Itinerary

Are you already locked into flying into and out of Zurich? I ask because of the doubling back, which costs you time and money.

It's sort of complicated. I am going on a trip with college before this (Spain&France). My trip ends before my little sister is out of school so I am staying with my grandparents in Zurich until my mom and sister can fly out. Then my sister stays with the grandparents and my mom and I go to Italy.

They could fly into Milan or somewhere in Italy, but it would have to be close enough to get my sister to Zurich easily.

I guess we need to start and end up in Zurich.
Would it make sense to fly to Southern Italy from Zurich and make our way back North?

Thanks for the clarification on why you're flying into and out of Zurich.

Sticking with flying into and out of Zurich, looking at an online map like Google Map or Viamichelin: Day 9 - 10, going Pompeii to Venice is way different, in terms of travel time, than Pompeii to Amalfi Coast--so you may want to focus on that segment.

Venice is well north and northeast of Florence, thus you may want to consider this: Pompeii - Amalfi - Florence - Venice - Zurich.

However, having said that: Just changing location generally uses up a half day, not including the actual train station to station time--just packing up, checking out, getting to the train station, and the reverse on the destination end. The question gets to be, how much time is left to actually do and see what you came to do and see.

This is a user friendly website for getting an idea of train travel times

http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml

But remember that the times given are only station to station times. Add for packing up, checking out, getting to the train station, and the reverse of that at the destination end.

Hi, your trip seems like you might be squeezing too much in. I would spend at least 4 days in Rome and cut out seeing Pompeii and Amalfi, plan on seeing these on another trip. You can probably manage Venice with your schedule, give it 2 days. I would take a train from Rome to Venice and finish up in Florence. Loosely it's about a 3 hr train ride from Rome to Florence and a 5 hr ride from Florence to Venice. I don't know how long of a ride it is from Rome to Venice, probably about 5-6 hrs.