Itinerary help for the Europe trips (May/2014)

Michael: Your itinerary covers many, many miles and just doesn't flow very well. You'd do better to try to visit great cities that are in the same general vicinity. Unless you have any special reason to go to Nice/Monaco and Brittany/Mont St. Michel, there are other cities that are possibly more worthy of your limited time. Italy is really a separate trip, as their cities are close enough together for efficient travel with an inexpensive train system. One stop is not enough time.
We really don't have enough info to make good suggestions from.

If you want to start in Amsterdam and end in Paris, you should fly your first leg as LAX to AMS, and your second leg as PAR (Paris all airports) to LAX. To find these flights, don't book two one-ways (potentially very expensive). Instead, use the "multi city" function on Kayak to search for them. If a ticket to Berlin is cheaper than a ticket to Amsterdam, that only helps you if you're starting in Berlin. If you can restructure your trip to accommodate this, fine. Otherwise, don't make the mistake of flying to a place just because it's "cheap." For getting between places, you'll mostly be taking trains. To research routes and times, follow Rick's advice on using the Bahn website: http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/db_tips.htm. Some of your routes will be very long. For these, you can choose between day trains, night trains, or flights. The subject of night trains is very divisive; some like them and others say never again. To look for flights within Europe, use http://www.skyscanner.com/. Don't forget that when comparing a train vs a flight, you have to account for the time and money it takes to get to and from the airports, plus security and waiting time (trains stations are in or near the center of towns, and you can get to the station just before departure in most cases). The closest airports to the Cinque Terre are Pisa, Genoa, and Florence. Your itinerary is very spread out; someone may have a way to make it more efficient. Or, you may want to change it to focus on a smaller fraction of Europe. Remember that you lose a half day getting between close-together places, and much more on far ones (like Berlin and the Cinque Terre). So, your 3 nights in each place does NOT equal 3 days, or even 2.5 days.

Thank David, and Harold for good suggestions. Yes, probably, I will re-plan to make this itinerary to two trips. One for Berlin, Amsterdam, Brittany, Normandy, then Paris. The other one for Nice/Cannes/Monaco, Cinque Terra, Verona, and go home from Venice. Again, thank you very much for your suggestions.

Much better! Congratulations on the first step - cutting down the destinations is very hard, but it's a must for an enjoyable trip. Your new trips are still busy, but at least they're possible.

Hi, Flying LAX-Berlin is one big advantage for someone living in Calif. If you choose that option, then either skip Amsterdam or reaching it by night train. The ticket to Berlin most likely would be less expensive since the carrier is Air Berlin.