnen Valley. It's sbout 3 hours away, if I recall correctly. (Go to the Rome2Rio website for details.) You need to go to Zermatt to see the Matterhorn, and unfortunately it's on a spur of the train line, so not on the way to anyplace else. You've got to train in and train out, which sucks up a lot of time in a short trip. To make matters worse, the weather is notoriously iffy, so there is no guarantee the Matterhorn will be visible when you are there. I was advised to spend three nights to give myself a good chance of seeing it. I could only give it two nights and decided to take a chance. I was lucky and did see it, but it was clouded over and only visible for a few hours of the 48 hours I was there. I think you should skip it. The mountains surrounding Lauterbrunnen Valley were more spectacular anyway. We stayed in Murren, up in the mountains, which I would recommend.

Carroll makes a good point, choose your location based on the scenery at the bottom of the mountains, for a view of the tops of the mountains may remain elusive.

Anne Frank: I toured this house 25 years ago but what I found most surprising is that it is so big. I thought from the book it was a small affair, but it's much larger than the apt we rented in Paris for 5 people.

If you are into Anne's story you could tour the camp where she died and the one that got so much press in the US/UK when it was liberated, Bergen-Belsen about halfway between Hamburg and Hanover. Just a note: nearly all the Jews who died in WW2 died in either extermination centers in Poland, or en route to same, or ghettos in Eastern Europe, or in trenches in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Relatively few died in concentration camps in Germany-- those had their own horrors, however.

I love the idea of using Anne Frank's story as inspiration for your travels.
Her message of hope and overall belief in the 'good' of people is what we need more of right now.

I have been to Zermatt. Four days in middle of summer .

From town we had a good view of Matterhorn one and half days of that stay, so there is no way I would plan on visiting Zermatt for one day with the idea I would see the mountain.

Night trains are not that fun.

Tooooo many places .

Your airfare from states will cost the same if you go for one week, or two..it makes sense to go for two weeks. I do not think you have a firm understanding of distances you want to cover ...its seeming to be a lovely tour of trian stations.

Hi,

Munich is one of the hubs for night trains for all directions. The Amsterdam-Munich night route still exists (luckily) even though Amsterdam has dropped other night routes. The Amsterdam-Munich route is the CNL night train, Germany's top night train, and this is the entire route from start to terminus. Taking the night adds another travel day. I would have no doubts taking this CNL route. Get your family's views on this.

Thank you all again for your time in commenting. I hope to firm up the itinerary next weekend. Happy Thanksgiving!