Opinions on Itinerary Idea for 4 to 6 week trip: UK, Paris, Rivieras, Florence, Rome

It's nice to have the luxury of that much time available. Maybe consider a slightly different order for the first part: Non-stop LAX to Dublin [and check your bags]. Tour Ireland and end up in Belfast - ferry to Scotland [or fly if you must]. Then train to London and Eurostar to Paris.

Definitely getting a private guide to take us to the major attractions there one day to save time.

There are too many "major attractions" in Rome to do them all in one day - it would be one big blur. I would argue that just the Colosseum plus the Forum can be too much for a single day if you want a quality experience.

My first response is that it makes no sense to go from Nice and the French Riviera west to Spain, and then go all the back (east) to Santa Margherita Ligure and the Italian Riviera! Go to Spain first and work your way east to Nice (which IMO would take well more than a couple of weeks to explore properly), and then go on to SML (which we love BTW).
You are really moving fast and my preference (given the experience of many trips to Europe) is to pick a couple of countries and concentrate on them over 4-6 weeks (since you apparently have this much time). Keep in mind that you will lose most of a day with every site change. And yes, definitely fly with a carry on only! You’ll be schlepping bags a lot especially with public transport so travel as light as you can.

The first response to me makes the most sense to me. I would suggest flying multi city or also called open jaw perhaps into Ireland and home from Italy and use Easy jet or Ryanair for European country travels. We did something similar flying from NYC to Dublin, train to Belfast, Easy jet to Edinburgh train to London and Eurostar to Paris. Once in France we trained to Eastern Frsnce, met friends there and they drove us to Frankfurt after a week of sightseeing in Germany then we flew.home from there. Very easy. I had a weekend bag and my husband a small gym bag all carryon. Good luck and happy travels..

We are two weeks in to our six week trip. Flew into Milan, skied in Dolomites, and today we are on the train between Innsbruck and Belgium. You will need time to decompress and have a day here and there to not do much.

Most of our stays are 3-5 nights with an occasional 1 night before or after train travel. Our last three weeks are in France by car

Como or lago maggiore are worth 3 nights, Don’t go for just 1 night

I’d suggest you map it out on a calendar and note travel time between destinations, taking into account time to/from train stations or airports. You do not want to spend every 4 days traveling all day.

We spent 2+ weeks in Scotland in 2023. We stayed at a fabulous B&B outside of Dufftown, and did the Glenfiddich tour and tasting as well as the Spey side barrel tour. Our other favorite stay was Dornoch for two nights And visited fort George and Culladon battlefield between the two. Or if you are only in Scotland for 4 nights, Pitlochry is a great base. Several distilleries there and nice hiking. Maybe 1-2 nights in Edinburgh and 3 in Pitlochry, might not have to rent a car.

For car rentals, use Auto Europe. We’ve used them multiple times. If you see price drop, you just change reservation, get credited your original booking, and pay for new booking. The first 3 week reservation for France was $850, came down to $550 (full coverage zero deductible)

Yes, do carryon! We even had ski pants, ski accessories, but shipped that stuff home to lighten load.

Have a great time planning your trip. Use tripit app to keep track of your itinerary.

Also plan laundry. We try to rent apartments with washing machines, or know which stays have a laundromat nearby. We have enough clothes for 1 week between laundry. (Yes -carry on)
Wear pants two days, one pair of good walking shoes, and 1 pair sandals.

Thank you for all the thoughtful responses and suggestions. I will definitely look at a lot of them, including flying straight to Ireland and the potential of taking a ferry (and the rental car?) over to Scotland, then continuing on to merry old England.

SO many wonderful suggestions to research! Thank you!

you may find that if you want to take an Irish car to Scotland or England and drop it there you will be looking at a H-U-G-E drop fee, that's if the rental company allows you to take the car on the ferry.

Worth checking early on.

You are wasting a lot of time traveling between locations.
You could spend 10 days in Ireland and not see it all. We have a tour of Ireland (without doing N. Ireland) coming up this Summer. It is 10 days. 5 days in Ireland is not enough.

Consider skipping some countries and focus more on enjoying the places you plan to visit.

3 or 4 days in cities like London, Paris, Florence and Rome are not enough.

Use TripAdvisor.com check things to do in London (or whatever city) and determine what you wish to see.

How about this order of travel -
Ireland
Scotland
Train to London
Eurostar from London to Paris
Train to Nice (the area around Nice has regional trains and buses, so a car would not be necessary)
Train to Santa Margarita Ligure
Train to Florence
Train to Rome

I would omit the Spanish Riviera on this trip since it is out of the way and save Lake Como for another time.
This would give you more time in each place will fewer travel days.

As this is a work in progress obviously, here is the latest: I think we may omit the Spanish Riviera on this trip as suggested. Save that for a trip to Spain one day. :).

And I absolutely agree with the idea of starting off in Ireland and moving on to Scotland and England.

I think we may take the train from Paris to Nimes actually since I would love to spend a bit of time there. Since we really enjoy driving and like to have that freedom, we could get a car there and carry on through Provence down to the Coast to start our Riviera trip, making our way towards Nice.

Are there huge fees to drop a rental car off at a different location in France? We will take a train from Nice to Santa Margarita Ligure, so it would be perfect to return the car at Nice.

And a question for those who also enjoy driving: would you rent a car and enjoy the drive between Florence and Rome (with the potential to stop at a winery of course, and carry all the goodies you may have bought that won't fit into your carryon!) , or would you simply take the train?

Within France the drop-off fees in a different location aren't bad, when they exist. Depends on which company and where (large or small city/town) the rental and drop-off are. If you find your car through AutoEurope and enter your data, it should tell you about the fees. We have driven around Provence often and find it easy and enjoyable. You really get the most of the area (Provence) with the freedom of a car. From Nice you can see lots without a car.
As far as Italy goes, the trains are supposed to be easy and convenient. It has been many years since we drove in Italy so I can't comment on using a car. Do remember that parking can be a real problem in cities like Rome and Florence. Perhaps someone in the Italy forum can help there.
We always take a carry-on and small bag that fits under the seat in the plane (for meds, papers, etc.). That makes it easy to use the train. Everyone has different likes and dislikes, so do whatever you want re luggage, etc.
Our first couples trip to Europe was for four months. My first visit. Hubby had lived in France as a child and been back often, including one year with the army. We covered nine countries with the VW bug we ordered and picked up in Germany. It was unforgettable! Your trip will be too. Have a great time!