Please critique family itinerary!

I think you have the right amount of time in each location but I have never been to Austria. 6 nights may be too much depending on your tastes/interests. The order of travel is important. I did a quick search on trains from Paris to Salzburg and it's about a 12-13 hour trip. That easily kills an entire day. Check rome2rio for travel times between cities. You may want to check on flights as well on skyscanner.net. I would travel as follows:

Paris to Salzburg to Vienna to Venice to Florence to Rome.

You may want to switch Salzburg and Vienna. Travel time between those 2 cities is less than 3h. The travel time within Italy is relatively short. Venice to Florence is 2h 5m and Florence to Rome is 90m. Pompeii will be a very full day trip from Rome.

You are correct that travel between cities will kill a fair amount of a day just by checking out of one hotel, going to the train station and finding your new hotel. Even a short train ride like Florence to Rome will eat up at least 4-5 hours door to door. Good luck!

What a great trip for your whole family, and a good opportunity to plan it as a family!

It's nice to plan two days at a place and one partial for transportation in between, so your number of days look good overall. Selecting a travel route, would might want to fly into Paris, then fly to Rome, train to Florence & Venice, then fly from Venice to Vienna, train to Salzburg, and then fly home through Munich. If so, take a day from Paris & Rome to spend a full day in Munich and fly from there the final day.

Since each person picked a location, let each person share their ideal 2-day itinerary for that location (great to get your kids involved in researching & planning), and you can decide as a family how much time, including transportation you really want at specific locations. Also, think about activities, i.e. a cooking class in Rome, that could help everyone see beyond just a list of Top sites for some great memories.

I agree with the route suggested above and your sense that any shorter than three days will be difficult to see much.

The kids won't slow you down! With four people, you can split up and see what interests different pairs or two can wait in line and two can get food stand food or whatever.

We are doing Salzburg to Paris by train and it's eating up a day. I'm okay with that but the man in seat61.com suggests spending the night in Zurich for a more relaxed pace. Check out his site as he has great information and tons of insight.

Have the girls keep journals. I brought mini pencil crayons and a little watercolour set for my daughter. A dropper bottle meant she could paint while in line ups.

Three days in each of Salzburg and Vienna are not too much. We are doing Fraülein Maria's bike tour of Salzburg for 3.5 hours. It sounds great and will give a good overview. It's also supposed to be not strenuous. Also the puppet tradition is huge there. While the puppet museum may not be great, it's free. There are also shows in a dedicated puppet theatre. It's worth climbing to the fortress and kids have energy to burn. If you run out of things, there are days trips to Hallstett and the salt mines.

Vienna has even more to do!

A friend just got back from Florence with her 5 year old. She thought two days was enough. It was busy and crowded. She said they retreated to the other side of the Arno to escape the crowds.

Rather than a day trip to Pompeii consider staying a night or two nearby. It's best seen early in the morning before the day trippers arrive (no offence). We went at opening and it was magical to be the only ones in the theatre or walking along the streets.

It will be a trip for you all to enjoy and remember!

Thanks for the ideas! I was planning to fly to Rome from Paris, then train to everywhere else. You think flying to Vienna from Paris and doing the rest of the trip in reverse is a better plan? Id like to keep train travel less than 5 hours each trip if I can.

I thought of staying near Pompeii (Sorrento) for a few nights, but hubby didn't like that idea. If at all possible he'd prefer to spend some time in Cinque Terre.

Oldest girl chose Austria because she is a very talented musician, she is interested in Mozart.

When I first saw the list you made and the amount of time in each, bearing in mind the travel times maybe a bit quick until I saw your comment about your husband's preferred traveling style.

I would - no way - never want to get into the middle of a family squabble.

It sounds like he had the idea and he may want it his way.

It would be a shame to be too rushed.

Angela,

To begin with, I would not recommend speeding up your Itinerary. As you noted, it's important to include transportation times between locations, which is usually about half a day and in some cases the better part of a full day. That means you won't have as much time in each location as you might think (ie: your 3 days in Florence will only be about 2.5 days).

Does the 21 days include your two flight days? You've been there before, so will be aware that you'll arrive in Europe the day after you depart home, and the final day will be required for the flights home. Also, you'll likely be jet lagged for a few days, especially coming from the west coast (that's usually the case for me).

The order of your Itinerary seems good, and it should easily be possible to include a visit to the Cinque Terre as well, but will require some adjustments in other parts. There are two ways you could do that.....

1. Add time in Florence and visit the C.T. as a day trip. It will be a bit of a long day, but if you leave early and return late, you'll be able to see the five towns. I've made that trip, and it's not really that difficult.
2. Spend a night or two in the C.T. which would allow you to have a more relaxed visit there and perhaps some beach time. That's a great place to "recharge batteries" if you're exhausted from travelling in other areas, and you can do as much or as little as you want. However, if you decide to do that I'd recommend changing the order slightly and travelling Rome > Cinque Terre > Florence > Venice, as it's a more efficient route. One other suggestion - it would be a really good idea to book accommodations WELL in advance. I normally stay in Monterosso, which is the largest of the five towns so has a greater number of hotels, restaurants, etc. as well as the nicest beaches.

Flying from Paris to Rome is indeed the best idea. You might have a look at easyJet flights from Paris / ORY to Rome / FCO (flight time ~2 hours). A few points to note with those flights.....

• Those booking well in advance get the cheapest prices. They often use a "sliding scale" with prices increasing as the flight fills.
• Most budget airlines offer different types of tickets, but the cheapest ones are usually non-refundable and non-changeable, so choose carefully when you book.
• Be sure to read their Terms & Conditions carefully, especially related to luggage. If you think any checked bags might be over the weight allowed, it's cheaper to pay for the next weight tier at the time of booking. If they find it overweight when you check it, the cost will be much higher.
• NOTE that easyJet only allows ONE carry-on item per passenger, of the approved size (they don't care about weight as long as you can lift it). This doesn't mean "one plus a personal item such as a purse or laptop case", it means one only!
• it's relatively easy to get from Paris to Orly Airport (there are several methods). One of the easiest is to take the RER "B" to Antony station and then take the OrlyVal people mover to the airport.

All of your trips are easy by train, but one to note is the trip from Venice to Salzburg. That's easily done, but in order to keep the travel time to a minimum, I'd probably use a departure from Venice Tronchetto at either 09:20 or 11:20, arriving at 15:48 or 17:48 respectively (time 6H:28M, 1 change). This solution uses a Bus from Venice to Villach for the first segment, and then train into Salzburg. Both segments require compulsory seat reservations.

What a wonderful trip that will be, both to celebrate your anniversary as well as travel with your daughters while they're still at home.

Good luck with your planning!

Hello Angela. In ITALY the leaning tower of Pisa is well known, but I do not recommend going on a day trip to Pisa from Florence. I think going on a day trip from Florence to a hill town in Tuscany would be better. If you will travel, via trains, from Florence to a village in the Cinque Terre, you could visit Pisa, en route to the Cinque Terre.