My Husband and I plan to visit Europe in month of May. Flying out from Orlando FL, non-stop flight to Paris on May 1st and plan to arrive back again non-stop flight from Paris to Orlando on May 20th. We don't plan to spend time seeing arts & architect...no bias...rather enjoy the nature away from the urban cities. Don't mind visiting switzerland on our way back to Paris.
I don't have any itinerary now but I know what to do...but don't know from where to strat from trip.
***from Paris to Which Italian/swiss city first to start the Italian tour.
We are definately traveling to follwoing Places in Italy.
1. Venice
2. Cinque Terre
3. Sorrento/Amalfi Coast
3. Abruzzo/San Gimignano
4. Lake Cumo.
5.Jungfraujoch/Lauterbrunnen/Wengen (weather permitting)
6. Spend a day paris sight seeing.
Please suggest itenerary for our trip. This is our first European trip. We didn't like the Globus/trafalgar tours. thanks

I always buy at least one guidebook per country that I plan on visiting. When I first began traveling, I didn't do that, and I think I missed a good deal.

If you have not already booked your flights, might I suggest you book an "open jaw" ticket, so you fly into one airport and back from another. They unusually cost little or no more, and would make the expense of back tracking unnecessary, as well as saving precious vacation time. For example, your could fly into Paris, and back from Rome.

BTW, Yenisumi, I note that you just joined our Forum. Welcome!

I should mention that you marked your post as a Trip Report. A trip report is a post you make after you return to let us know how our advice worked out, and giving hints on how to make our next trip better.

A few things:

You have tagged your post as a "Trip Report" -- which means people will think you are posting about a trip you have already taken rather than a trip you are planning. You should click on the triangle above that says "Report Abuse" and ask the editors to remove the Trip Report tag for you.

In the meantime, although Italy looks small on a map, it is full of high mountains, which are slow to drive, and has limited train service in most scenic areas. The biggest reason places like Lake Como or le Cinque Terre have remained beautiful is that they are so hard to get to.

San Gimignano and Abruzzo are not near each other, and Abruzzo is not a town, but a huge area that requires a car to see.

If you are flying into Paris, you can take an overnight train or a plane to Venice (which is a city, packed with tourists).

If you want to see all these destinations, your trip will look something like this:

Arr Paris
Overnight train to Venice
Train to Sorrento (7 hours travel time)
Rent car, drive to Abruzzo (5 hours travel time)
Drive to San Gimignano (6 hours travel time)
Drive to La Spezia, drop off car, train to le Cinque Terre (4 hours travel time)
train to Lago di Como (4 hours)
Train to Wengen (7 hours)
Train to Paris (8 hours)

So what looks like a 3 week trip is actually just a 2 week trip, because you will spend one whole week on boring trains or highways just getting from one place to another. With the 2 weeks you have to sightsee, you are trying to squeeze 10 places to see into 14 days.

If you are traveling to Italy to enjoy nature, you will spend most of your time in a train station, or concentrating on a busy road with trucks, sleeping in a hotel, or eating in restaurants, and about 3 hours a day looking at nature.

What might make a nice trip is Venice, Croatia, the Dolomiti and the Italian Lakes.

I hope tag is removed soon
I guess change of plans. We decided to visit France and Spain next year. You are right about not capitalizing the traveling time from Paris. New itinerary. Depart April 30th.
1. Arrive to Naples 3 nights(amalficoast,positano or sorrento)
2. Train to Florence 3 nights (tuscany, siena)
3. Train to Cinque Terre 3 nights (san gimignano, chani?)
4. Train to Venice 2 nights.
5. Lake Lakes Como, Maggiore & Lugano 4-6 days?
6. Wengen 3 nights,
7. Lucerne, 3 nights.
Fly back home from Zurich.
let me know if I can make further changes.thanks.