Which cities to visit?

For museums, I’d suggest adding a lot of time in the UK. Most museums are free, although a £5 donation is always appreciated. The UK is not in the Schengen Zone, I have no idea what the laws are for Australians. Keep in mind that there are excellent museums not in London and the rest of the UK is far less expensive than London. Liverpool and Manchester immediately spring to mind as full of great museums and history and Chester is nearby as well if you like Roman history. York, Durham, and Newcastle as well if you’d rather see the Northeast of England. Being Australian, you can easily drive to Hadrian’s Wall in a hire car.

Thanks for your post Dale,
I agree UK is definitely rich in history. Thanks for your suggestion!
I’m living in Australia but my passport is from New Zealand.
Is driving in UK easy enough?
Thanks!

my passport allows me to spend more time in some Schengen countries

If you are basing that claim on being a UK citizen, that right will probably end with Brexit. If you are a citizen of a different EU/Schengen country, you will still be OK over 90 days.

Some minor comments:

• Interlaken - Interlaken is a town rather than a city. It has very few things to see in the town, you go through it to get to the Jungfrau region. Better to stay in the Jungfrau region (Mürren, Lauterbrunnen, Wengen or Grindelwald). More info about the region here: https://jungfrauregion.swiss/en/summer/

• Brussels - Not the highlight of Belgium. Better is Brugge or Gent.

If you have that much time, spend some of it touring rural areas. Not all cities.

I’m living in Australia but my passport is from New Zealand. Is
driving in UK easy enough?

Having spent 3 weeks on a driving trip on both the North and South islands in NZ a couple of years ago, I'd say you will find driving a breeze in the UK. But if you will only be visiting cities, taking trains would likely be easier and less expensive.

And since I'm a frugal sort, let's mention budget. Some of the places you mention, notably those in the Scandinavian countries, are very expensive to visit. Likewise, if you are in transit a lot, as your list suggests, then your transportation costs (trains, flights, car rentals) may be significant. Selecting a base location for a week and doing day trips can be less expensive than moving to more distant locations every couple of days.

Logistically it makes sense to try to cluster your travels a bit instead of trying to see everything east to west and north to south. Save a few countries for your next trip. Get a bunch of travel guides from the library to see which areas appeal to you the most. Having an idea of what you might want to do in each place can help you figure out how many days you would need to allocate for each place. Once you've roughed out an itinerary, we can help you fine tune it.

Be sure you're working with accurate, complete, information about the legalities. I know nothing about what having a New Zealand passport means in this situation, but you may find you get extra time in a country only in it's your arrival point in the Schengen Zone or the point from which you depart. The UK, Ireland, Turkey, Montenegro and Bosnia-Hercegovina are not currently part of the Schengen Zone, so you may well be safe anyway. But be sure; it's extremely inconvenient and possibly costly to discover you have a problem after you have a pretty firm itinerary and have already bought some of you intra-European transportation.

I agree wholeheartedly that a trip of this length that is overwhelmingly major cities will ultimately be exhausting (mentally as well as physically) and simply not as much fun as a trip covering less geography but a greater variety of sights. Depending on your interests, you need some time doing things like walking/hiking in the Alps or Dolomites, riding a boat down the Rhine, zigzagging across an Italian or Swiss lake, etc.

I'm a traveler who enjoys both museums and just wandering around, enjoying being in a place that feels foreign because of the language, the smells, the food, the architecture, etc. A lot of the best museums and many key historical sights are in the major cities, but the just-being-there thing can be done in smaller, generally less expensive, places. Those spots are often less touristy, too (fewer MacDonalds and Starbucks, typically), which for most of us is a plus.

I spent the entire summer after I graduated from college in Europe (in 1972...), student rail pass in hand. The pass was a lot cheaper then, and intra-European flights were way beyond the pale, cost-wise. I didn't have the money to pay to go inside a bunch of attractions, so I spent less time at my destinations than I did on subsequent trips. Even so, I covered a lot less ground than you have on your list (no Ireland, Scotland, Belgium, Portugal, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia or Poland; but I included a 3-week tour of Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev), so you're right that you need to rein it in a bit. I even felt I had to leave out Rome, though I got as close as Florence. And I didn't get to Greece until my third or fourth trip to Europe despite its being probably the place I was most looking forward to; the geography was against it in the days before airline deregulation.

I've been to most of the places on your list (not Ireland, Scandinavia, Belgium, or Estonia) and they are all totally worthwhile. The thing is, for every place on your list, there are many other great destinations in the same country--smaller destinations, cheaper destinations, quite possibly distinctly different from the (mostly) monster cities you list. While you could see a bit of Paris in 4 days/5 nights, it would be shame to spend that little time in the country of France.

None of your points of interest strike me as too much of the same except I'll grant that Kotor (which I did like) is a bit of a mini-Dubrovnik. So I don't think there are quick answers here. What I'd do is think about the 3 to 5 places (could be entire countries) I was super-excited about, research those (single-country guidebooks are 1000% better than someone's guide to the entire continent) to see how much time I'd want there (not just seeing the capital city!), then begin expanding my trip outward. With the availability of inexpensive flights (but beware luggage costs), it wouldn't be irrational with a trip of this length to do something like Greece-Scandinavia-Spain-Portugal if those widely scattered spots are your top priorities. If a major goal is to see a bit of a lot of different counties, you might prefer to look at a trip through the western and central part of the continent.

Ran out of space in earlier post and wanted to include a few general financial and logistical tips:

• Spain and Portugal are shockingly ill-connected via ground transportation.

• Greece has limited ground links to other countries. You'd think you could travel overland from Croatia/Montenegro, but it would be a slog, albeit an adventure. Travel within Greece tends to be slow; the islands usually require ferries or flights, and the mainland has extremely little rail service.

• Major rail trips (between big cities and across borders) are usually much, much cheaper if you are in a position to buy non-refundable/non-changeable tickets well before your travel date. Those tickets tend to be snapped up by others as time goes on and are often not available if you like to keep you itinerary flexible (as I do). If you decide to operate with a locked-down itinerary, pre-purchased transportation will almost certainly be cheaper than a rail pass. If you're considering a rail pass, you need to take into account that if you start including smaller cities in your itinerary, you may b spending time on buses; those are usually not covered by a rail pass (though there are some exceptions).

• By far the fastest path from London to Paris is via the Eurostar train, which can be cheap if you buy the ticket super early or painfully expensive if you buy it late. The fare difference between buying early and buying at the last minute can be really shocking for trains inside the UK as well. If that remains part of your trip it would be smart to position it at the beginning or end so you can pin down the transportation legs and buy cheap tickets, which leaving the core of your itinerary flexible if you want to do that.

• The countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain remain in most cases less expensive than those farther to the west. In some of them you'd be depending to a considerable degree on buses rather than trains, and you would not cover ground as fast as in countries well supplied with express trains.

• Flights, too, can be quite cheap if tickets are bought way in advance. But baggage-check fees are a factor, and some budget airlines have a carry-on weight limit as low as 7 or 8 kg. Also pay attention to the precise airport being used. RyanAir is known for using airports that are far, far from the city listed on the schedule, and sometimes public transportation to and from those airports is awkward.

• Don't fly in and out of the same European airport. Search for a "multi-city" flight so you don't have to waste precious vacation time doubling back to a place like London or Dublin.

Sorry: I meant to ask what time of year you plan to make this trip? That could help with the culling a bit. Scandinavia is more pleasant in the summer. Much of Spain, Italy, Croatia, etc., are more pleasant if you avoid mid-summer. Of course tourist crowds are an issue in places even if heat isn't typically a concern.

New Zealand is the country with a 90 day stay agreement with most Western European countries (individually), so Schengen does not apply to Kiwis (usually).

I didn't know that. In which case, Kiwis will be better off than UK citizens post-brexit.

That’s actually pretty amazing for Kiwis.

One could spend years traveling Europe, bouncing from country to country, and never be forced to leave — other than financial restrictions of course.

I know nothing of the NZ situation. With respect to the US agreements, I am concerned that something may exist on paper in the archives somewhere but be unknown to the folks at the Immigration booth at the departure airport (or wherever one leaves the country). An extra-time allowance is all well and good, but if you miss your flight home arguing about it with officials, it could be a costly loophole to count on. I, for one, would make a telephone call to the appropriate consular office (or visit in my case, since I have local access to them) before relying on any of the loopholes I've read about. I'm considering Denmark for next year and will certainly report back to the forum about what I learn from the appropriate officials.