Navigating Europe Single Mom!

Stop looking at a map of Europe.

Instead start calculating at mileage between all the cities you want to experience. Then figure out your costs for train travel and flights.

Have the 3 children expressed interest in seeing the cities (countries) you’ve listed?

You might contact Sarah Murdock. She was a RS tour guide at one time and now does her own thing including a FB page Adventures with Sarah Travel Community and online at Adventures with Sarah. She has two children she has traveled with extensively and I’m sure could give you some advice.

What an incredible adventure for you and your children! Have you talked with them about what they want to see/do/learn? It's not clear from your query. For example, when my son was about 11 his passion for Greek mythology guided us to what we planned for our trip there. Or, maybe hiking is something they really enjoy? Castles and ruins? Are they into art? Etc.
The more they are involved in every part of the process the more successful and fun the trip will be for all of you. Perhaps if you provide more information about their interests it will help with brainstorming suggestions.

Interlaken is a disappointment compared to actually being in the Alps in Switzerland. Check out Wengen, Lauterbrunnen or Grindelwald with kids. They would love the First Adventure Park. Spend at least 4 nights in this area.

I suggest Stresa as a stop off between Rome and Switzerland. Beautiful, and easier to get to than CT.

This itinerary is really all over the place, and will eat up five weeks pretty fast. You might consider going from Paris to Athens, then Rome, Venice, Stresa, Wengen, etc. Think about where it makes sense to fly to, and where you can take fast trains to (Rome to Venice).

You need to look at a map. Where are you flying in and out of?

Thank you for the responses. They enjoy nature, art, music, hiking, food adventures.....really everything. The only thing I don't think they would like is museum after museum without breaking things up to experience more of the food, music, culture. Someone mentioned Paris and London. We are doing those prior to this part of the trip. This leg of the trip is intended to cover more of Italy, Greece, and get me into Switzerland and France towards Barcelona.

Perhaps the best question is this:
If I start in Venice and want to expose my children to both Italy and Greece does this plan look feasible?

Venice- fly to Athens (do Greece in 5-6 days)- Fly from Athens back to Rome or Naples and then utilize the trains system to get me back to Switzerland and/or Southern France (Provence). It seems this gives me more exposure to parts of Italy I've never seen. (I did Florence, Amalfi Coast previously). If so- what train routes are recommended and stop-offs to get me back towards Switzerland?

What airports are you flying in and out of? Why would you go to Paris, then Venice then back to FR?

Wow! That's quite an adventure with three kids in tow. I'm also a single mother trying to plan our 5-week itinerary for Europe this summer, but I only have the one daughter who is 17. And I think I've got most of Greece sketched out. We are scheduled to arrive in Athens a week or two before you. Most of our time in Greece will be spent in the north where I lived for a few years.

It has been over 20 years since I've been to Greece, but I would say 3 days in Athens is sufficient. Obviously, we're planning to visit the Acropolis and wander around Plaka. We'll probably cross through the park across from Syntagma Square to the Presidential mansion to catch the changing of the guards. There are free ruins to see in the park and Zappeion Garden used to be quite nice in the summer.

The last time I was in Athens, they had recently opened the metro station at Syntagma. It was great because you could walk down into the station to cross under the busy road without actually entering the Metro, and on that level, there was a full wall display behind plexiglass of the layers of civilization that had been uncovered when building the station. It was really impressive. It was about as interesting as any museum I visited in Athens.

One of my favorite islands near Athens was Hydra. No cars are allowed on Hydra! One or two nights is all you need there. You could technically do it as a day trip. It's a short ferry ride and it used to be cheap, but nothing is cheap anymore, I'm finding. There are a couple closer islands, but I never really found a beach on the mainland that I would want to visit. However, I'll admit I never looked too hard.

If you had a little more time in Greece, I would suggest going to Santorini. There are nicer islands to visit, but for a first visit to Greece, I always suggest seeing the Caldera. It's breathtaking. But even more interesting for me is Akrotiri, an archeological site uncovered in the late 60s of a 7000 year old town on Santorini that had been buried in ash from the volcanic eruption 3600 years ago. Thankfully, the people knew the volcano would erupt and had evacuated the town, so unlike in Pompeii, there are no human remains. I found it fascinating.

It sounds like a wonderful family trip, but i do wonder if you are trying to do too much, or perhaps too many big cities. I would leave Greece out, and add that time to italy and Switzerland. Towns like Lucca or Verona are so easily navigated as a family and provide some respite from busy cities.

One of the things of traveling with kids is to add some extra downtime in every few days. We found the train trips were great for that, as they could play cards, or read or just stare out the window, so personally I would try to take the trains as much as possible. Trooping 3 kids through an airport never feels that restful to me.

For France you might like Collioure for some additional beach time and it is a fairly short train ride to Barcelona. You might find it easier to find accommodations in the Southwest part of France as opposed to Provence, too.

If you want to see Greece, Italy, Switzerland, France and Spain you should start by booking an open Jaw ticket. Fly to Athens, and return from Barcelona.
Then you can do things in a logical order.
Athens
Rome
Cinque Terre
Wengen
Avignon
Barcelona

Athens - Rome you would fly, unless you like to make it interesting, in which case you could take the ferry route, and then travel up the boot of Italy.

All the other trips are easy by train.

I have done almost this exact thing (5 weeks with 3 kids when they were around that age). I agree I would try for an open jaw ticket and start with Athens and work westward. 3 days in Athens is enough. You could spend the other two in Nafplio. I wouldnt try to also fly to an island like Santorini (which I wouldnt choose anyway) bc the logistics, on top of everything else you have in your wishlist isnt worth the time and energy it would take. I would fly to Rome (or Naples - now I cant recall of thats one you've visited already) and work northward buy train, ending in Venice. Depending on cost of flights, which can be much cheaper than train tickets for domestic european flights albeit less romantic (compare if cost is an issue, as we found that 5 plane tickets was far cheaper than 5 train tickets for some of the legs of our trip), you could fly from Venice to Switzerland.

One thing that worked well for us was to alternate cities with more rural or smaller towns, so rather than hit one city after another, we would go from the Cinque Terre to Florence, or in this case, Athens to Nafplio, to Rome, and so on. I liked the pace of 2-3 days in smaller towns and 4 (5 nights) in cities. I would also look for water/swimming opportunities to keep in your back pocket. Even in Florence, I knew of a public pool that looked fun for an afternoon if it seemed like the kids were getting burnt out on cultural things (we didnt go to the pool but it was nice to have back up). I always plan a structured thing in the morning, when the kids were fresher - this is when I would get reservations, and the earlier the better (I aimed to get the first reservation of the day to avoid crowds, because waiting in lines a lot with kids adds to their burn out and that rolls downhill onto your enjoyment), and then I would plan an activity for the afternoon, but it would be one I could toss if the kids seemed unable. So in Rome, we spent the morning at the Borghese gallery and then rented scooters in Borghese park for some random fun time, and then walked 1 1/2 hours back to our lodging, which passed several sites I wanted to see and which Gelato got them through.

We still talk about our trips when they were that age. The kids remember specific details and love to recall it all. This is going to be very special.

Adding: I didnt notice until now that you are starting in London and Paris. I think this is, too much moving around, and we move a lot when we travel. Have you allotted days/nights to each place and started to do the math? Maybe do that with your dream version and see where things stand with number of days and nights and travel logistics, and that may help you start to eliminate places.
You also asked about Provence. If you do choose that area, it is best seen by car. You can train into the region, but then getting around, unless you are just sticking to train destinations, would be better by car (less time and hassle). For example, we spent a great afternoon at Pont du Gard swimming, and we had a car to get there. I bet you could do it by taking a train to Nimes and then a bus (?) to PdG, but that would take so much time and energy.

Great! We took our kids at this age to UK and France. All adults now who love to travel. Only suggestion is to have some "rewards" for "we're doing this because your brother/sister wants to."

Thank you so much everyone for your replies! They are helpful. I know most would look at this and say it's "too much" but with kids ages 9, 10, and 12 interested in ALL things- keeping "on the move" as a single parent helps me keep going. And they may only be in Europe once- who knows?! So, I have to see as much as I can and rest when I die!

My more finalized itinerary is as follows:

London- 4 nights
Paris- 4 nights
Venice- 4 nights
Istanbul- 4 nights
Athens- 4 nights
Rome- 4 nights
Florence- 3 nights
Cinque Terre- 2 nights
Milan- 2 nights
Stresa/Wengen/Swiss Alps Area- 4-5 nights
Montpelier (visit a friend) - 3 nights
7 more days and nights to plan leaving from Barcelona!

I’m assuming you are flying into London. Here’s what I suggest with what you have decided so far:
London – fly nonstop from London to Montpellier.
Montpellier – take a direct train from Montpellier to Paris: https://www.sncf-connect.com/en-en/
Paris – fly nonstop from Paris to Zurich and take trains to get to Wengen: https://www.sbb.ch/en/timetable.html
Wengen – from Wengen take trains to Stresa.
Stresa – from Stresa take a direct train to Milan’s central station (Milano Centrale): https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html
Milan – from Milan’s central station take a direct train to Monterosso in the Cinque Terre.
Cinque Terre – from Cinque Terre take trains to Venice Santa Lucia station (end of line).
Venice – from Venice S Lucia station take a direct train to Florence (Firenze SM Novella) station.
Florence – from Florence SM Novella station take a direct train to Rome’s Termini station.
Rome – fly nonstop from Rome to Istanbul.
Istanbul – fly nonstop from Istanbul to Athens.