Need help with our next itinerary

Sue, I see you're from Orlando. Perhaps it will put things into perspective if you think of it this way: the distance from Caen, France (in Normandy) to either Budapest or Rome is about the same as the distance from Orlando to New York City.

That doesn't mean you can't include them in the same trip, but consider what you might recommend to a European traveler who wanted to spend four weeks in the USA and was interested in seeing Orlando, New Orleans, Chicago, Washington, DC, and New York. Even if our train system were as good as theirs, you'd probably suggest they narrow it down and spend more time in an smaller geographical area.

Consider this: flying into London, heading to the Cotswolds, then to Normandy, then Annecy, they Lucerne, then the areas of Germany you want to see, and flying home from Frankfurt, you will have covered 1500 miles, and that's just assuming you only go direct from place to place without traveling around within each area. Adding Cesky Krumlov and Budapest, or adding Rome, that's a lot of distance to cover on a single vacation.

As I said, that doesn't mean it isn't doable; just think it through carefully and decide how much time you want to spend getting from one place to the next.

Thanks Lane for putting it into perspective.

IMO your plan is too geographically spread out. You would spend a lot of time, not to mention money, on trains. Even if you shift some of the travel to budget flights, you'd still lose too much time in transit. First, I'd eliminate the outliers, Budapest and Cesky Krumlov. Next, try to block out how many days you'll want to spend at each destination. Rome, for example, should be allotted the better part of a week, (5 days?), both for its intrinsic interest and to justify the time and expense to get there.
That leaves the better part of 3 weeks for the Cotswolds, Normandy, the German areas, and Annecy/Switzerland. Doable, I think. Normandy is large, with many points of interest; e.g., Bayeux, Honfleur, Mont- St-Michel, Rouen, Giverny. I, myself, don't care to visit battlefields or cemeteries; but many people also consider the WWII sites to be "must sees."

Of course, you do plan to fly open jaw, don't you? East to west, or the reverse, seems the most sensible principle. I'll leave the in-between transportation advice to others, but one thought does occur. If you were to fly into Rome, you'd be there. Whereas, if you start with the Cotswolds, you'd still have to get there from London after a transatlantic flight. In addition, Rome is the furthest south. Also, getting to England from Normandy is pretty easy. Arrive Rome; depart London is what I'd do.

My advice is more or less along the same line. Why not places in a region which makes more geographical sense? Western Czechia, Bavaria, Black Forest, Switzerland (or something like that) can all be done in one continuous trip, with short distances between the destinations.

Great suggestions. We have already decided to scratch The Cotswolds off our list. We'll include that when we do Scotland and Ireland.

I'd start by looking at open-jaw flight options. Otherwise you may spend a lot of time connecting the dots from, say, Normandy to Budapest, only to find that there are no convenient flights. I would also check for local festivals/events in and around the places you are considering. The Journees du Patrimoines (Heritage Days) in France are usually the third weekend in September. It is an opportunity to visit beautiful buildings that are otherwise closed to the general public, many museums and other sights are free, and there are crowds. I was in Paris once at that time and felt privileged to be there - but you may want to avoid the multitudes.

I'm not really experienced in planning trips like this but your itinerary seems incredibly spread out.

7 places/areas and 1800 miles in 4 weeks. (I've already excluded Cotswolds)

Trips I've done for comparison:
500 miles through Iceland in 1 week
1200 miles through Iceland in 2 weeks
1000 miles through Norway in 1 week

So it's certainly doable but those were well organized and guided tours but still didn't leave us much time to see more than one or two things in each place. Especially the Norway trip was very low on excursions. We only spend noticeable amounts of time in Oslo, Trondheim, Lillehammer and Roros. So I'd say at the bare minimum your trip would take you 2 weeks just to have been at each of those places. That means at most 2 days per destination to actually go and see/do stuff. But this is not counting "lost time" due to days not lining up well with different legs in your journey.

Dropping the eastern European places for Rome helps but only because you're dropping 2 places in favor for one place. Distance is still significant. You could significantly centralize your itinerary by dropping Normandy and Eastern Europe:

Flying into Düsseldorf
Middle rhine valley
Baden-Baden
Schwarzwald
Lucerne
Annecy
Flying out of Geneva

That would only be about 600 miles and more or less on a straight line.

As I said in the beginning. I don't have any experience with planning this sort of thing. Depending on how comfortable you're with driving (car or train) or willing to take several short flights and how much time you want to spend in each place your itenerary might not need that much trimming. But I hope my information gives you some frame of reference.

Thanks everyone. We've dropped Rome and the Cotswolds, so now we're looking at: Normandy, Germany: Rhine/Mosel, Black Forest; then the wine area outside of Strasbourg; then down to Annecy/Chamonix; then over to Switzerland.

One of the things I'm not sure of: if we see the alps in Annecy, should we still go to Switzerland?

Going by the Wikipedia page for Annecy it seems to be a gorgeous place but I wouldn't exactly call it an alpine town. It seems to sit on the edge of the alps (kinda like Lucerne) which will be different than being surrounded by them. I'd recommend to make at least a side trip somewhere into the alps but that should be possible from Annecy.

So no, if it's just for the alps you don't have to go to Switzerland.

Sue -- If possible, schedule your time on the Rhine so that you're in St. Goar on Sept. 17, 2016, for the Rhine in Flames fireworks display and wine festival (here's a link). It was a highlight of our trip in 2014. Absolutely spectacular.

Sue: Your trip still doesn't flow very well.
Have you considered dropping Normandy and starting your trip in Amsterdam? You could take a train up the Rhine River stopping along the way at Cologne to see The Dom and Bacharach for a great B&B experience. (See BavariaBen.com).
And you could take the train into Munich. From Munich, you could rent a car and go east to Salzburg and visit Cesky Krumlov--north of Linz, Austria. You could also drop south into Tirol to get into the Alps scenery around Innsbruck. I find it an easier and cheaper alternative than traveling to to Switzerland.
I've been to the Black Forest twice driving thru to Paris, and it's pretty but not exactly breathtaking scenery like you'll find in the Austrian Alps.

Then fly home from Munich.

Charlene - thanks for the info about the wine festival. Did you stay in St. Goar?
Thanks to all for your input. I can see we have a lot of research and map plotting to do, but that's part of what we enjoy about our trips.

We didn't stay in St Goar, although it would have been great. It was totally booked by the time we made our plans so we stayed in nearby Boppard and took a train to St Goar. Bacharach would be even closer. I hope you can work this in. It was an unforgettable experience.

Chamonix is definitely Alps with a capital A.

Hello Sue. Of all the itineraries proposed for you here, I think the best is the itinerary suggested by David at Alabama. And, if you will be at Europe a total of four weeks, you could add Normandy and Budapest. If you will go to Normandy, do not fly to Amsterdam. Fly to Paris. Or, it might be best to travel in the reverse direction.
Fly to Budapest.
Train to Vienna.
Train to Cesky Kumlov.
Train to Salzburg (via Linz).
Day trip from Salzburg to Eagle's Nest in Germany. Good view of Alps mountains.
Train to Munich.
Train to Bacharach. (Edit) Boppard is a wine town. Boppard is located between St. Goar and Koblenz.
Train to Paris (via Koblenz in Germany).
Train from Paris to a town in Normandy.
Return to Paris.
Fly from Paris to Miami.
For your return trip to Florida, I recommend flying from Paris or from Frankfurt, not from Budapest. Because flying from Budapest would require that you be at the Budapest airport at a very early time in the morning. Flying from Budapest to Miami in one day might not be possible, using airlines that you choose. If you think that would be too much traveling in Europe, delete France from your trip. After being at Bacharach, fly from Frankfurt to Florida.

Except I would use a shuttle service like Bean to get from Vienna to Cesky K and then to Salzburg.
But still, too much for me. I am a sort of set up camp in a town for a week to 10 days and go exploring (day trips and overnights) sort of guy. Or cross country, but never for more than a week without a long stay to break it up.

Hello James E. ! I hope Sue is reading all of this. I think, in Sue's trip, travelling across Switzerland would take too much time. And, Switzerland is not the only country in Europe that has Alps mountains. And, many people think the big lakes in the Salzkamergut region in Austria (not far from Salzburg) are more wonderful than Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. I am inclined to agree with that opinion. Sue, in a future trip, when you will go to Ireland and England, could you also go to France ?

Hi,

As suggested above, I would suggest dropping the "outlier" Cesky Krumlov (not interested) but in your case, because of distance. If you fly back from Budapest, as part of an open jaw arrangement, consider how many times you might have to change planes, which is one reason I normally don't do open jaw. You're still doing a rough draft. In that case I suggest choosing Rome. Do that either by the night train option (I see some possibilities in your plans) or a discount carrier flight. Consider also dropping something...the Black Forest?

Perhaps look at Budapest as a separate 'add-on', maybe before starting a Rhine journey in Amsterdam as previously suggested. (I also think Cesky Krumlov is too difficult on this trip)

Arrive Budapest
(fly to)
Amsterdam
Cologne
Koblenz-Trier Mosel side trip
Boppard-St Goar-Bacharach
Strasbourg
Luzern (via Basel)
Annecy (via Geneva)
Normandy (via Lyon)
Depart Paris

Hi all - we have been reading your replies and thank you so much for your input. We're reading up on a lot of different options for our trip and we seem to change our minds every time we come across something that really interests us.

We definitely could and probably will, save Normandy for our trip to England/Ireland. So now our thoughts are (roughly):
Fly in to Amsterdam
Rhine/Mosel area
then "working our way over to Vienna??? I know - we haven't talked about that before, but Vienna really sounds like something we would enjoy. We could get our "alps fix" in Austria, as some of you have suggested.
Since we have a 4-5 weeks, we could then either fly from Vienna to Rome or take the train, making a few stops along the way.

Crazy???

Hello Sue. Well, flying from Vienna to Rome is not crazy, if you will be at Europe 4 weeks or longer. But, you said you desire to go to Budapest. If you will be at Vienna, it is logical to also ride in a train to Budapest. Or start at Budapest, as I suggested in my first reply. Italy is worthy of two weeks, or three weeks. I suggest : go to Italy in an other trip, an other year. In this trip that you are planning, you could travel more in Germany. Do you not want to go to any place in Germany other than the Rhine River and Mosel River ? Did you go to Germany before ? In this trip, you could travel in Germany and Austria, and to Budapest, and to Cesky Krumlov. Vienna is not the same as Budapest.

Amsterdam
Cologne
Koblenz-Trier Mosel side trip
Boppard-St Goar-Bacharach
Strasbourg
Luzern (via Basel)
Innsbruck/Austrian Tirol
Salzburg
Vienna

You originally mentioned Budapest, which would also be an option from Vienna.