Critique Itinerary: Germany, Austria, Italy, France

Kudos to you for trying to take travel times into account in your planning--we see a surprising number of itineraries here where travelers seem to blow right by that fact of European travel life. It's not clear whether the travel times stated in your proposed itinerary are only the station to station train times? If yes, then be advised that packing up, getting to the train station, waiting for the train, and doing the same on the destination end will substantially eat into your travel day. I mention this because, compared to many itineraries we review here, you have more travel days per total days than about 95% of the itineraries we see here: 10 destinations or changes of location in 15 full days on the ground (15 days not including your flying in and flying out days)--including 10 destinations in 4 countries. This kind of itinerary has you seeing more of the inside of trains and train stations than anything else.Some examples: you have three back-to-back one nighters in Lake Como, the French Riviera, and Provence.I hope it's obvious that your itinerary is a matter of personal preference, what you want your trip to be like. We just want you to know before you go--how your trip is going to play out. Some travelers find that less is more.

Thank you for the great advice. My suspicions have been confirmed, trying to do too much in too little time :-)

One thing regarding planning this itinerary that threw me off, was that most of Rick's tour spend only 2 nights in Venice, Florence and Cinque Terre.

Not really being a big museum fan, I thought that 2 nights should be enough to cover major sightseeing points. Friends who've been to Venice also said that 2 nights was enough for them...

Thoughts?

Natalie: I didn't say anything about your 2 nights in Venice or Florence. I do think you're going to wish you had allowed more time in your three back-to-back one-nighters: one night in Lake Como, next night in the French Riviera, next night in Provence before moving on to Paris. In general, the consensus here is that it's a mistake to look at the itineraries of Rick's professionally guided tours and assume that your trip can use the same itinerary. His tours cover more ground faster than you can, because professionals are taking care of transportation, finding the hotels, and other details for his tour participants.Overall, your 10 change of locations in 15 days is way more changes of location than most itineraries we see here. This is the same thing Dwayne and Linda have told you on the duplicate topic in the General Europe section. Every time you change locations, figure as a rule of thumb that it eats up about four hours, not including your station to station train time.

You're right, my itinerary has fallen victim to over scheduling :-)

Since France is a must stop on this trip for several reasons, I've readjusted the itinerary to accommodate it, by reducing the overall number of stops.

What are your comments/suggestions on the following revised plan:

Day 1 - fly to Venice (spend 3 nights)

Day 2&3 - sightsee Venice

Day 4 - train to Florence (spend 3 nights)

Day 5&6 - sightsee Florence

Day 7 - train to Cinque Terre (spend 3 nights)

Day 8&9 sightsee Cinque Terre

Day 10 - train to Lauterbrunnen Valley - longest transfer, ~8hrs (spend 2 nights in Gimmelwald)

Day 11 - sightsee Gimmelwald

Day 12 - train to Beaune (spend 1 night)

Day 13 - train to Colmar (spend 2 nights)

Day 14 - sightsee Colamar

Day 15 - train to Paris (spend 2 or 3 nights)

Day 17 or 18 - fly home

If there are other/better towns worth seeing on the way to Paris from Gimmelwald, I'm open to suggestions.

Natalie, I think this is a more enjoyable itinerary, however it occurs to me that you REALLY changed your destinations. I'm wondering what your preferences are?

Anyway, I think the itinerary looks pretty good my only comment - which is really a matter of personal preference is that Venice can really been seen in 2 nights and 1 full day, and I personally LOVE the Berner Oberland (usually spend at least 4 days there) so that's where I would add the extra day.

Natalie, You may want to check into an overnight train for your long train rides. We usually try to do that so we have more time to spend sightseeing.

Natalie: The new itinerary looks good. The only thing I see is: if you look at an online map (GoogleMap.com) you'll see that Gimmelwald - Beaune - Colmar - Paris is geographically inefficient, because there's a doubling-back that can be avoided if you shift the order slightly. As submitted right now, you go from Gimmelwald all the way west to Beaune, then all the way back northeast to Colmar, then all the way west to Paris. Better would be to shift the order of Colmar to come after Gimmelwald:Gimmelwald - Colmar - Beaune - Paris.

The one stop on this list that I'm still not 100% sure about is Lauterbrunnen Valley. It takes the longest time to transfer to and I have concerns about the weather. Is it really worth the effort getting there?

What would be other good stops from Cinque Terre into France in route to Paris?

And as was pointed out above, the new itinerary is quite a departure from the original plan. After all the comments I realized that it was probably unrealistic to visit all the planned stops in Germany along with Italy and France. However, Salzubrg/Hallstatt and Lake Como are still on top of my "to see" list :-)

Your last post: "The one stop on this list that I'm still not 100% sure about is Lauterbrunnen Valley. It takes the longest time to transfer to and I have concerns about the weather. Is it really worth the effort getting there?"Here's the problem and risk you're faced with: Because you're only there one day, you're rolling the dice in terms of the weather. It's the mountains and weather in the mountains is often bad and notoriously unpredictable. You're going to considerable expense and time to get there, and you only have one day. If you don't have good luck with the weather, it can be an expensive bust. But if the weather happens to be good, it's one of the more amazing Alpine landscapes you'll ever see. The travelers here who've had the best experiences there are those who were able to be there more than one day, so they could wait the weather out, or they just got really lucky. Don't rely on anyone who tells you the weather is likely to be this and such in the Alpine villages that hang above the Lauterbrunnen Valley or that "the weather was great last year when we were there"--because it's a mountainous area with notoriously unpredictable weather.