septemberwedding3

My fiance and I are trying to plan our 3 week honeymoon. We'd love suggestions on how many days to spend in each location, and what to keep or shave off. Thanks for any input! We've decided on:

France: 1st
Paris (fly into)
Normandy
French Riviera

Switzerland: 2nd
Berner Oberland Region
Zermatt

Italy: 3rd
Lake District
Cinque Terre
Venice
Rome (fly out of )

septemberwedding3

I forgot to mention, this would be early/mid September to early October. Thanks again!

suze

It sounds absolutely lovely to me! 3 weeks is a nice amount of time and the pace of your proposed itinerary is good.

Maybe one tiny tweak of either CT *OR* lakes region (instead of both of them) in Italy to allow a little more time in Venice and Rome?

nytraveler

Well my first thought is that for a honeymoon this is an awful lot of moving around for the time that you have.

Will you be leaving right after the wedding? If so, perhaps 3 or 4 days of relaxing upfront might be a better idea to start with.

Then I would focus on each place to figure put how long you need to be in each place to see/do what you want.

I might start in Milan with several days at one of the lakes to relax, then head down into Italy - and after that choose either Switz or France - or pick one place in Switz and then one place in France. Otherwise I fear you will have a very expensive, very exhausting blur of train stations and checking and in/out of hotels.

septemberwedding3

Thanks Suze! Great idea. We will likely keep CT. I appreciate your response!

septemberwedding3

Thanks nytraveler! We appreciate your suggestions! We'll be leaving 2 days after the wedding. Great advice on taking a few days to relax, and cutting a few locations out. I'm thinking we'll want to spend the most time in Italy, and then cut down the number of locations in Switzerland and France, but try to go to both. Thanks again!

suze

hey I'm not against trimming the itinerary or slowing the pace a little if you want, but even as it you have it now (after cutting lake district) you can have 3, 4, or 5 days in each place, see example below. That's hardly the breakneck blur of a pace nytraveler is making it sound like (lol!).

4 Paris
1 Normandy
3 French Riviera

3 Berner Oberland Region
1 Zermatt

3 Venice
2 Cinque Terre
4 Rome

septemberwedding3

Love this breakdown! Thanks for your help Suze! We'll weigh this against airline travel time coming and going, and hopefully come up with a path similar to this.

janisj

As I read it you plan ONE week each for [Paris/Normandy/the Riviera] - [Switzerland] - [the Lakes/Cinque Terre/Venice/Rome]

That is crazy (except maybe for the Swiss bit since you aren't trying to see the whole country). Just your Italy leg could easily fill your entire three weeks (two weeks minimum)

Your France segment is a full two weeks (look at a map)

For example re suze's division of time
>>3 Venice
2 Cinque Terre
4 Rome<<

That would require 10 days minimum (it takes time to travel between places).

septemberwedding3

Thanks janisj. Great points!

neckervd

Why not Paris - Normandie - Paris - Bernese Oberland - Zermatt - Lake Maggiore - Genoa - Nice - Genoa - 5Terre - Bologna - Venice - Bologna - Rome?

janisj

suze

<That would require 10 days minimum (it takes time to travel between places)>

Not necessarily, depends on how you do it. Yes I agree you would need to account for a 1/2 day weach time you change cities.

So instead of
3 Venice
2 Cinque Terre
4 Rome

It would in actuality be:
2.5 Venice
1.5 CT
3.5 Rome

Personally I would just do Venice/Rome but these folks seemed interested in some non-city time since they mentioned both the lakes region and the CT in Italy.