4 Nights between Rome and Paris. What to do?

What time of year?

4 would be my choice although 4 nights Paris is not near enough time there
Or not knowing how many nights you’ve got in Venice and Rome, I’d say drop Paris and add those nights to Italy
Time in a Tuscany hill town or more time in Venice and Rome.

First timers usually don’t give Italy enough time
Bare minimum
Venice 3 nights
Florence 3 nights, add a night for each day trip or add 2-3 nights for hilltowns
Rome 4 nights

Livorno? Can’t see why

Every time you change locations you lose a half day or more
A 2 night stay is really just 1.5 days

Thank you Christine! We have to go to France for a wedding, hence the obligatory Paris trip.

We're going next month, here's our trip details:

Amsterdam (3 nights)

Berlin (3 nights)

Prague (2 nights)

Vienna (1 night)

Venice (2 nights)

Rome (4 nights)

More Italy (3-4 nights)

Paris (3 nights)

Hattonchatel (2 nights for the wedding)

Fly back to US from Luxembourg

Oh my gosh
How are you traveling between all these places?
I mean this sincerely- do you LIKE spending time on planes, in airports, on trains because that is what you will be doing.
You don't have enough time anywhere. Do you think you will never return?

I have been to all those places and they all deserve far more time than you are giving them.
I'd drop at least half of your locations.

I encourage you to write down and be very specific- how much time you actually have in each city and what you think you can do/see.
I believe you are underestimating the time it takes to change locations. Add up packing up, checking out, getting to train or plane, travel time then getting to new location lodging, checking in and getting oriented.
Repeat that whole process for every change in location.
Berlin and Prague are huge.

Assuming you are flying in to AMS from US your first day is jet lag so that leaves just 2 days to sightsee.
Then fly to Berlin half the day spent getting there, leaves 2 full days for sightseeing.
Prague to Vienna will take more than half a day leaving you just an evening in Vienna. Get up next morning to move to Venice.

You see where this is going?
If It's Tuesday, This Must be Belgium comes to mind. ;)

I'd say drop Italy completely and give everywhere else those nights. Or drop all but Amsterdam then to Italy and drop the others.

Haha, well thank you! Honestly I thought the same re: too few nights in each place, but Rick says otherwise in his lecture, so at some point I just decide to let go and let Rick. And now with pretty much all lodging booked but this stint, guess I'm locked in to the Sonic the Hedgehog route. But I appreciate the advice—cut, don't add.

UGH
Most here feel that RS tours/itineraries are way too fast paced.
Are all your lodgings non cancellable, have you booked flights, etc?

If you can change anything I absolutely would.
Your itinerary now is a whirlwind that will be a big exhausting blur.

Way too many different cities. One night in Vienna? Two nights in Prague, which means one full day. Traveling and changing hotels mill take up way more time than you've built in. IMHO, this is an exhausting schedule. No time to breathe and enjoy the ambiance of the areas you're visiting.
Also, is this in the summer heat?
Perhaps eliminate a destination or two. Safe travels!

That is a lot of traveling. I'd try to stay more nights in less places. Can you cut out 1-2 of those stops? Are you flying or training? I find train rides under 7 hours more relaxing than flying as they go from/to city centers. I also see no reason to go to Livorno. I'd do 4 nights in Florence and take 1-2 easy day trips via train to Pisa, Lucca, (bus) Sienna, etc.

On an RS tour, you have a bus that meets you close to the hotel and delivers you to the next destination. Even RS usually has a "vacation from the vacation" day for folks to slow down.

When you're using public transportation, you must factor in checking out, getting to the train station, the actual duration of the train journey, late trains, getting from the train station to the next hotel, checking in and reorienting yourself. Also figuring time for laundry, overall exhaustion , and maybe even getting a cold. Most folks can't run on adrenaline for this long.
Good luck!

I’d drop Berlin for this trip and put those 3 nights in Prague and Vienna (1 night!?). I’d take the 4 “extra” nights and add 1 to Venice and the other 3 to Florence or a nice Tuscan town like Lucca or Siena.

Too much between time and no we’er here time with your current itinerary.

Edit: “so at some point I just decide to let go and let Rick.” That’s great if you are on one of their tours with all of the logistics taken care of but if you and your new wife want to have a more stress free independent trip in Europe, I’d ditch the Rick Steves or Sonic the Hedgehog approach.

Are you taking a train between Italy and Paris? If so, it’ll take some time, but assuming you’re in Florence for a couple of days, stop in Nice, France one night. That adds another place, lol, but would break up the trip to Paris. Nice has several worthy sights, if you’ve got time to see any. Great Provençal food, too!

Word, well thanks so much for the advice, y'all! I think to answer this question, I'm definitely just going to do four nights in Florence and we'll day trip anywhere else we want to see. Honestly surprised to hear this feedback on this forum—I just assumed when I heard Rick say, "Day #4 in a great city is not as good as Day #1 in a secondary city," that it would be akin to gospel here!

To answer the questions about inner Europe travel, we're taking a train on most all legs. Florence to Paris will be a plane ride. I actually added the one night in Vienna not to see Vienna in earnest, but in lieu of taking a plane from Prague to Venice. The train ride looks extraordinary, even if it's going to take us half a day.

As I get older and have made several trips to places in Europe, I realize there are no “secondary” cities - just cities that are less crowded than others :)

When in Vienna, unless you don’t eat chocolate, be sure to have Sachertorte. The fourth intense chocolate cake is every bit as good as the first!

Honestly surprised to hear this feedback on this forum—I just assumed
when I heard Rick say, "Day 4 in a great city is not as good as Day
1 in a secondary city," that it would be akin to gospel here!

LOL well you don't actually even have a 4th day anywhere. To have a 4th day you need 5 nights!

RS is not gospel here. As I said above most consider his itineraries way too fast paced. I hate 1 night stays and rarely ever do them. 2 nights only if it's a small town that just doesn't need more than that.
3-4 nights is my length of stay of choice anywhere.

RS guide books are full of excellent info- how to see, how to get there, walking tours, museum and sight guides etc.
But nobody here takes his advice as gospel. It's a starting point.

His tours are fast paced but only cover the main sights/main towns for the most part. You have a guide and a bus that takes care of the travel logistics. Training/traveling on your own thru Europe takes decidedly longer.
His recommended length of stays are the bare minimum.
There are also places that Rick doesn't care much for- thus he gives them less attention or in some cases- no attention at all.
He can't include everything in his books though so I get that.
There are a few places he raves about that we didn't care for at all, and vice versa.

I wish you luck, be sure you travel light since you are moving around so much.

Wonderful context, thank you Christine! And yes, we're doing the single bag approach.

I like your attitude.
It may not be the trip that most of us here would do or recommend but for now it is what it is for you and your new wife.

Tell yourself- you will return-
you'll have a taste of so many places that I am quite sure you'll be planning next trip as soon as you get home.
Of course the opposite could be true- that you are overwhelmed and exhausted and never want to return. Which is why I would strongly encourage you to change whatever you can at this point.

Do come here and get some advice before booking another whirlwind though!

Well, what everyone else said. If you and your wife want to stay married, perhaps you would like to reconsider the itinerary. Moving around this much would be beyond stressful, and result in not enough time to see anything but the train station and your hotel. Since this is your first trip to Italy, would you be totally opposed to spending half of your time there? Are your Venice and Rome plans set in stone? It's easy to spend 4 days in Florence, and at least that many in Venice and Rome as well. Then, add a chunk of time in Paris, and maybe pick one more city of your dreams?

I just assumed when I heard Rick say, "Day #4 in a great city is not as good as Day #1 in a secondary city," that it would be akin to gospel here!

I don't see that you have 4 days anywhere in your plan though. Is there any chance one or two of your bookings can be cancelled and the time redistributed?

And remember: Rick Steves has staff to do things for him, and the RS tours are on buses where everything is pre planned and you get dropped off near or at your hotels.
You are on your own, and this itinerary is just too frantic to be called a vacation.
Please reconsider...go to less places, but see more....and have a relaxing vacation in the end!

There is nothing extraordinary about the train ride between Prague and Vienna. Vienna to Venice is slightly better, but still, it's long. Is there any way you can cancel the Vienna night + the train tickets, and add one night in Venice or in Prague? You'll thank yourself for it.

As others have mentioned, it takes longer than you would think to travel between destinations. The last time I flew from my first destination country to my second, which was Belgium to Italy, it took just over 12 hours. This was counting from leaving my hotel in Bruges and arriving at my next hotel in Italy. Taxi to train to plane to bus to train. It was exhausting and I won’t be doing that again.