best way to get from Paris to either Rome, Florence, Venice, or Cinque Terre

You could check flight prices and use that to decide which Italian city to go to first. Anything other than plane will use up a whole day from Paris to any of the Italian cities and a whole day to get back to Paris, which effectively shortens your trip by 2 days.

Best use of time would be to fly into Paris, fly to Venice, train to Florence, train to CT, train to Rome, fly home from Rome.

Price out the flights first: fly into Venice, out of Rome or vice versa. See what the cost is for six people. You might find some decent fares on the budget airlines like easyJet or RyanAir. Try Google Flights.

If that seems too expensive, then price out buses and trains. You probably can't book the tickets yet for June but you can check prices say 2-3 months out to get an idea of what the costs will be. I'd find such a long bus ride to Itlay not a lot of fun, though, myself.

Presumably you'll be taking the train between Rome, Florence, CT, and Venice. You'll want to book those train tickets as early as possible to secure the best prices - not until a few months before departure, though, when purchase becomes available.

You have too many places in Italy for 10 days. At least one has to be eliminated, or you will be ..."spending all our time traveling"

Suggest fly into Rome or Venice and fly back to Paris from the other. Go 'one way' through Italy. Use trains in Italy.

I agree with everything Nancy says, Plane Paris --> Italy (too far for train), fly home direct from your last city in Rome, and use trains within Italy. Buses are only ever a last resort for people with more time than money, always slower and less comfortable than trains.

You can look train times and prices, and buy tickets, on the Italian railways site: http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en
You will need to use the correct Italian name for the stations: Roma Termini, Firenze S. M. Novella, Venezia S. Lucia and decide which of the 5 towns you want to go to, and enter that name (Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, or Riomaggiore).

You didn't ask this but....

You may have already booked your flights, if not, you might look at flying open jaw - in to Paris and returning home from Rome. If you are not familiar with open jaw, it will show up on your airline website as multi-destination or multi-city. It's different than 2 one-way tickets.

Does your 14 days count your travel days to/from Europe? Also, when I plan, it works better for me to count how many nights I'm staying in a certain place. Two nights equals 1 full day for sightseeing. You might have parts of days on each side but if you are moving from place to place count on losing 1/2 a day each time.

If the 14 days does count travel time, you'll lose 2 going over as you will likely leave in the afternoon/evening of Day 1 and arrive in Paris in the morning of Day 2. If you are not used to international travel you might not know how jet lag and travel fatigue will affect your group. Your departure day will pretty much be used up for travel and if you have to return to Paris count on more. That just leaves you with 11 days to sightsee and in my opinion you're trying to cover too much territory.

In my opinion, you might do better to just stick to Italy or just do Paris, Venice or Florence and Rome.

editing to add: Oops, I see several posted while I was typing!!

Are you plane tickets booked? If so, makes a difference on the recommendations. Let us know.

I agree with the above posters that you have too big of an itinerary and too little time to accomplish this adventure. Paris is immense and requires at least 5 days and the same for Roma. Personally, I'd drop Le Cinque Terre from the list unless, of course, you like vast hordes of tourists.

Flying open jaw or multi-city will enable you to maximize your time on the ground. Moving from place to place takes one half day travel time, minimum. Arriving in a city, finding your hotel in a strange town, settling in, and then start touring all take time.

Flying into Venezia, Florence, or Pisa and home from Rome would allow you to spend time in your location. Also, flying into Roma and home from Paris is a good idea. Several years ago we flew from Roma to Paris on EasyJet and it was easy, easy, not too mention inexpensive. Then we flew home from Paris to our hometown.

You might want to spend more time being there than more time getting there.

Buon viaggio,

Frank, yes the plane tickets from US to Paris roundtrip are already booked. We have 14 full days, not including travel between US and Paris.

Okay, now I'm thinking Paris a few days and then just Rome and Venice a few days (do Cinque Terre and Florence another time).

Hate to sound like Debbie Downer, but it appears you may have overloaded your plate.Strongly suggest you pare your itinerary back to Paris and only two other cities. Otherwise you are going to run yourself ragged and lose a lot of time just getting from one place to another. Since you already have round trip tickets in and out of Paris, consider flying from there to your first Italian city and back to there from your last city in Italy. Doing it by train will result in losing two whole days that could be used touring and enjoying Italy.

I was going to say the same as you did, kgleason. On Day 1 at least some of your group will be sleep-deprived and jetlagged (I, personally, am a zombie). You will lose a good chunk of the day you fly from Paris to Italy, then you must reverse that process on Day 14. That means you have only 11 fully usable days plus some scattered hours, even if you stick to a single destination in Italy. Every time you add another Italian destination, you convert another full day into "scattered hours".

So I think you should limit your Italian stops to two. I also would suggest Rome and Venice, unless your family is unusually art-oriented, in which case Rome + Florence would be fine. It could be Rome + the Cinque Terre, but the CT takes longer to reach than Florence or Venice, and you must be prepared for severe crowding. If the availability of beaches (more than the picturesque towns) is a major reason for your interest in the CT, you can find beaches close to both Rome and Venice.

Edited to add: There are very good day-trips available from both Rome and Venice that can be taken by train, buying the tickets at the last minute. So you will have options if you want a change of scenery while in Rome or Venice.

Even if your flights are already purchased you could check to see if there is the possibility of doing an open-jaw flight on your airlines for your dates. If the option exists it might be worth comparing the cost to change those flights with the cost to return to Paris from wherever you are in Italy. It may be worth it to change the flights and save a day of your trip.

To find one-way flights Paris-Italy, try www.skyscanner.com The site connects to the home pages of various airlines. Be sure of the location of the airports; some budget airlines fly to secondary airports that may not be convenient. The earlier you buy, the cheaper the ticket, but read the rules on the airline site carefully.

Nancy has a very good point. Even if the cost of changing your flight is more than a flight back to Paris, be sure to give value to your time.

Rather then breaking up your Paris nights, think about arriving Paris CDG. Then flying either easy jet or vueling air directly to Venice.

Your itinerary would look like this.

4 N Venice.
Train to Roma Termini
5 N Rome.
Fly easy jet to Paris Orly.
5 N Paris.

Fly home from Paris.

Easy day trips. All within 1H 20m.
Venice...Padua, Verona.
Rome.... Orvieto.
Paris.....Versailles.

If I'm reading your post correctly, you have a total of 16 days which includes your two flight days. You've received lots of good suggestions so far, and I have a few comments to add as well.

A few initial thoughts.....

To begin with, whichever method you use to get from Paris to Italy, it's going to take the better part of a day. As the others have mentioned, a budget flight from Paris to Venice would be a good option. However by the time you add travel to & from airports, check in, security, waiting, boarding and de-planing etc., that will probably take at least six hours (and maybe more).

Using open-jaw flights would have absolutely been the best option in this case. Which home airport are you flying from? By the time you add the travel costs of getting six people from Italy back to Paris for your flight home, the return flights to Paris might not save much. That will also reduce your touring time considerably, as you'll need to allocate a travel day back to Paris and one night in a hotel.

If you haven't travelled in Europe before, I would highly recommend reading Europe Through The Back Door prior to the trip. After that use the country or city-specific guidebooks to plan the details, such as hotels, etc.

As others have mentioned, it would be a good idea to reduce your list as you simply don't have time to see everything on the list with such a very short time frame. You indicated that you could skip Cinque Terre and Florence this time, however I'll make a different suggestion below.

There are many possibilities but this is one suggested route.....

• D1 - Flight to Paris CDG
• D2 / N1 - Arrive Paris, check into hotel (you'll be jet lagged so may not get much touring done)
• D3 / N2 - Paris, touring (may still be jet lagged, plan for breaks during the day - depending on your planned sightseeing, you may want to buy Paris Museum Passes)
• D4 / N3 - Paris, touring
• D5 / N1 - Travel to Paris / ORY - EasyJet flight to Pisa / PSA - train to Cinque Terre (which town were you planning to stay?)
• D6 / N2 - Cinque Terre, touring
• D7 / N3 - Cinque Terre, touring
• D8 / N1 - Train to Roma Termini (use direct train with no changes from La Spezia Centrale, about 3H:45M).
• D9 / N2 - Rome, touring
• D10 / N3 - Rome, touring
• D11 / N1 - Train to Florence (90 minutes via high speed train that travels at up to 300 km/h).
• D12 / N2 - Florence, touring (Italy guidebook has tips on accessing the museums without a long queue).
• D13 / N3 - Florence, day trip by train - Siena (by Bus), Lucca or even Venice (2H:05M each way).
• D14 / N4 - Florence, another day trip or local touring
• D15 / N1 - Train to Pisa, flight back to Paris / ORY, check into hotel (depending on which flight time you choose, you might be able to squeeze in a visit to the Leaning Tower on your way to the airport).
• D16 - Return flight home

A few final points to note.....

• Be sure you're aware of the "rules" when travelling on budget airlines, especially concerning luggage.
• With both budget airlines and trains, the cheapest advance purchase tickets are non-refundable and non-changeable so choose carefully when you book!
• There are some potentially expensive caveats to be aware of when using trains and other public transit in Italy. If you need more information, post another note.
• If you haven't travelled in Italy before, be sure to do some research on dining in restaurants. Meals are typically served in courses (you don't have to order the "full meal deal") and there's often a "Pane e Coperto" (bread & cover charge).
• Be sure to wear Money Belts as there will be pickpockets and scammers about.
• Finally if you do decide to visit the Cinque Terre, it is highly advisable to book your rooms as early as possible. Monterosso is the largest town, so has the greatest choice in lodgings.

Good luck with your planning!

Although I would probably agree with the consensus in this specific situation in the efficiency of flying from Paris to Florence or Rome, it can be done by train. We did in March 2015, and it was quite enjoyable. Looking back at my itinerary from that trip, here's how it worked:

Paris Gare du Lyon/Basel (Switzerland) 12:23-15:36
Basel/Lucerne 16:04-17:05

Stayed in Lucerne 2 nights right across from the train station (wonderful!)

Lucerne/Arth-Goldau 09:40-10:11
Arth-Goldau/Milan 10:17-13:35
Milan/Florence 15:15-16:55

Not nearly as bad or time consuming as one would think. And we had the added specter of traversing the Alps by rail. At one point, maybe 100 km south of Lucerne, we climbed up into a snow squall and then down into a lush green valley. And this route was just a normal efficient milk run to Milan, not the famed, scenic Bernina Express, which would have taken 8 hours.

I had our total cost per person at $108 for 2nd class, tickets bought about 60 days in advance online through Bahn DB and Trenitalia. Used hard copies (still would) as phone tickets were just coming into popularity then.

Can you tell I'm a European train proponent? Don't know if with 4 kids it would be feasible, OP, but I will guarantee you they would remember it more than a crappy plane ride just to save a few hours.

Next trip, for maybe next year but probably 2019? Amsterdam-->Rhine Valley (St. Goar)-->Nuremberg-->Innsbruck (Hall in Tirol)-->Verona. All by rail, all places we've never been. Oh, one more thing. We pack light--not as light as RS with one pair of pants & shoes--but no more than 20 lbs. per person.

Enjoy your planning!!

Referring to the previous reply, travel by train is certainly possibly if you're willing to stop at an intermediate city for at least one night to break up the long journey. However that would have to be at the expense of one of the other places you wanted to see.

To travel from Paris to the Cinque Terre (which is the closest point in Italy of the places you listed) in one day will take from 10H:36M -13H:15M, with 1 - 5 changes, depending on which departure you choose. I'm sure you will all remember that travel experience, but the memories probably won't be pleasant ones as it will be a grueling trip.

Not reading the previous replies, but the most sensible way would be:

Fly to VCE, visit Venice.
train from Venice to Florence, visit Florence
train from Florence to Cinque Terre, visit Cinque Terre
train from Cinque Terre to Rome, visit Rome
Fly back from Rome to Paris.

You can also do the exact reverse itinerary. Just be aware that if you intend to fly out back to Paris early in the morning, the Venice airport is a harder and longer way to reach, so I think it's easier if you fly back from Rome.

Thank you so much, everyone! You all have been incredibly helpful, and I am much clearer now on what we need to do. Lesson learned: stop trying to do so much!