Transportation / Recommend Itinerary? Geneva/Swiss Alps/Vienna/Paris/etc

Allen Its great that you are giving yourself 2.5 to 3 days in each location. Just need to factor in the length of time for your transportation to get a true picture. Everyone wants to as much as possible in their first trip to Europe. And it is hard to pare it down. Here is a way for you to see for yourself what your itinerary is like. Use an online calendar such as Wincalendar to put your arrival and departure flight and times in. It will be easy to play around with your itinerary, Then research the length of time it will take you to get from place to place. At the end of RS chapters on cities, he provides great info on the length of time to get to other places by car, train, or bus. Add in time to get to the station/airport, waiting for flight/train, time to get to your new destination, and time to get to hotel. Put those in the calendar spaces.
Note: Altho usually much faster and cheaper than a flight, figure in 1/2 day at least per train trip. Figure out how long you will actually be in a city. Also count the number of days that are travel days. You are going to spending quite a lot of time in rail stations and airports. So based on your above itinerary and the real world itinerary factors above, I would suggest that you leave off 1 or 2 outlier destinations. In other words, the ones that are farthest from the main travel areas. So, in this case, Vienna and/or Amsterdam and Brussels. I would add a day or two to Paris and/or Madrid so that you could do day trips. For instance, Versailles from Paris or Toledo from Madrid. This longer stay keeps you in the same hotel and allows you some brreathing room and time to soak up the wonderful atmosphere of the places you are visiting. If you leave your itinerary the same, you would definitely need to fly when you have noted that as an option. Check out the European discount flights at skyscanner.com.

Thank you Bobbie. I'm going to take some time to lay this out. Looks like I can take a train to Vienna overnight to save some time, but I'm not sure where I should depart from (Zurich??). I want to spend a few days in the alps, hiking, seeing the peak, etc. If anything, I will cut out brussels. If that is not enough, I will cut Amsterdam as well. Since I have been to Paris before I don't mind cutting that location down to 2 days. I do like to keep my schedule extremely busy though.

Just be sure you are realistic about how comfortable and how much sleep you will get on the train. I can't do overnight in sleeper cars or couchettes cuz I don't sleep and end up bleery eyed and grouchy the next day.

Will do. I've never done an overnight train before, but I ride the acela from NYC to DC here about twice a week and sleep pretty well on it. I assume out of the 12 hour trip, I can catch at least 6 hours of sleep which hopefully should be enough. It looks like I COULD technically train from Vienna to Paris, and Paris/Amsterdam to Madrid, but those segments are equally long and it probably makes more sense to fly.

Allen Another note. My 21 year old son took only 1 overnight train when he was in Europe. He was in a 6 person couchette. This is a very very small compartment with 6 fold out "beds'. He said never again. Smelly, snoring, and bad breath kept him from sleeping the whole time.
And he will stay in hostels so you know he can stay in places with limited facilities. Just to let you know it is not only mature adults who have second thoughts. Not sure what other "bed" accommodations are available on your train. Bobbie

Thank you for the concern. This is my current itnerary, taking your comments and other comments into account: Date Agenda Hotel Location 6/22/2011 Arrive Geneva in AM. Store luggage at train station. Train to interlaken. Interlaken 6/23/2011 Explore Interlaken/surrounding area Interlaken 6/24/2011 Train to Jungfraugh Peak. Other? Interlaken 6/25/2011 Wegen Wegen 6/26/2011 Train to Zurich. Explore Zurich. Overnight train to Vienna Overnight Train 6/27/2011 Vienna Vienna 6/28/2011 Vienna Vienna 6/29/2011 Morning/Afternoon flight to Paris. Paris 6/30/2011 Paris Paris 7/1/2011 Paris Paris 7/2/2011 Paris morning / afternoon train to Amsterdam. 45-100 Euro/pp Amsterdam 7/3/2011 Bike Tour Amsterdam 7/4/2011 Morning or afternoon flight to Madrid. Easy Jet 10AM ~$100USD/pp Madrid 7/5/2011 Madrid 7/6/2011 Madrid
7/7/2011 Depart Madrid in AM

As for the overnight train, I was going to book a compartment with 2 private beds for me and my significant other. Thank you.

Hi Allen I think your bitting too much off. You should cut something else out and see more in a couple of areas. You have way to many travel day's. Between Paris/amsterdam and Amsterdam/Madrid you have 3 hours of travel time each. That is not including to and from both hotels and waiting for transportaion. You just lost the good part of two day's. Lake Geneva is a nice place to stay. Or forget Geneva all together and find a flight that day to Vienna, get all the flighing out of the way. Then go Vienna, Swiss Alps, Paris and Madrid. Seeing you have been to Paris might be a good place to also skip. I guess my question is do you want to visit a lot of places and not see much? Or see a lot where you are at? Gimmawald is one of my favorite places I have ever stayed. We stayed with the school teachers in the lower level, private entrance and patio to enjoy the alps. We took the lift to Schilthorn for breakfast, from there you can hike down or take the lift back. Jaunfrau is on the other side of the valley and worth is. If your into hiking it is a wonderful place. Very relaxing. Hope that helps Wendy