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I am planning a trip to France, Switzerland and Italy. I am thinking a 11 to 15 day trip. IN France, I want to see Normany beaches, Paris, and the Chateau region. In Switzerland, I want to see the alps and quaint villages. In Italy, I want to see Venice, maybe Florence and Rome & maybe Tuscany region. I am looking for suggestions as to whether it is best to plan outselv, take a tour. We are on a budget and am trying to save money as much as we can. I want to see the typical landmarks but also want to see the real culture and small towns as well.

SUGGESTIONS?

Trains are great to get to all of those places but you simply cannot do all that you want - even on a group tour

I would chose 2 of the 3 countries at most but if you want to move fast this is feasible for 15 days:

D-day beach can be a day trip from Paris by train to Bayeux than mini-bus tours to the most popular D-Day sites.

or Paris to Interlaken, Switzerland by train - stay in a neat Alpine village like Wengen or Grindelwald- the best place IMO to savour the majestic high Alps - 3 days

Train to Venice- 2 days
Train to Florence - 2 days
Train to Rome -final 4 days - fly home from Rome

anyway for train info check www.seat61.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com.

yeah, I agree, you can't do all that in only 11-15 days, tour or on your own. The odds that you'll find a tour to go the places you want are about zero (Paris+D-day beaches+loire+Swiss villages+Venice+Tuscany).

And tours are often not badly priced as they get good room deals, but if you really are on a budget, you can do it more cheaply yourself if you pick real budget hotels and watch what you eat, etc.

I think you could do France (Paris+Loire+D-day area), OR do Italy. If you stretch it, you could throw in a few days in Switzerland with one of those choices.

For example, something like 3 days Paris, 1 day D-Day (Normandy), 2 days Loire), 3 days Switzerland (includes time to get there), rest in one or two places in Italy. That is really rushing the France part, really should add one day each to Normandy and Loire given logistics.

I would skip the Loire chateaux day trip - and spend that day elsewhere- the chateaux are nice but with all you got on your plate something has to be paired and IME the Loire one would go first.

There aren't any tours that will take you to all those places, and you don't have enough time to see them all anyway. What do you mean by "Chateau region?" Every corner of France has châteaux. Do you mean the Loire?

You may be on a budget, but at least spend the small amount of money it takes to buy guidebooks and maps and get a realistic view of what you can accomplish in the very short amount of time you have to visit Europe. What you are proposing now is entirely unrealistic.

IME budget travel is not compatible with moving around a great deal, but rather in staying in a few places were you can get to know the best value bars, cheap methods of transport, etc. etc. Plus moving from one place to another is expensive.

But the main argument against your idea is that there simply aren't enough hours in a day to fit it all in. I know that it's a fodder's truism but it's none the less true for all that - every time you move you lose half a day. Even in 15 days you would hardly have arrived in any of those places and you'd be leaving again.

if you can stretch your trip to 15 days great, but in any event you need to decide what your 3 [11 day trip] or 4 [15 day trip] priorities are. You can do Paris - loire - Normandy - Paris reasonable easily in 11-15 days, perhaps with a side trip to the alps, or you could do Paris - the Alps - Venice.

Or Venice - Tuscany - Florence - Rome [you'd need 15 days for that, IMO]

Travelling in one direction flying open jaw [into one place and out of another] may cost a bit more than a round trip, [but should not be the same as 2 singles - you need the multi-city button on the website] but will save you time and therefore money as you don't have to go back to where you started. Flights can easily be booked directly with the airlines or through a website like Expedia, and there is plenty of help here for booking trains and hotels. Book it yourself and you control the costs and make sure that you pay for what you want, not for what someone else wants to impose on you.

have fun with your planning and come back when you've got some firmer ideas about what you really want to do.