Need Help Narrowing Down My Itinerary

You answered your own question when two great understatements. Elevens cities , 22-25 days. That is a city every other day and allows no time for travel. The only environment you going to experience is the insides of trains and train stations. You need to cut the list in half. And, if you truly mean, that you want to experience different environments - then do so by staying in one or two regions. You can experience nothing when you are watching the country side go by the train window. As a rough suggestion I would focus on southern Germany Munich, Salzburg, then perhaps a swing around to Vienna and maybe Prague or maybe swing the other way into Switzerland and to Strasbourg. OR simpley to Denmark and Sweden. Or western Germany, Beligum and the Netherlands. You need a completely new approach. Think about and come back.

You have so many options Katie! To keep it simple, one option is to fly into Brussels and spend a night or two there and a couple of nights in Brugge. Travel to Paris and spend 5-7 nights. Look for some smaller cities between Paris and Bern/Lucerne to spend a night or two or more. Spend time in Switzerland. Travel to Munich and fly home from there. Save the rest for another trip or two.

Great destinations, some hard choices if you are to winnow things down (which you should do). Question: Who is more qualified to do this, you, or a bunch of strangers on the internet? Still, if you want to tell us a bit more about your interests maybe we can make some intelligent suggestions.

I echo Adam. What are your highest priorities? unfortunately your choices are so widespread. check you map of Europe and see what is convenient to your "Must sees". I assume you have reasons for your selections

Look at a map and start connecting the dots. Try multiple combinations, then plug the numbers into the Deutsche Bahn website to get an idea of travel times and costs. And if you want a "mix", all of those are medium to large cities. When you have an idea on your final selection of cities, you may be able to include some more variety by seeing what lies between the cities.

Personally, I'd begin by eliminating Ireland, Denmark, and Sweden. Remember you have to consider your travel time between places which can consume a large part of several days when you'd rather actually be sightseeing.
The other two "outliers" (distance-wise) might be Berlin and/or Vienna.

thanks everybody! My travel buddy and I have (more or less) decided as our big destinations on the following: Lucerne, Switzerland Munich, Germany Salzburg, Austria Vienna, Austria
Prague, Czech Republic Berlin, Germany We'll most likely fly there and then buy a eurail pass to get around. We're also looking to see if there are any little gems that we use the eurail pass to take day trips to. You guys have any suggestions? My interest lies mainly in architecture. My travel companion enjoys scenic activities, like bike riding through the country side, taking ferries, riding trams up mountains, etc. Any suggestions? I read that the train ride from Lucerne to Interlaken is beautiful.

Katie, Your revised Itinerary is much more realistic! I might still try to fit a few days in Paris into the list, largely because there will probably be a greater availability of flights, and also it's an easy trip from there to Switzerland. One important point to mention is that it's not possible in most cases to buy Eurail Passes in Europe. These must be purchased here and activated in Europe. Before deciding on a Railpass, you'll need to do some "number crunching" to determine whether a Pass will be a more cost effective option. Keep in mind that Railpasses DO NOT include the reservation fees that are compulsory on some trains (usually the fast trains such as the TGV in France). Regarding the trip from Lucerne to Interlaken, I've found that most of the rail trips in Switzerland are beautiful (some more than others). However, the scenery gets better as one ventures further up the Lauterbrunnen Valley from Interlaken (IMHO). Murren is a beautifully scenic Swiss village. If you have time to venture into that area, a trip to the top of the Schilthorn (via Cable Car) will provide some outstanding views! The ride is a bit "pricey" though. While there you can enjoy a fine hot meal in the revolving restaurant, or a "Martini shaken not stirred" in the James Bond Bar (the location was used in the filming of the movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service). I'm assuming you're using open-jaw flights? Happy travels!

Regarding a rail pass, the only way to know if it makes sense is to go to the national rail websites (Deutsche Bahn for Germany, ÖBB for Austria, SBB for Switzerland and ... I'm not sure for the Czech Republic) and compare the point-to-point 2nd class ticket prices to the overall cost of a rail pass plus the mandatory reservation fees. If you can commit to riding a specific long-haul train in advanced, you can often get a substantial discount. These days, rail passes are rarely good for anything except making the companies that sell them more money. However, if you decide to purchase one anyway, I would not use it for taking short daytrips. For these, the cost per day of the pass will likely far excede the actual ticket price.

The national rail website for Czech Republic is: www.idos.cz Make sure it's .cz and not .com, otherwise you'll end up at the International Dutch Oven Society website.

Unless you travel very extensively around Czech Rep. rail pass is too expensive. www.idos.cz is good also for buses.

Your revised schedule is Luzern to Munich to Salzburg to Vienna to Prague to Berlin. That 5 "to's", five days of travel. Normally I would recommend somebody going from Munich to Salzburg to use a €29 Bayern-Ticket. That's €29 for both of you, on regional trains which will only take a half hour more to Salzburg, and, if you buy it in advance, will also cover any U-bahn, streetcar, or bus transportation in Munich to get to the Hbf. However, a 4-country, Sel_ct Saver pass is available in 5 days min (for $436 per person), so if you use a pass, you might as well use the fifth day for Munich to Salzburg. $436/person with a pass. IF, you are willing to ride in 2nd class, purchase your tickets well in advance, and rearrange you schedule slightly, you can do the whole trip for less than $190 per person, €138/P. German Rail has a lot of special discount tickets, for date and train specific trips, with advance purchase of at least 3 and up to 92 days. In reality you need to get them as soon as you can commit, because the lowest priced discount tickets sell out quickly and later tickets are more expensive. For these discounts the first or last leg must have one end in Germany. There can be additional legs, but they must usually be completely in Germany. There are exceptions for Switzerland. Luzern to Munich would have a leg from Luzern to Zurich, but the discount ticket would still apply. If you rearrange your itinerary slightly, to be Luzern to Salzburg to Munich to Vienna to Prague to Berlin, you could use German Rail discounted tickets for every leg except Vienna to Prague and Vienna to Prague would be covered by a similar discounted fare on Austria Rail. There is no discounted fare from Salzburg to Vienna, but there is from Munich to Vienna.

To use a discounted ticket from Luzern, use the Bahn website to book Luzern to Freilassing. Don't book it to Salzburg or you can't get the discount. But Freilassing is the last stop in Germany before you cross over the river into Salzburg. You can get a German Rail, Europa-Spezial Schweiz ticket to Freilassing. Freilassing to Salzburg Bhf is only €2,10. Hopefully, the conductor on the train can sell you the ticket for about that so you won't have to get off in Freilassing to buy your €2 ticket. The legs and fares, then, are: Luzern to Salzburg, €39 for Europa-Spezial tickets plus €2,10, per person Salzburg to Munich, €29 Bayern-Ticket (€14,50/P) Munich to Vienna, €29/P for Europa-Spezial Österreich tickets Vienna to Prague, €29/P for Austrian Rail (www.oebb.at) Sparschiene tickets Prague to Berlin, €24/P for Europa-Spezial Tschechien The above fares are for the lowest priced, advance purchase, date and train specific, non-refundable tickets. But then, we do this all the time with airfares, right.