Transportation Advice

http://www.seat61.com/
I would look at this website for advice. Eurail passes do not get a good reputation overall but may be suitable for you but do your homework.
look at the cost of point to point tickets and compare to the pass

Your best routing is ...

9/8 Madrid
11/8 Barcelona
13/8 Nice/Monaco
15/8 Pisa
16/8 Rome
18/8 Florence
20/8 Venice
22/8 Salzburg
24/8 Gimmelwald
26/8 Rothenburg ob der Tauber
27/8 Prague
29/8 Amsterdam
31/8 Paris

As you can see if you wish to include all the places listed then you will be travelling pretty much 'every other day'.
Point to point may still be cheaper when you account for seat reservations on premium trains.

21 days continuous Eurail would be good for you out of sheer convenience ...
11/8 Day 1 Madrid-Barcelona
31/8 Day 21 Amsterdam-Paris

15 days continuous for a shorter section with P2P tickets before and after ...
13/8 Day 1 Barcelona-Nice
27/8 Day 15 Rothenburg-Prague

Night train Prague-Oberhausen-Amsterdam may be good for you.
Time pressure would certainly be eased if you went from Gimmelwald to Paris, dropping Rothenburg, Prague and Amsterdam.

Sandra,

To begin with, it you're travelling this August, it would be a really good idea to get an Itinerary sorted and hotels booked SOON! That's peak travel season and it's going to be hot, busy and crowded in Europe, not the most pleasant conditions for a first trip to Europe.

My first suggestion (you may have already done this) would be to read Europe Through The Back Door prior to your trip. It has a lot of good information on "how" to travel well in Europe. After that use the country or city-specific guidebooks to plan touring, hotels, local transportation, etc.

I'm assuming you've already bought air tickets? Where are you flying from (your profile doesn't indicate your location)? If my calculations are correct, your trip will be 26 days. You'll generally arrive in Europe the day after you depart home, so the first and last days will be required for flights, leaving 24 actual days "on the ground". You've specified 14 different locations to see in that time frame, which is an average of about 1.7 days each with no allowance for travel times between locations. Bottom line - you're not going to be able to get to all the places on your list, so you'll need to pare this down. You could start by listing each of the places above in order from most important to least important, and pick the 6-8 top locations on the list. The locations you choose will ideally be within a reasonably close geographical area to minimize both travel times and costs.

If your flights are now purchased, you'll have to work with your inbound and outbound cities. You could consider something along these lines.....

• D1 - flight to Europe
• D2 / N1 - arrive Madrid
• D3 / N2 - Madrid
• D4 / N3 - Madrid
• D5 / N1 - AVE high speed train from Madrid Puerta de Atocha to Barcelona Sants (buy P-P tickets - more on that below)
• D6 / N2 - Barcelona
• D7 / N3 - Barcelona
• D8 / N1 - Flight to Rome (check Vueling - book soon as prices will increase - early morning flight will likely be cheaper)
• D9 / N2 - Rome
• D10 / N3 - Rome (day trip to Orvieto?)
• D11 / N4 - Rome
• D12 / N1 - Freccia high speed train to Florence (90 minutes - buy tickets online - more on that later)
• D13 / N2 - Florence
• D14 / N3 - Florence (day trip to Venice?)
• D15 / N4 - Florence (day trip to Pisa? - you could go to Siena instead)
• D16 / N1 - Train to Nice (easiest trip will be departure at 09:00, arriving Nice Ville at 16:51, 1 change)
• D17 / N2 - Nice
• D18 / N3 - Nice (day trip to Monaco and Monte Carlo)
• D19 / N4 - Nice
• D20 / N1 - Train to Paris (use TGV high speed - 5H:37M, arriving at Paris Gare de Lyon - you can use the Metro or Taxi to reach the area of your hotel).
• D21 / N2 - Paris
• D22 / N3 - Paris
• D23 / N4 - Paris
• D24 - Return flight

You may have to tweak this a bit to fit your dates. With this version, you'd have to make a choice between Nice / Monaco and Gimmelwald. Either is possible but visiting both would be difficult due to the travel times involved.

Given the few rail journeys you'll be making, IMO a Rail pass is not a good value. You can purchase tickets online, sometimes at a discount, as long as you're willing to commit to a specific train. Tickets can be bought either from the rail networks or other agencies. I can provide more specifics once you're decided on an Itinerary. There are some potentially expensive "caveats" to be aware of when using public transit in Italy. If you need more information, post another note.

Especially as this is your first trip to Europe, be sure to wear Money Belts! If you're travelling with any electrical gadgets, you'll need Plug Adaptors. Be sure to notify your financial institutions that you'll be travelling in Europe so they don't freeze your cards. I'd also suggest packing along about €100 for travel expenses until you get settled.

I'm sure the others will have lots of suggestions.

Excellent advice from Ken, Sandra!

At a glance I could see that you have far too many destinations on your list to tackle in the time that you have. You'll spend more time dealing with transport, checking in and out of hotels, packing/unpacking and getting your bearings than seeing very much at all. As he has suggested, pick your top 6-8 places and get your accommodations booked NOW: the top destinations in Europe are always very busy during high season, and are reported to be even more jammed this year with the favorable dollar-to-euro exchange rate.

Underestimating how much time it takes for each move to a different location is a common misstep. Leaving no wiggle room for something to go awry (delayed flight; train strike; museums closed on the one day you've allowed to see them; etc. ) is another so quality over quantity is a lot more rewarding, and less tiring and stressful.

Sandra: I think you may be underestimating the vast distances in your itinerary. You're intending to visit too many great cities--each worthy of more time than your 3 weeks allows.

I suggest you fly into Madrid and take a train to Barcelona.
There is a relatively new fast train service that takes you from Barcelona to Paris in 6 1/2 hours.
From Paris, you can fly cheap to virtually anywhere in Europe on a budget air carrier. I would suggest you fly to Rome.

From Rome, you can take a fast train up to Florence and Venice. Forget Pisa.

In three weeks, this is as far as you'll have time to go.

"This is our first trip to Europe"

Oh, really. I never would have guessed.

I agree with most other remarks. Too many venues, too little time. The obvious sign of a first timer. Combining Monaco and Nice as one venue (day), you still have 13 venues in what is effectively 23 days.

You have 24 nights in 13 places. That's 11 two-night stays (22 nights) and 2 one-night stays (2 nights).

If you haven't already made you flight reservations, add several weeks at least.

Put aside the rail pass question until you have a firmer plan of which trains and flights you really can fit in, and in which countries. Flying can be a good value for jumping between countries, especially.

If you want to compare rail pass prices to advance-discount train tickets on some longer routes, then you have to be ready to buy those tickets; the cheapest rates sell out first and most have already been on sale for a month or two.

Before or at the same time as buying any rail pass, you should reserve faster trains within or touching France. If the limited number of pass holder reservations gets sold out, you would not want the same pass.

"Flying can be a good value "

Nevertheless, checking out of your hotel, getting to the airport, checking in, going through security, boarding time, flight time, deplaning, finding ground transportation, getting into town, getting to your hotel and checking in will probably eat up an entire day.

"Slow down, you move too fast, you got to make the moment last."

Your proposed itinerary will create lasting memories focused upon the modes transport.

striving to maximize the numbers of places "seen" to justify the expense, time and effort does not insure creation of a wonderful journey.

A number of your destinations are worthy of spending three days in each.

And a three week trip creates it's own stress best resolved with one or two days taking a "break" from visiting sites.

sandra,

One point regarding flights within Europe. Many of the budget airlines operate on a "sliding scale", with the prices increasing as the flight fills. If you buy tickets at the last minute, the flights may not be a good deal but you may have to pay it. It would be a good idea to get your Itinerary locked-down ASAP and start getting some bookings, both for transportation and hotels. For travel in August, the longer you wait, your costs will increase and your choices will decrease.

Time to get cracking!

What everybody else said.

If it was me, with my flights already set, I'd keep Madrid, Barcelona, Nice, Paris, Rome, Florence and Venice and drop Monaco, Pisa, Gimmelwald, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Salzburg, Prague and Amsterdam. However and whatever you choose, you simply must cut something or the trip will be a blur for everyone.

After the initial cut, I'd quickly decide what I want to see in the places I kept to determine how long to stay in each place. That might also reveal more places to drop. I would not fly from Barcelona to Paris and then back to Italy. IF my final decision was to keep what I said, I would follow this path: Madrid-->Barcelona-->Nice-->Florence-->Venice-->Rome-->Paris. I'd fly from Rome to Paris and finish the trip there. I might also fly from Barcelona to Nice if possible.

Without dropping any of the 7 places listed, and assuming an arrival in Madrid on 8/9 and departure from Paris on 9/2, that's only a total of 24 nights and 23 days on the ground, keeping in mind that the 1st day will be marginal due to jet lag. That means a rough average of 3 nights in each place, also keeping in mind that 3 nights usually only leaves 2 full days for seeing what you came to see. That might be enough or even too much time for some of the cities but others require more, so an even division of nights is probably not the best plan.

One thing you don't say is how many people are in your party of adult children and you. The more you are, the slower the group will be and the harder it will be to get accommodations for all of you no matter where you go for the reasons others have mentioned.

To get a grip on the distances we are talking about, use Rome2rio and plug in the cities you want to travel between. R2R will give you some hints at distances, transportation times and options and their prices, but especially elucidating are the maps for each option. Be sure that it is set to EUR and KM (drop down under the flag). There's no time like the present to get used to that.

This would work at a pinch ...
9/8 Madrid (3)
12/8 Barcelona (3)
15/8 Nice/Monaco (2)
17/8 Pisa (1)
18/8 Rome (3)
21/8 Florence (3)
24/8 Venice (2)
26/8 Salzburg (2)
28/8 Gimmelwald (2)
30/8 Paris (3)
I know for some people its not so much the destination as the journey getting there. If that's your preference then that's fine. Enjoy the train rides!!

Thank you everyone for your advice. I will definitely cut down on places to visit.

We just returned from Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, and Nice, in that order, and here are my two cents.

We love train travel, and we initially intended to travel by train from Barcelona to Nice. It was going to take at least 10 hours with 2 changes of train. (http://www.francetravelguide.com/getting-from-barcelona-to-nice.html) Because we had only 3 weeks in total, we chose to fly instead. We had already booked our accommodations, or else it would have been easier to go to Barcelona BEFORE Madrid, take the high speed train to Madrid, and then fly from Madrid to Nice, as there were more flight options from Madrid than from Barcelona. (From Barcelona, there were only early morning or evening flights available.) So, I'm suggesting you check into the travel times and connections before finalizing your itinerary. What's seems logical geographically may not be the most practical route in actuality.

There is no reason to skip Monaco. It is cheap, quick, and easy to take the bus there from Nice for a day trip (or even half a day--we stopped at both Ville-Franche-sur-Mer <3 <3, went on to Monace, and returned to Nice in time for dinner). (You can take the train to Monaco, also, but I've been told the bus route is more scenic.)

That said, I agree with those who say your itinerary would be too rushed. I would need at least 45 days (bare minimum) for all the locations you have mentioned. For the length of time you have, Spain, France and Italy will give you more than enough to see, or consider Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and the Czech Republic.

For many of the places you mention, I would want a minimum of four days (excluding Salzburg and Monaco--and I'm not sure about the places in Germany, as I have not been to those). You have left yourself less than two days per city, if you subtract travel time. Consider, also, that every time you change locations, you not only spend the train travel time, but the time getting to/from the train station and the time checking into your new accommodations (and sometimes you cannot check in until mid-afternoon). So, I would not want to do that much switching in a trip of just under a month.

Oh, sorry, I forgot that you are already booked to fly into Madrid, so of course going to Barcelona before Madrid would not work for you.