Barcelona, Paris, and....??

Let me be sure I understand what you want to do. Is this it?

Day 1: Arrive in Barcelona and fly on separate ticket to City X (? nights)
Day ?: Train to Paris (? nights)
Day ?: Train to Barcelona (? nights)

How many nights are you spending in Europe? Different people mean different things when they say "11 days". It's not a huge amount of time for two sight-rich cities like Barcelona and Paris plus an additional destination. With a 4-month-old in tow, I'd spend all my time in Paris and Barcelona. Each has multiple good side-trip possibilities that wouldn't required you to move all your luggage to a new city.

Brussels doesn't seem to have excited much of anyone who has been there (I haven't), so that wouldn't be at the top of my list. Munich seems reasonably suitable for a short stay as long as you don't have multiple day-trips you want to take from the city (many people do). You can get to Paris from Munich in 5 hr. 37 min. by train, but that means getting the 8:28 AM or 12:28 PM train (current weekday schedule). But you're going to have a 6-1/2 hour train trip between Paris and Barcelona, too. Do you want to spend such big chunks of two days on trains?

I'd take a look at the stops made on the way from Paris to Barcelona to see whether there was a suitable place right on the way. That would cut out at least 5-1/2 hours of train time. I don't know that all the Paris-Barcelona trains make the same stops. The one I checked randomly goes through a bunch of worthwhile destinations, all of which would be suitable for, say, a 2-night stay: Nîmes, Montpellier, Narbonne and Girona.

You can see the stops each train makes on the Deutsche Bahn website by selecting a train, clicking on Show details, then clicking on Show intermediate stops.

For fares and to be sure you're seeing all the options, use the SNCF website. I haven't been able to figure out how to get a list of the intermediate stops; I'm sure there's a way.

How about the Provence area instead of Brussels or Munich. Neither of these cities are the big draw that Barcelona and Paris are. Provence is in between Barcelona and Paris making it convenient. The only problem is you may not have time.
Since you’re traveling with a four month old you may prefer train travel over flying. You need a car In Provence so if that’s an issue skip it.
Another thought is spending more time in Paris and Barcelona which would be nice with a baby in tow. I wonder how your baby will react in the Sagrada Familia when the sun penetrates it’s stain glass in shades of color you can’t imagine (buy your tickets before leaving home. You don’t need to see views from the towers unless you like looking down from the nose bleed section). Gaudi was an artist.
However, the Provence gets you in a car and babies ride well in vehicles. I would also purchase RSs guide books and you can download electronic versions from his app.

Brussels is the dullest capital city in Europe, albeit the chocolate is good.

With 11 days, the first and maybe more will be lost to jet lag and the last day is just about getting to the airport, so it sounds as though you have 9 days, which is time for Paris and Barcelona only. You will lose at least half a day every time you switch locations, so with a toddler, stick to 2 locations.

Open jaw flights would be better to avoid back tracking. Ideally, book the flight through to Paris as one booking, otherwise you will need to leave a good time between flights.

So the child will be born in late April-early May? You mention no other children, so you are 1st time parents presumably.

You may not yet fully appreciate how much a child that young will slow you down.

Paris and Barcelona and the travel between will be more than plenty to keep you well and fully occupied.

Okay, you have some idea of what it is like to travel with an infant. Even if you've been to Europe before and know how you'll handle jetlag, babies are different. You can't keep them awake for hours or put them to sleep too early.

I'll repeat what others have said. You are taking a risk by booking a flight on your arrival day at BCN. If there's a delay anywhere between home and getting to the gate for that flight, you could miss it and then have to pay a lot of $$$ for another flight, if you can even get one on the same day. Among the things that could go wrong - weather or mechanical delay, air traffic congestion or long passport control lines at BCN, waiting for checked luggage.

Second, travel by train takes time. It will take you time to pack, check out and get to the train station, then find and board your train. Figure 45 minutes to an hour (traffic ?). On arrival you have to get to your hotel, check in and drop your luggage before anything else. I just looked at the train schedule for a random day in September, Munich to Paris. The only morning train that's direct leaves at 6/22 am and takes 6 hours. All the others require a train change about midway. You could take the one at 7.46 (you may be getting up really early anyway because of the baby?), that gets to Paris just after 2. Maybe you are checked in by 3 pm. But you've been up since 6. That doesn't give you much time. The next train doesn't get to Paris until after 5 pm. There are 2 direct trains from Paris to Barcelona at about 10.15 am and 3.15 pm, take more than 6.5 hours. Basically, you lose the day to travel.

Day 1 - travel to City 1
Days 2-3 - see City 1
Day 4 - travel to Paris, a couple hours to sightsee before dinner.
Days 5-6 - sightsee Paris
Day 7 - travel to Barcenlona
Days 8-10 - sightsee Barcelona
Day 11 - fly home.

City 1, 2 days; Paris 2 days, Barcelona 3 days. Travel 4 days.

Backpackers or "power" tourists might enjoy a trip like that. Most of us here wouldn't plan a trip so fast-paced even with babies.

There are destinations where two days can allow a nice, relaxing visit with time to wander around and absorb your surroundings. Barcelona and Paris are not those cities unless you've visited them before (probably more than once). They are too large and have too much to see.

Consider taking the high speed train from Barcelona to Paris, but on return to Barcelona, take a slower train that stops in route to Barcelona. Consider stopping for a day or two.

I haven't checked the schedule, but I am sure there are some interesting places to see between the two cities.

Another option is to take a two day trip to Normandy, stay in Bayeux.

Thanks for the suggestions so far! Full disclosure, my husband doesnt have much interest in being in France, but we're making the stop in Paris because we're Disney fans!

Our itinerary so far:
9/24: USA>BCN
9/25: flight to ???
9:26: ???
9/27: ???
9/28: ???
9/29: ???
9/30: ???>Paris
9/31: Disneyland
10/1: Paris
10/2: Paris>BCN
10/3: BCN
10/4: BCN
10/5: BCN
10/6: BCN
10/7: BCN>USA

This is a classic example of where an open jaw ticket into Paris/Barcelona and home from Barcelona/Paris would save a lot of time and money. We traveled with our granddaughter at 6 mo. But between naps, feeding, we were half speed compare to our normal travel pattern. I would look at a tighter circle or short distances -- Barcelona, Madrid, Sevilla, and home from Malaga. Or perhaps Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels or maybe London. What you are proposing is a bit much for a 4 mo old.

Hi Katie,
If you go to Brussels, you could make it your home base and take a day trip to Brugges or use that as your home base. Brussels would be more convenient if traveling by train. Most people don’t care much for Brussels though.
Munich is a great transportation hub with Dachau nearby, but you really want to focus on Bavaria. What about Amsterdam? You can take a direct train to Paris from Amsterdam.

Congratulations on your new arrival! I don't have kids so I won't offer advice about them, except to suggest that an 11-month-old might be more of a handful, because more mobile and expressive, than a 4-month-old. And I don't like the tendency some of us have to rain on people's parades, with the best intentions, on this forum. That said, I agree with others that two cities, not three, makes more sense for the time you have, i.e. Barcelona and Paris based on your stated choices. Why ask a bunch of strangers to suggest a third city for such a limited time?

If you already have round trip flights to and from BCN, then the more efficient open-jaw option won't be available, at least without serious change fees. (But consider how much an extra day of your vacation, not spent backtracking, might be worth.) Whether to go immediately to Paris or stay in Barcelona first depends on BCN arrival time and what connection (train or plane) you can get, allowing plenty of interval for contingencies like delayed landing, immigration, and baggage claim. My own preference would be to stay in Barcelona first, then proceed to Paris, then train or fly back to Barcelona the day before the flight home.

Another thought (raining on just part of your parade) -- if Disney is the main reason for Paris, wouldn't it be better to wait till the little one is old enough to appreciate Le Magic Kingdom as much as you do? In which case, Spain has many wonderful options besides Barcelona, with easy train travel over shorter distances. Acraven among others could give you tons of great ideas.

Whatever you do, have fun and be sure to bring the kiddo back in later years when he/she can enjoy it more!

Frank is right. Let me add that multi-city itineraries must be booked through a multi-destination search function. These are not a set of one-way tickets.

Provence is in between Barcelona and Paris

?????

We have driven more than 50,000km in France, and yes Kim, for a North American tourist, Provence is between Paris and BCN.

The four top sighs in France are, from top to bottom, Alsace, Alps, Provence, Cote d'Azur. I'll get back to this, but first, I don't understand why an American thinks they need to go overseas to see Disneyland when we have 2 of them.

Somebody noted the baby is really going to slow you down, so, consider this: a river cruise either thru Provence or on the Rhine (Alsace) where you will visit both France and Germany. Typically a river cruise takes you on a 4 hours bust trip after breakfast and gives you free time after lunch. The crew has to have some time off, and it might be possible to hire those crew to baby sit.

If you can forgo Paris, the easy answer is BCN-Madrid or BCN--Seville--Madrid.