Paris, Florence, Venice, Rome: tour guides or self tour?

Pretty ambitious. I think in order for you to get this accomplished, you need to really have a plan and book as much ahead so you don't miss something you have your heart set on. Not sure how you plan on getting from Paris to Italy, but my recommendation would be to fly into Venice and plan at least an overnight there and then Eurostar fast trains from Venice to Florence and then Florence to Rome. As far as missing a city that you should "absolutely hit", I think you have enough scheduled as it is. We did 9 days last time with doing just Venice, Florence and Rome and we had been to Florence and Rome before.

That being said, definitely get a Rick Steves book of Paris and Italy and look at his top picks and recommendations based on the time you have scheduled for each city. If you study up and plan, you can easily do all of these cities on your own without the need to spend money for tours.

I'd suggest leaving Venice for another time--it's a long day trip unless you are flying into/out of.

Spend more time in Paris as you will be dealing with jet lag the first day and not be able to cover as much as you think.

You will be able to do all without a guide, if you read up enough. But the guide for the Vatican was well worth it to us.

We followed a somewhat similar route this past May. we moved fast, saw alot, and had the time of our lives! Between Paris and Venice, we stopped in Switzerland, so the train was appropriate for us - but it might not be a bad idea to check on flights from Paris to Venice. We got to Venice in the early evening, and left the following afternoon. That gave us enough time to wander around, see St. Mark's Basilica and the Doges Palace. From Venice we took the 5 hour train ride to Rome. I would recommend booking a tour of the Vatican Museums and sistine Chapel directly through the Vatican website. We paid about 30E/pp for a 2 hour tour, that included admission and were very pleased. Lines were horrible, but we were able to enter through the tours line, which was MUCH shorter, saved us lots of time. When your moving this fast, I would highly recommend you plan ahead as far as accommodations and plan a reasonable site seeing route based on locations and opening times. Take advantage of self guided audio tours available at most of the major sites. Use the public transportaion (underground) in Paris and Rome! They are very easy to figure out and will get you pretty much anywhere you need to go. Consider buying the ROMA pass in Rome. Look at the website and figure out if it's worth it, based on your time there and the sites you want to see. I think the biggest thing about doing a fast paced, mulit-city trip sucessfully is doing ALOT of homework ahead of time and having things very well planned out.

Hmmm..I agree this is very ambitious...we did the RS Venice Florence Rome in 10 day's tour...they really got us in and out of a lot of venues ahead of the lines...If you're not part of the tour you can expect two wait quite a bit...We considered touring on our own but I am SO glad we did the RS tour instead...they really know how to get you to the right places ...we did the math and if we paid for all the venues,food, guides, hotel and transfers..we would have spent MUCH more...I would suggest putting Paris off for its own adventure later....three days in each Italian city is barely enough to get a good flavor. You want to be able to remember everything you did and saw. If you on the run too much you're not on vacation at al.

In RS books he recommends local guides for private and public tours.