Europe Trip Itinerary Help/ Places to see in Italy?

From the Cinque Terre to Florence you need 3 hours by train. By the time you are situated and settled at a hotel, you only have one afternoon in Florence. How can you see both the Uffizi and the Accademia? I'd ditch the Cinque Terre or cut it down to one night instead of three nights, and add to Florence. You should stay at a minimum 2 nights (1 full day+1 afternoon) in Florence. If you are interested in snorkeling from Dallas I would go to the Virgin Islands. Trunk Bay is very nice in St. John and snorkeling will be much better than at the Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is more appropriate for hiking the trails through the coast. In any case it's up to you. You have 3 nights at the CT and one only in Florence. If you don't want to ditch either, I would do at least 2 and 2.

Thanks Roberto!! The appeal of CT is the hiking and swimming, and beautiful surroundings to just "relax" in. I would love to kayak there and/or snorkel, but wouldn't be particularly disappointed if I couldn't do either. Is CT a good place to swim?? If not, any suggestions on nice beach that wouldn't take us far off route? Regarding adding time to the Florence visit, my husband has insisted that we don't spend too long in museums on this trip; do you think we really couldn't fit the highlights in a long afternoon if we move quickly and don't linger too long and try to see everything?

Don't forget that you don't have to be attached at the hip; let your husband wander the city while you 'do' your museum thing in Florence (or anywhere else). That could save your trip...! If you leave CT early enough, you'd have time to quickly see your two places. Don't forget the time involved to leave the Florence train station, get transport/walk to your hotel, get checked in, maybe grab lunch, get back out into the city... I can't answer you on dropping CT - I haven't felt the call to go there yet after several trips...so maybe someone else can chime in. I think you've mentioned this elsewhere, but what time of year are you planning on being there?

Hello Kristina, Ok, I will be honest - I think 3 countries in 12 days is a bit much especially for a first trip to Europe. Bear in mind that there is some time needed to acclimate - figuring out the transportation systems, etc. etc. so you will spend a bit more time on the "mechanics" than you would at home. Also, bear in mind that for each "change" (of city or country) you are going to use 1/2 to 3/4 of a day in transit (packing up, checking out, travel to train station waiting for train, etc., etc.) with only 12 days, that seems like a very large chunk of time to spend in transit.
I completely understand wanting to "see" as much as you can in the time you have but I think you would be better served (and enjoy your trip more) if you narrowed down exactly what your priorities are to see/do/experience. From your post, it seems you enjoy the countryside and outdoors more than big cities so perhaps narrowing your trip to Switzerland and Italy would work out better - this would give you more time in each country and a more relaxed pace with more time to really "see" and experience each country. Or limit your trip to one country - You could spend the entire 12 days in Italy split between Ct, Florence and Rome with a nice balance of small, scenic towns and big cities.

Thanks Eileen and Nancy! I may have to rethink this trip quite a bit. I was initially hoping to focus on one country, but the hubby said he wanted to see 3 countries and was hoping one would be Germany, and other than that he'd be happy with whatever I decided to put in the plan. I thought keeping everything close geographically might make it doable, but I think I really underestimated how long the trains will take! (50% longer than a car might?) I'll do some thinking and make some tweaks. Really appreciate the help!! And to answer your question Eileen, we're planning to go in early June 2014.

Thanks Nigel, these posts have been quite a reality check. I'm thinking about changing the trip around quite a bit and trying a Spain/Germany trip instead. I don't know if that's feasible, but my first choice destination is Spain and my husband's is Germany, so if we could make it work that would be incredible! I almost minored in Spanish but never became fluent because I was never immersed in it, and couldn't afford the study abroad semester...did the reading, writing and studying, but not nearly enough speaking the language. With a little practice (using Rosetta Stone), I believe I could channel my excitement into finally being able to actually speak Spanish!! My husband speaks a little Spanish already, and one of his life goals has always been to learn German...with first time Europe travelers' excitement and a year to wait, I think we may actually invest the required time. We could even start spending one day a week just having a drink and only speaking Spanish or German to each other...I'm loving the idea already! Would focusing on the Barcelona and Madrid portions of Spain and then flying to Munich and staying near Fussen and the surrounding area be reasonable? Should be fairly short train excursions, and I would imagine the flight from Madrid or Barcelona to Munich wouldn't be terribly expensive or time consuming, right?

Your train trips are not short. Fuessen to Interlaken Ost is 8 to 9 hours. The 04:50 journey includes a ship across the Bodensee and 5 trains, the other routes go around. What is it that you would like to see in Bern? Interlaken Ost to Montorosso (you don't say where in the CT) is 7 hours. The first opportunity is the 07:29 with 4 changes or 2 changes but 30 minutes longer and with a 95 minute layover in Milano Centrale. I would think that in early June you'd need a wetsuit to snorkel - if I'm wrong I'm sure somebody will correct me.

Hi Kristina. Since you are thinking about dropping Italy, I'd post the new itinerary on the "To the West" board. I just spent 3 weeks in Spain and fell in love with it - liked it more than Italy, which I didn't think possible.

Thanks for the help!

Thanks Chani, I will. Thanks everyone for your help!!!

Just curious Chani, how did you spend your time in Spain? I'm having a hard time narrowing it down...only have 8-9 days.

we are going to italy for 10 days this june and not doing anything else and people are telling me we are rushed and missing this and that so 3 countries in those days is lot. we are skipping mesuems totally in florence and just going to one in rome which might be borghese. since we are not art people nor understand the culture behind the art no offence to anyone. we are only doing one day bus trip from siena to florence and back and that is it. so florence can be do able in a day if u miss out the mesuems and go see the duomo

We head to Germany every couple years for Oktoberfest and spend Saturday - Tuesday in Munich and then we head off for the rest of the week to somewhere else. This time it's Italy, last time was Paris but before that it was Fussen. We actually were there Tuesday through Sunday and had something to do every single day we were there and we still didn't get everything in that we wanted to see. So as an answer to your question about two days in Fussen being to long, I would say no. We easily filled 4 full days. Granted, we did have a rental car so we were able to do some site seeing and some driving. Prost!