My partner and I are going to Europe for three weeks, May 21-June 12. It's my first time, and he's been many times but only traveling with bands, so he doesn't feel like he's really visited Europe at all. That said, we wanted to see EVERYTHING! But of course, three weeks is not much.. so we decided to keep it to France and Italy. Here is our itinerary so far.

We fly in and out of Paris.
May 22-27 Paris
May 27-29 Venice
Mary 29-June 1 Rome
June 1-3 Florence
June 3-6 Cinque Terre
.......
June 10-12 Paris
(Depart June 12)

So, the initial plan was to rent a car in La Spezia and drive up through the alps to Annecy for a two night stay, then over to Lyon or possibly a small village outside of Lyon for two more nights before returning to Paris for our last two nights.

THEN we found out how EXPENSIVE that would be!!! But I'm not really finding any trains or buses that will get us to Annecy in a reasonable amount of time.. and most routes on public transportation to Lyon (if we were to flip the order we did Annecy and Lyon) also say they'll take something like 10 hours! Occasionally on a search, I'll find one that comes in at about 7 - but it appears and then disappears so I wonder how reliable it is.

Also, I'm not sure if I'm even sold on Lyon. I feel like it might be a good home base for exploring the countryside, but I'd rather not be in a big city since we're spending a good amount of time in Paris anyway..

Another thought is to go to Lucerne and then Strasbourg. Thoughts on Strasbourg?

Wondering if anyone might be able to advise of an alternative itinerary? So here's what we're hoping for:
- two towns - charming, old, ideally one with a lake or river we can swim in. we like strolling through gardens and parks and along banks, eating and drinking in restaurants and bars with great food and atmosphere, and walking home afterwards
- keep travel time to a minimum - under 8 hours in a day at least??? And hopefully if one day is that long, the other two travel days are considerably shorter?
- we'd really like to see the alps-- even if it's just passing through, at least some portion of them!

One more thing - if you can convince me we don't need to calm things down and say a long two-day goodbye to Paris at the end of the trip, and that instead we need to see x and y, I might agree

So it looks like you have part of a jet lagged first day plus 4 full days for Paris which is fine, plus one full day + for Venice which is a bit short to me. Than you have 2+ days in Rome which I think is inadequate and 1 + day in Florence. I don't think you are accounting enough for travel time in your planning. You might also consider moving on to Venice on your first day and leaving Paris for the end to free up an extra day or so. I highly recommend you be back in Paris at least a day before your return flight. I do not think you have the time for it but you could consider the Cote D'Azur as a springboard for a brief Alps visit or the Italian lakes.

First, if you have not already booked tickets, you will have an extra day for sightseeing by booking multi-city or multi-destination, (not two one-way) tickets, flying into one city and out of another, rather than using time and money to backtrack to Paris.

If you have RT tickets already purchased and they can't be changed, then do not break your time up in Paris. That wastes time traveling into and out of the city twice and checking into and out of hotels twice. You have to return for the trip home, so put all your time in Paris at the end. You will already be at the airport. You will have a bit of a layover, but it still saves travel, so go directly on to another place, easy to go on to Venice (or take a train to closer destination.

If you flew in to Venice, that is a good place to get over jet lag. Easy from there to take trains all over Italy.

Most important. Lay out your plan day to day, by day, dates or number of nights, including travel time (allow time for checking out of hotels, getting to train, travel time and time getting to next hotel), and do not count any day twice or as being in two places the same day.

You can do days. Easy to understand, IMHO
Day 1, arrive Paris, on to Venice
Day 2, Venice
Day 3, Venice
Day 4, travel to CT, most of day
Day 5, CT
Day 6, Travel to Florence (1/2 day)
Day 7, Florence
Day 8, Florence (day trip)
Day 9, travel to Rome (1/3 day)
Day 10, Rome
Day 11, Rome
Day 12, Rome
Day 13, fly from Rome to?
Etc.
Etc.

Or simply do nights, knowing one whole day in a place requires two nights, with travel on the days in between.

Venice, 3 nights, 2 days
Florence, 3 nights, 2 days
Rome, 4 nights, 3 days
Etc.

Or by dates with more detail

May 22, arrive Paris, continue on to Venice
May 23, 24, Venice, 3 nts (2 whole days)
May 25, travel to Florence (1/2 day in either Venice or Florence)
May 26, 27, Florence, 3 nts (2 whole days) (day trip 2nd day)
May 28, travel to Rome (1/2 day in either Florence or Rome)
May 29, 30, 31, Rome, 4 nts (3 whole days)
June 1, fly from Rome to?
June 2 - 6 TBA ? 5 days, at least 1 or 2 being travel days.

June 7, travel to Paris
June 8, 9, 10, 11, Paris
June 12, depart Paris

Just to give an idea of what MKS hints at.
I was in Venice this week and went back to Paris.
Flight took off from Marco Polo airport at 20 15. Means we were at airport at around 7 25 (short but we know the drill) meaning leaving Venice around 6 20 I guess (we were in a meeting room elsewhere).
So count leaving at 6 for yourself.
I was in my hotel at Gare du Nord at 23 hours.
Leaving Venice at 18 - arriving at hotel at 23.
And I know the airports the metro and the hotel was 3 min from the trainstation and I had no luggage (small backpack).

So add 30 min to get your luggage add 30 min to find your hotel and get your bearings in the metro and add 15 for check in and since we are there add the 30 min my plane was late on the way add time to check out at origin and you need 7 hours door to door.

Given where you are going where do Lyon and Strasbourg come into it?

If you pick up a car near le Cinque Terre you can drive to the Piemonte region of Italy and then take a train from Torino to Paris (5 hours) that goes through the Alps, although not the most spectacular parts of it. It is too bad that you don't want to stay in a city, because Torino has a lot of what you say you want. But there are lots of small towns near Torino that are old and preserved (like La Morra, or Alba or Mombaruzzo). There might be some natural-water swimming, but most people who go to that area would stay in a relais with a swimming pool. Another place you could consider is Acqui Terme, which has spas. It might be perfect for you.

If you most of all you want the Alps, then if you rent a car in le Cinque Terre you can be in the Aosta valley near Mont Blanc in 3 or 4 hours. I really like the small town of Aosta, but some of the best mountain views are a few miles away in much smaller towns like Morgex or Pre'St Didier. I'm not sure how you would get back to Paris other than to drive back to Torino and take the train from there, but maybe you can take a bus into France and catch a train there. I don't know.

Stop over at Turin:
La Spezia dp 10.46 - Turin ar 13.40
Turin dp 9.30 - Annecy ar 13.52
BTW: there is much more to see and to do at Turin than at Annecy.

Wow, I'm glad I finally found an active forum! I got no replies on reddit.

I should have put a disclaimer for those of you experienced travelers who get anxiety when they see someone shorting themselves on time in cities that have much to be seen, or itineraries without all the details worked out.

I know one full day in Venice isn't much, or only two in Rome, but I'd rather spend a day in Venice than no days at all. I may never get a chance to go back to Europe. At 33, I've finally saved up enough and found a pocket of 3 weeks in my demanding hospitality career (which, by the way, i love - in all its small salary, no retirement in sight, whats-a-day-off glory) to sneak away and do this.. but I may be old the next time, if there even is a next time.

I'm also quite used to only having a night or two for vacation. The longest I ever had was between jobs - 7 nights in Maui. Felt like an eternity, and I loved it, but two or three would've been great, too.

That said, I do have a VERY thorough full-page-per-day itinerary in my Google docs, and I am carefully logging all possible transit schedules, and allowing generous amounts of time for before/after commutes. Along with activities, of course.

Thanks to the couple of you who did answer my question.