My brother and I are traveling to Europe this summer to visit family in Cyprus. We bought a cheap flight to London and plan on traveling around before flying to Cyprus.

We will only be in London for 1 night
Dublin 2 nights
Flying to Frankfurt, Germany (cheapest flight to the mainland from Dublin, Ryanair) my brother's friend lives in Degersheim, Switzerland so we plan on taking a train there and staying with them for (2 of 3 nights depending on other plans)

We have around 5 or 6 nights in between Degersheim and the last part of our trip, Ancona. These are the places that we are trying to decide about:
train from Switzerland to Amsterdam- do we have time to go to Amsterdam?
Strasbourg, France
Venice
I definitely want to go to :
*Cinque Terre/Pisa-( the 5 towns and just to see the leaning tower of pisa) should we just take a train from Pisa to Ancona instead of going to Venice to save time?

Last part of trip:
*Ancona (1 or 2 nights depending on other plans) is a must because the last part of our trip we are taking an overnight ferry from Ancona to Patras. 1 night in Athens and then leaving Athens for Larnaca (not many places have flights to Cyprus)

I wish we could stay a few days longer in Europe, still working on that option. Also, I completely understand that you can spend days in each of these places because there are SO many things to see, and i wish we did have more time! This may already be a lot of places to go BUT this may be the only chance I get to go to many of these places so ANY advice on how to plan this efficiently (if even possible when traveling) out would be AMAZING.

I know this is all a bit jumpled up, i hope it makes sense! Thank you for reading this and commenting! I value all of your advice and opinions!

Well as you are going by train quite a bit check out these info-laden sites to help understand the rail system - www.seat61.com; www.ricksteves.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com - you may find the latter's online European Planning & Rail Guide that has lots of sample rail itineraies to be useful in planning a rail trip. Check www.bahn.de - the Wunderbar German Railways web portal with train schedules for all of Europe - to see how long it takes by train from point A to B, etc.

We have around 5 or 6 nights in between Degersheim and the last part of our trip, Ancona>

Amsterdam would take at least a few days to appreciate and is a deviation north and west from the route to Ancona (all day train ride Switzerland to Amsterdam)

instead head south right away via Milan and go to the Cinque Terre - two nights there - then train it over to Venice and you can catch an overnight ferry from Venice to Patras instead of going way down to Ancona.

We have around 5 or 6 nights in between Degersheim and the last part of our trip, Ancona>

Amsterdam would take at least a few days to appreciate and is a deviation north and west from the route to Ancona (all day train ride Switzerland to Amsterdam)

instead head south right away via Milan and go to the Cinque Terre - two nights there - then train it over to Venice and you can catch an overnight ferry from Venice to Patras instead of going way down to Ancona.

Thank you

If whilst in Switzerland you did not visit one of the Alpine Wonderlands like the Jungfrau Region near Interlaken/Grindelwald/Lauterbrunnen then I would suggest stopping off there for a few days en route to Italy - just a tad off the main north-south rail line to Milan.

Cinque Terre/Pisa-( the 5 towns and just to see the leaning tower of pisa) should we just take a train from Pisa to Ancona instead of going to Venice to save time?>

If you skip Venice then you could stay an extra day in the 5 Terre and do Pisa and its Leaning Tower as an easy day trip from the 5 Terre.

And then when going onto Ancona go via Florence and probably Rome would be the quickest route.

But if I had to chose I'd chose a few days in Venice over the 5 Terre, which some find so so crowded as not to enjoy it - and Pisa - Venice IMO is the world's most gorgeous city and you can get an overnight ferry from there to Patras as well, negating having to go so far south in Italy by train.

I love Venice and happens I went there by train from Switzerland (twice). Worked out very nicely. I'd choose that over Amsterdam any day. And it's more fitting with your other plans in Italy.

Switzerland to Amsterdam by train is too long a ride for me, if you do choose to include that, I'd fly.

"Flying to Frankfurt, Germany (cheapest flight to the mainland from Dublin, Ryanair) my brother's friend lives in Degersheim, Switzerland so we plan on taking a train."

Ryanair doesn't fly to the Frankfurt airport but to Frankfurt Hahn airport, which lies many miles to the west. This airport has no rail service but offers buses to nearby cities like Mainz, where you CAN catch a train. See bus options here:

http://www.hahn-airport.de/default.a...u=by_bus&cc=en

You can however hop a train from a few miles from Frankfurt-Hahn airport, which as Russ says is a long way from Frankfurt itself.

The ryanair flight got delayed more than 3 hours so we canceled that flight! I'm glad that you let me know because I had no idea it was the far out. I guess I should have realized it since all of the other airports are a good ways outside of the major cities.

I've layed out our final itinerary and looked at train times!
Dublin -> Zurich
Degersheim/Zurich -> Strasbourg
Strasbourg -> Brugge-afternoon train
Brugge -> Amsterdam- mid afternoon train
Amsterdam
Amsterdam-> Brussels (late afternoon train)
Brussels-> Pisa: (night flight)
Skip Venice and stay a 2 night in Pisa/Cinque Terre, 2 nights in Ancona & 2 nights in Athens. Ancona is the main reason we are going to Italy

Venice will be for another trip, hopefully one that isn't around tourist season!

Thank you all for your suggestions and input, i really appreciate it

Oh, we are staying 2 days in Zurich/Degersheim, and when I say the airports are outside of the cities i meant for Ryanair's flights!

Strasbourg -> Brugge-afternoon train
Brugge -> Amsterdam- mid afternoon train>

Do I udnerstand rightly that you will get to Bruges at night and spend a few hours there the next day?

I am a fast traveler but even I would not do something like that - well I guess I would and have but Bruges to me is not a town to check off sights but one to linger in for a whole day - to me its sweet sights are not the main ones gathered around the Markt - the nice town square but in outer preceints that the tourist boardes do not innundate - the old quays extant from days when Bruges was one of the world's biggest cities and ports - until the port silted up and left it high and dry - stately old warehouses from those days line these canals..... another night in Bruges I would recommend.