Paris, Prague

Which flights are expensive? To and from or within? First, you are covering a lot of territory and it is not in a straight line. An eight day trip which appears to include travel is not good for more than two cities. Do Paris and Prague with a cheap, discount airline between the two. When you throw in Switzerland and the train you are eating up too much of the limited time you have.

i agree with frank, paris and prague are not exactly next door and takign the detour into the alps no matter what country you go to to see them to ski is not exactly easy. but if your set in doing this, this is my suggestion. fly a red eye to paris to maximize your time, on your 4th day take a early morning train to geneva, from there take the alpybus to chamonix. plenty of time do ski half a day at le flegere/brevent. spend day 5 in the morning if weather is good going up the augi du midi then take alpybus back to geneva and fly to prague, train from prague might eat to much of your time
days 6-8 you are in prague

Mary, Frank is correct in that the time frame is a bit short for three cities. However, I don't see the route as being a bad choice, particularly if you could squeeze out a couple more days. Train from Paris to Lauterbrunnen is as little as 5 1/2 hours. The train from Lauterbrunnen to Prague is at least 13 hours. Given the number of transfers likely required, I doubt that a night train would be a realistic option. However, a train from Lauterbrunnen to Geneva is 3 1/2 hours or to Bern 1 1/4 hours. There must be flights from Geneva or Bern to Prague should be available.

Unless I'm reading the timetables incorrectly, I don't think that Conor's plan is feasible. The first TGV from Paris to Geneva departs at 07:09 and arrives at 10:14. The SAT bus (not the AlpyBus) departs from the Gare Routiere (bus station) at 11:15 and arrives at Chamonix Sud at 13:10. By the time Mary gets checked in and arranges for rental equipment, there won't be much of the afternoon left for skiing. By taking a later train to Geneva, Mary could spend the morning in Paris and still get to Chamonix by evening. The next day she could spend the entire day skiing. The following morning she could take either the AlpyBus or the SAT bus to the Geneva airport in time to catch a late morning Swissair flight to Zurich, change planes there, and arrive in Prague at 14:05. Having said that, even though I'm a skier myself, I suggest that Mary forego skiing, spend more time in Paris and/or Prague, and fly directly from Paris CDG to Prague on either Smart Wings or Czech Airlines. Booked well in advance, tickets can be very cheap.

Tim has excellent advice. But if you consider skiing important for a happy trip experience, I would drop Prague and just do Paris & alpine skiing. You'll save money (to use for the next trip?), have more fun, less stress, and create more solid memories. I've never been in Prague in winter. I'm sure a fresh coat of snow would make it very charming. But without the fresh coat of snow, Paris is still Paris and Prague is just cold. That's my opinion, anyway.

Agree that you are trying to do too much. Paris and Prague are both wonderful cities, but they are nowhere near close to each other and I wouldn't think of doing both on one short trip. And Paris deserves more than 3 days, the first of which will be spent zombie-like after flying from CA. You could do both cities in 8 days by flying between them. If flights are too expensive, then there are plenty of other nearby cities to visit by train. Or you could do Paris and some skiing in 8 days. But I would really discourage you from trying to do all 3 things with only 8 days.