Jean

Your plan for March 28th wouldn't appeal to me. It's only 2 hours from Munich to Salzburg, and you can store your luggage at the Salzburg train station. BUT, this Spring anyway, the last afternoon train from Salzburg to Venice on a Friday leaves at 4:12p, and the journey takes nearly 8 hours.

You'd have to leave Munich awfully early (like, 6:30a) to catch a Sound of Music tour. The tours start at 9:30a and 2:00p and take 4 hours. So, it's two hours on the train, plus some time to check luggage in Salzburg, and time to get to the tour departure point. After the tour, you'd have lunch and then have about an hour before you would need to return to the train station, retrieve your luggage and board the train to Venice. You'd spend 10 hours on trains that day for less than 8 hours in Salzburg.

I would leave Munich on Thursday to give you more time to see Salzburg.

You have two partial days and one full day in Florence. I wouldn't try to fit in a day trip out into the countryside, but you could take a bus or taxi to nearby Fiesole for a few hours plus dinner. There are some Roman ruins and a small archeology museum plus beautiful views of Florence.

http://www.nytimes.com/fodors/top/fe...aly%2FFlorence