Here's our rough plan:
Night 1 Flight to Milan
3 nights/2 days: Varrena on Lake Como. 2-3 hours to Varrena from airport depending on when we land.
6 nights/5 days Venice: 2-3 days touristing Venice/ 2-3 days day-tripping Padua, Verona, and Lagoon Islands.
Overnight train to Prague taking Brenner Pass through Alps during day before night train to Prague.
3 Nights/2 and 1/2 days Prague.
4 Night/3 days Vienna. One day trip to Melk and Krem.
Night train to Cologne including morning view of Rhine; three hours in Cologne, and on to Bruges.
3 nights/two days Bruges day trip to Ghent.
6 Nights/ 5 days Amsterdam. Spend three to four hours in Brussels on way from Bruges to Amsterdam. 2-4 day trips from Amsterdam.
Fly home from Amsterdam.
Notes: This will be a mid June to mid July trip. We could change the order of cities including departure and arrival cities. We prefer not to fly within Europe generally, but would take suggestions about where it makes more sense than the train. We like night trains and all sleep well on them. We love art museums and history museums, but also hiking and city/village atmosphere. We love cathedrals. We like to travel slow but prefer not to see the same thing over and over, i.e. one finely furnished castle every 3 days is plenty. We prefer apartments to hotels. We will eat in or pack a lunch 4 out of five meals but we love to buy local foods preferably at farmers markets. I may take 2-3 half day cooking classes on the way while the family does a half day of other things.
So far we have been to Italy, France, and Britain. All of these cities (except Milan) will be new to us.
Are we doing too much? Suggestions for tweaking the schedule? Are we giving too much or too little time to any city. What cities are best for cooking classes--I want a variety.