traveling london,paris,normandy,switz. in 16 days

16 days on the ground, would like to take trains to get around to see country side in the different areas.

There are probably 20 ways to do this; one of those 20 ways would be something like this: London 5 daysParis 5 daysNormandy 3 daysBerner Oberland 3 daysTravel time between these destinations is deducted from the above days so you don't really have 3 full days in the BO because you need to get there and then get to the airport you're flying out of. You may need to deduct a day from one or more locations in order to allow for travel time between the destinations. To estimate realistic travel times, use this rail travel planning website: rail planning websiteand add for time to get to the train station, wait for the train, get from the destination station to your hotel, etc.You'll need to decide whether to fly in/out of one place (say London) or whether to fly "open jaw" into one place (say London) and out of another (Bern, Zurich & Geneva are the 3 Swiss airport choices) to eliminate back-tracking. You'll also need to decide whether to start in London or one of the other places, say Switzerland on the "east side" of your itinerary. Another decision will be whether to do London-Paris-Normandy-Berner Oberland or London-Normandy-Paris-BO. Normandy is between London and Paris but getting from London to Paris on EuroStar may be preferable to you, then going to Normandy after Paris and back-tracking back through Paris to the BO. There are pros and cons either way--let's see what others say. Train is best for all of this, except if you want to tour the Normandy D-Day beaches, in which case you can train to Bayeux and hook up there with BattleBus tours. If you only want to do D-Day Beaches, you can do it in 2 days/1 overnight instead of the 3 days I gave Normandy above.

Hey Jana,
I have been to the places you have named except for Normandy. I have trouble with the time change going over so I would fly to London first. It is an hour less in time change so it is not so bad. The first day is a loss for me.
Paris would be next. Three days was enough for me. Mostly because it rained the whole time and we were robbed. I know nothing about normandy but I love Switzerland. I would spend 6 days in the oberland area. The small train through the villages has a bargain ticket for 6 days. You then could take the train to Zurich and fly out of there. You have been to Italy so I hope you know about the trains there. We waited on a train from Milan to Luccerne for 2 1/2 hours in the blistering heat, the track was changed, we only knew when the crowd started running. Didn't know why. Scary. When we got on the train we helped older Americans off with their bags and they told us they had just been robbed on the train. As a result we couldn't go to the dining room and had to eat a salami sanwich off the cart. Also, make sure you not only buy a ticket, but a reserved one. When we got on our 1st class car our seats were taken. They had to move and ended up standing. They bought a 1st class ticket, but did not reserve a seat. Many were standing in 1st class!