Travel to Europe Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris and in between.

Suggest you use the website Rome2Rio to determine your travel time between all these destinations; it will also provide you with transportation options. Skycanner website provides prices for various airlines. The Bahn website is the easiest for train schedules, although you need to go to the appropriate national train site to purchase tickets. Bahn only sells tickets for Germany.

Figure you'll lose at least a half day for each change in location; you'll lose most of a day for longer trips. Also, factor in jet lag on your first day(s), as well as the time it takes to get oriented in each new city. With the plan above, I think you'll be spending a lot of you 12 to 14 days touring days just getting from place to place and figuring things out.

I think your idea to take your granddaughter to Europe is wonderful, but trying to fit all these destinations into two weeks will be exhausting and mostly a blur of train stations and highways with little time to really see anything. Berlin/Rothenburg/Nuremburg/Rhine Valley could easily fill two weeks. Same goes for Paris + Amsterdam plus a few side trips in either country. Since Paris and Berlin are the most far flung destinations, could you choose one? I know it's hard, but I know you want her trip to be memorable. I will make one small suggestion if Rothenburg/Nuremburg make the cut. Rothenburg really is most charming before 10AM and after 5PM when the buses of daytrippers have left. Nuremburg is only an hour's drive away. If you spend two nights in Rothenburg you can see it at its best and drive to Nuremburg during the day when Rothenburg is too crowded to enjoy. Good luck with your planning!

2 nights in a city equals one day of sightseeing. It uses up about 1/2 day to go from place to place. Use the German rail site - bahn.de - to find train schedules. Even a 2 hour train ride will take 4-5 hours . . . pack, check out, get to train station, then reverse it on arrival. Every new city requires some orientation time. It's also very tiring do 2 weeks of 1- and 2-nighters.

Driving is almost always a bad choice unless you are spending the time in the countryside, visiting rural villages. You'll have traffic in the cities, on the highways, parking problems and costs . . .

You have no more than 14 nights in Europe and you're looking at cities that deserve a minimum of 3 full days (4 nights each). If you want to concentrate on Germany, drop either Paris or Amsterdam. It's about 6.5 hours to Berlin from Amsterdam. It's also 3.5 hours from Paris to Amsterdam. From Berlin to Nuremburg is almost 5 hours. Or you could drop Berlin and spend 6 nights in Germany - maybe fly into Frankfurt - much closer to Rothenberg, Nuremburg, etc. - and with good train connections to Paris.

Thanks everyone for your comments. In regards to eliminating one of them. Here is my problem.
It all made such sense especially because I didn't put everything we are thinking about doing, like a concentration camp and more. 1 of the problems I have is that we always promised our granddaughter for her high school graduation.( She was little and wanted to go to Paris because of the French Poodles.) Well that's what she thought when she was small. Anyway I know her first choice would be Paris. I like what was mentioned about Paris and Berlin being the furthest apart or out. We do want to spend the most time in Germany. My husband and I both have been 2 times to Paris but never Berlin. Amsterdam is in the middle so it will probably be a certain. We will need to throw out either Berlin or Paris. I also liked the comments about staying in Rothenberg and going to Nuremburg for a day trip. Or maybe we will have enough WW2 without it all together. I am going to lay out the pros and cons to them both. I have wanted to visit Nuremburg but ??? We possibly could stay another day or 2 but it all keeps adding up. What are some of your thoughts on Flying into Amsterdam staying 2 nights then the train to Paris. Stay 3 nights in Paris then the train to Munich or Frankfurt ?Then rent a car and drive to our other destinations and spend the next week seeing the Rothenberg, Nuremburg, Dachau , the Rhine area then onto Berlin for the last ??I need a couple more days...then home from Berlin. If we can get 2 more days does this sound doable without to much rush and still time to enjoy? a total of 16 days plus flying times. Or do you still think its all to much? Also is there a problem with pick up and drop off different locations for the car. Thanks again.

Amsterdam is not really in the middle. If you are planning stops in central Germany, then those are in the middle. Hopefully, you'll fly an "open-jaw" or "multi-city" intinerary, such as into Paris and out from Berlin, or vice versa. You could start at Amsterdam and train to Paris, but I would still want more time in any of the big cities.

Picking up and dropping a rental car in different countries can add several hundred dollars to the price, but picking and dropping at different spots within Germany should not affect the price much.

We're trying to talk you into dropping Paris or Berlin, but now you've added Munich!! ;^)

If your granddaughter's loving Paris, let Berlin go until the next trip. It's way farther than your other German destinations and not the most scenic drive to get there. If you're starting in Amsterdam with 2 nights, you get one full day of sightseeing plus one part of a foggy, jet-lagged first day. What are the things you really want to do in Amsterdam? Can you do them in one and a third day? Or do you need to add another night?

Now go to www.rome2rio and figure out how long it takes to get to Paris. And be sure to add in several extra hours for checking out, finding a taxi, finding the ticket counter, getting stuck in Paris traffic, getting lost, checking in again, etc. Not trying to be facetious, just realistic. What do you want to see in Paris? How many full days will it take? Just keep following this process for all your possible destinations. If you list it out day by day, soon you will figure out what is doable and what is craziness. If you can be realistic at this planning stage, you can get a little more breathing room for enjoying your trip. There will be more trips in the future, especially for your granddaughter! Pace this one to keep it fun for all of you! FYI, I've been shlepping my kids around Europe since 1988, and I'm always a little surprised that I have more "travel energy" than they do, especially for early morning starts. Happy trails!!

I say keep Berlin and Paris, and cut out some of the stops in between. These two cities should have at least three nights each. You could fly into Berlin and out of Amsterdam (easiest airports, in my opinion).

Chani is right about estimating travel time - it will take longer than you may think (changes of hotels, waiting for trains), even longer if you rent a car and get lost or hit traffic. Stay with the trains and plan your time along the main train routes between Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam.

Berlin has a very moving memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, I recommend it. Sachsenhausen Camp Memorial is reachable for a daytrip.

So, Berlin 3 nights, Paris 3 nights, Amsterdam 3 nights leaves you 5-7 nights for a couple of other stops in Germany.

Thanks again everyone for all your input and feedback. This will be our 3rd and final trip to Europe most likely. it looks like we will be able to add 2 more days to our trip. So what we are looking at is this Fly to Amsterdam stay 2 nights. Then the train to Paris stay 3 nights .Catch an early morning train to Frankfurt rent a car. We will then drive to the Rhine area for another 1 or 2 nights. I am thinking if we rent a car we will be in the Rhine area by late afternoon check into one of the hotels or hostels along the river . Sight see not sure which town yet ?Fill that is later. Then tour a castle or something. Do a river cruise and drive to Rothenberg. We love the night watchman tour and we think our granddaughter will enjoy it to. The next morning we want to go to the Medieval torture museum in the morning then off to sight see other areas. We will stop and see a few things places. Lots of thoughts but open so we are not so structured and it becomes works and not pleasure. 2 or more days here or there. Then 3 nights in Berlin and home to LA. We are going to add 2 more days to the trip so we will have 16 days including flight time. That should take some of the push off. We visited Dachau before but I think it would be good to take Alyssa to the one not far from Berlin. I know Berlin has a lot to do. We want to stay right in the heart of things . So we can come and go from the hotel . Go out sight see then maybe come back and rest then go out again in the evening. We will turn the car in when we get to Berlin. We don't drink so the cabarets or clubs wont interest us but we want to be in a hip ?? part for Alyssa. I don't totally want to born her with all the history that we like. Thoughts on different parts of Berlin would be great. Also what is a doable itinerary for 3 nights in Berlin? Thanks again for your feed back

I'm going to bring up my usual caveat... for all the attention it gets, Rothenburg odT just isn't as unique as all the tourist literature claims. It is pretty, but central and most of southern Germany is filled with similar towns, the biggest difference being their relative lack of tour buses and trinket shops. I retort to the response "but it's magical once the tourists leave at night" that you can very easily find other scenic towns that aren't overrun with tourist hordes all day long.

Rothenburg is one of those destinations that makes a worthwhile stop if your itinerary swings by anyway, but if you've traveled more than 90 minutes out of your way to see it, you've probably passed something just as pretty but much less Disney-fied.

That being said, it might fit in with whatever route you eventually choose. But if it becomes an outlier, you may want to consider the towns of the Hartz mountain region as substitutes, such as Quedlinburg, Wernigerode and Gosslar. This is a much more scenic and interesting region anyway.