Geneva's boring. Instead for the Lac Leman area of Switzerland go to the town of Vevey. It is 1 hour from Geneva directly on the train route. There's a great hostel on the lake in Vevey 5 mins. walk from the train station called Riviera Lodge. www.rivieralodge.ch

..The Lonely Planet has a website..Their talk board is the "thorn tree". It is geared for backpackers and I think you will find it helpful.

You have 34 days worth of cities. If you go for '4 to
6 weeks' you've already used
up all your time in 4 weeks
without allowing for all the
travel time between your
destinations.

It's hard to give a concrete
suggestion without knowing you but I would pare things down to 2 countries... France and Italy or Switzerland and another, Germany and one other etc depending on your tastes
and interests.

I did the countries on your
list back in the early seventies plus Yugoslavia, Greece and the Low Countries
but it took over 6 MONTHS not 6 weeks.

Rob