Traveling in Italy & Switzerland - doing too much?

No, I'm afraid your itinerary is really misguided. You are seriously overestimating the time you'll have at each destination, having apparently just divided 9 days by 6 destinations to come up with 1.5 days at each place. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. There is substantial time required to get from one place to another, especially when you have to check out of one hotel and into another, on top of getting yourself to and from train stations and actually sitting on trains. The usual guideline is that it will take at least 1/2 day every time you change hotels, but that varies, because some destinations are harder to reach than others. I'm afraid this trip will be terrible blur if you don't do considerable trimming. If you figure that you'dl lose roughly 2.5 days during the course of changing hotels 5 times, you can see how little time you'd have left for sightseeing--barely one day per destination.

Have you bought your airline tickets already, or do you still have flexibility there? Have you checked fares? For many of us Naples would be a lot more expensive than Rome. From my particular origin, Geneva is usually many, many hundreds of dollars more expensive than Zurich.

Zermatt for one day is especially problematic, because mountain weather is highly variable. You could easily go to the time and considerable expense of traveling to Zermatt and see nothing but rain/clouds/fog. Given that, I'd suggest (assuming airline tickets not yet purchased) that you limit this trip to Italy. You really need more time in Switzerland to be reasonably sure of seeing the Alps in good weather. There are very nice lakes in Italy, so you don't have to go all the way to Geneva for that sort of experience.

I see six cities listed for 9.5 days, so I’m thinking the 1.5 days per location is not considering transportation time. Unfortunately, with the destinations listed, that would be considerable time taken away from actually being “on the ground” vs. sitting in a train or car.

My first advice is to write out each day and the actual transportation time to reach the next location. Write down the remaining number of daylight hours for site seeing & activities. Anything less than a full day just isn’t worth it for a first trip. Many of us would say two days are minimum to actually see a place, get acclimated to a city, etc.

Next, have a serious look at your cities and narrow it down to achieve the full day listed above. There’s a reason why travelers just focus on one country or maybe two in a 2-3 week trip. Less time in transportation will give you a much better experience.

Feel free to repost after going through these, and people can give you some excellent ideas for your shorter list for activities.

I am afraid you are trying to cover way too much ground; you will be spending most of your time on trains and getting to and from your hotel. I suggest you cut your destinations down to 3 or 4 and limit the distance traveled to half what you have planned.

May is not a good time to visit Zermatt; it is between winter ski season and summer green season; you might see the Matterhorn but it will be surrounded by brown hills.

Venice is also an outlier, as a one-day visit is generally unrewarding in terms of the charms of this lovely city.

Consider doing either Italy from Naples (and Positano) to Tuscany (flying out of Rome; or if Switzerland is a must, then Rome, Tuscany, and Luzern, flying out of Zurich.

Yes, you are planning to do way way too much! It will be a blur of planes and trains. Cut out Switzerland as a start to redoing the itinerary. Even four places in nine and a half days in Italy would be too much for me. Rome needs at least three days. Then more for Tuscany which includes Florence. If you cut some from each of these locations, add Venice.. I vote for Venice over Positano. Try to add time to this trip to make it worth the cost of your flights time spent flying.

We were planning to fly into Naples and fly out of Geneva.

This is the only positive thing I see in your post.

If you have not booked flights, then you really need to rethink your plan for all the reasons mentioned above.
I count 10 nights- yes that is 9.5 days but I also count 7 locations (Naples, Positano, Rome, Tuscany, Venice, Zermatt, Geneva) and countless hours of travel between. (Venice to Zermatt alone is a 7 hr train trip)

Naples/Positano deserves 3-4 nights, Rome should get 4 minimum, Tuscany at least 3, same for Venice.

Fly IN to Venice- 3 nights
Train to Florence- 3 nights- day trip wine tour
Train to Rome 4 nights.
Fly home

Or drop Switzerland and chose between Positano (why? it’s not easy to get to, nothing more than a tiny town with high end shopping and overrun by tourists) OR Tuscany and Venice.

You are being far too ambitious and will return stressed and exhausted, everything will have just been a blur of trains, hotels, etc and you’ll likely dislike everywhere you’ve been because you hardly had time to enjoy.
Slow down.

I like to use www.rome2rio.com to check my transportation options/travel time. Do a bit of research with it and you'll see why we all think you are trying to do too much.

While we all are in agreement, I think the question falls in the same group with, "If you have to ask the price, you cannot afford it." I think you knew the answer when you asked the questions. At best you have 9 days. You arrival day will be shot because of jet lag and even a portion of the next day. So maybe only 8.5 days. By the time you check out of the hotel, get to the train station (even worse if flying), ride the train, find new hotel, check-in, some meals and a couple of restrooms, orientation to new location and the day is gone. And you are doing that four times on a 9 day schedule. Some of the train travel could be all day. So you down to three o four good days of sightseeing.

Even if you never go back, you have to adapt the attitude, "We will see that next time." Many of us would call you plan a drive way. "Ya, we were in Geneva, and spent an afternoon in Venice before fly over Milan. " And for some that is enough. "Once you have seen one cathedral you have seen them all so why waste that time."

For us, a nine day trip would be to fly into Venice, see Milan on the way to Zurich and come home from there. Many of the areas you have suggested will be difficult to conveniently link together via train. Look at a map and put some pins in it. It is very long way from Venice to Geneva. Your plan simply doesn't work. Good luck with plan B.

Yeah, you're nuts. Do three days per location and enjoy your vacation in three spots, or do your proposed itinerary and wind up needing a vacation to recover from your vacation. Do either Italy OR Switzerland; not both.

Good for you for asking. I sure hope you haven't bought tickets yet.

Thanks all! Awesome feedback! We ended up slimming this down and are now trying to see about doing Florence, Venice, Zermatt, and Geneva. I've already taken travel time into account using Google's public transit feature and padded every leg by an hour for whatever... but I will definitely need to do some more research on exactly where the trains put us and what else I might be missing. Again, thanks for everyone's responses; they were exactly what I needed to come back to reality. :-)

jonnarwold,

It's great to hear that you've pared down your list to just four locations. Does your 9.5 days include your two flight days? Where are you travelling from?

Is there a particular reason you've chosen Zermatt and Geneva? As others have mentioned, Zermatt may not be the most "scenic" at that time of year, and you may find that you enjoy other locations in Switzerland more than Geneva. My suggestion (this may have been mentioned by others?) would be to consider Lucerne and the Lauterbrunnen Valley. There are some interesting attractions there including the Jungfraujoch and the revolving restaurant on the Schilthorn.

Before you make a final decision on which destinations to visit in Switzerland, you may want to have a look at the Rick Steves Switzerland guidebook. Your local library or larger bookstores should have a copy.

The 9.5 days do NOT include flights, so even if I don't count the initial .5 because of needing rest after flying/jetlag and leave off another 1.5-2 days for travel between places (2 hrs + 6.5 hrs + 4.25 hrs + buffer), that still leaves almost 2 days in each location.

We're interested in Geneva partially because of the lake / scenery but also partially because of the religious significance for us (St Pierre & anything reformation-related). That's one reason I'm sad to miss Rome. :-) However, I did take a hypothetical look at the Lucerne / Lauterbrunnen route, and it looks like we'd be traveling just as much from Venice as we would be going the other way.

Can you tell me what we'd run into that wouldn't make Zermatt as scenic in May? I'm really interested in learning about that.

One option would be that if Zermatt is foggy and we end up staying there longer, we could change our plans and stay less time in Geneva and mainly focus on flying out of there. We could also tweak the front end of the stay (Florence) on the fly if we knew the weather forecast a couple days in advance. Is there a weather service you'd recommend that can semi-reliably predict the fog and/or other undesirable weather in that area?

Also, I'm assuming late May is better; our plan would be May 24-26 in Zermatt. We could have done everything later, but we specifically thought to avoid bigger crowds and higher prices by being slightly out of season - but that was based on research on Positano, which we're obviously cutting out. Is going before summer the wrong call you think?

Unless you have your heart set on visiting Switzerland, 9.5 days in Italy alone is a challenge. Rome - Florence - Lake Como - Venice is an ambitious enough 9.5 day schedule. Leave out Como and that becomes do-able. 3 days in each with minimal travel time between destinations. Fly in to Rome, out of Venice. Or vice-versa, depending on cost and timing.

Best of luck.

Regarding traveling in summer, I would avoid it. The early shoulder months (April/May) are getting busier and the later shoulder months (Sep/Oct) as well. Cost will be higher as well as crowds in Jun/Jul/Aug. Not to mention the heat. Never travel in August.

@Marc - your comment about Summer - that's what I was thinking. Weighing this against not as much flowers and greenery. In your experience, how do you find late May (24-26 are when we have pegged for Zermatt)?

Late May is a great time to visit your sites in Italy as well as the lower elevations of Switzerland. The landscape should be green and many shrubs and trees may be blooming, and the weather should be pleasant ( not too hot).

The town of Zermatt is at 1600 meters (5200 feet) and the mountains rise up from there. The latitude is farther north than most of. the US; similar to ours in Seattle (46-47 degrees). Late May in our mountains is still ski season---I have skied as late as mid-July at 5500 feet here. When we went to Zermatt for three days in early July a few years ago, while the snow was mostly gone, the weather was still wintry: we had one day of fog and drizzle, one day hiking in a blizzard, and finally one clear day when we saw the Matterhorn, on our way to the train station to leave.

By late May in Zermatt, the snow may not have fully melted off, and the upper slopes will still be brown, not green. The wildflowers do not bloom until late June. Some places may have their flower baskets out but overall it will be very quiet. Spring weather is notoriously unsettled in mountain regions, and forecasts more than a day or two ahead are not reliable. You could check on the day you are traveling from MIlan to Geneva and take the detour into Zermatt if the weather looks favorable for seeing the Matterhorn. But personally I would not plan on staying there overnight.

I suggested Luzern because it is a lovely lakeside town at a much lower elevation (453 meters or 1400 feet) and thus more scenic than Zermatt in late May. The Alps rise up from the lake and there are mountaintop excursions one can take for great views, to Rigi or Pilatus. Travel time from MIlan is 3.5 hours by direct train, less time than the train to Geneva (4 hours by direct train; longer if you change trains en route). From Luzern I suggested you would fly from Zurich.

However, it appears Geneva is important to you so Luzern would be redundant ( another lakeside town). The Lac Leman region is also lovely in May. You might consider spending your first night at a smaller lakeside village like Vevey. This would shorten your travel time from MIlan and give you a nice lakeside experience. Then take the train along the north side of the lake to Geneva for your exploration of Reformation history and a final night there. The Geneva airport is easily reached by train in 15 minutes from the city center.

"You might consider spending your first night at a smaller lakeside village like Vevey."

Or Montreux, with direct trains to the GVA airport.

Just one more comment about travel time: I don't think padding the train time by an hour is necessarily adequate. You have to pack up, check out of the hotel, get to the train station and be there 15 or 20 minutes early to figure out what platform you need and find it. Then upon arrival you have to get off the train, get yourself oriented so you're heading in the right direction, get to your hotel, check in, and get your belongings up to your room. For me all of that takes more than an hour. Of course, if you plan to use taxis to and from the train stations, that will speed things up. I often spend a few minutes at the hotel front desk, asking about local transportation or something like that. It all takes time on a first visit to a city.

If you arrive at Naples airport, its going to take time to get to Positano since there's is no direct service. I would cut out Naples and fly in and out of Rome and Venice instead. You want a minimum of three nights in Rome, two nights in the Chianti wine region and Venice.
Or you could fly into Naples and take a shuttle to the port, a boat to Sorrento, then a boat to Positano and stay there at least two nights. EasyJet has a $50 nonstop flight from Naples to Venice (check Skyscanner) and you can fly nonstop from Venice to Geneva for less than $100.

With that plan, time is not on your side.
You need to eliminate either Switzerland or Italy.
You can't do justice to Rome, Florence and Venice in 9.5 days, much less Italy and Switzerland.