Hi,

I hope I am posting on the correct forum. I am trying to plan a 3 week trip for sometime in May/June 2026. We would like visit several cities/ towns beginning in the countries above but we are having trouble figuring an appropriate itinerary that that makes sense and doesn't have us running from place to place. I am just going to list some places we would like to visit and I would appreciate any opinions and ideas. Here is where we would like to go:
Amsterdam
Belgium (probably just Bruges & Antwerp, but the altarpiece at Ghent has piqued my interest).
Germany (several charming towns/cities along the Rhine, not sure which ones to visit (as there are so many,) or where to make home base.
After that the plan was to stop and visit a spot or two in Switzerland (maybe Geneva)?
As of now, the best flight we could find has us going out of Nice-any recommendations of towns to visit along the way would be great. Or we could go straight to Nice and spend a day in Monaco before heading home.

I thank you in advance and am very grateful for any advice.

Alexis

Welcome to Fodors. Your plans/hopes are awfully ambitious " . . . that makes sense and doesn't have us running from place to place."

Running from place to place is really what you have. Amsterdam, Bruges, Antwerp, possibly Ghent, several towns in Germany, a couple in Switzerland, Monaco and Nice.

A more reasonable plan would be to do just the Netherlands, Belgium and a few places in Germany. Adding a destination in Switzerland could make sense if you fly home from there.

IMO trying to fit in the south of France makes no sense on any level. Even IF the flight is cheaper the time and money spent traveling to and staying in Monaco and/or Nice would more than eat up any savings.

Look for open jaw (multi-city) tickets something like in to Amsterdam or Brussels and home from Frankfurt or Geneva. Or other variations.

It might sound harsh, but I have to say that you're a bit all over the place. I urge you to consult a few guide books. And while many Fodorites will be happy to try to help you, we would really need to know what your interests are and why these particular places appeal to you.

BTW, a "cheap" airfare to a place far from your chosen destinations won't necessarily be a more affordable option than other flights, as you'll need to pay for lodging in that city at least one night before your flight and you'll have to pay for transportation to and from the places that you decide to visit. And there's the cost in time, too.

Have fun as you plan!

"If it's Tuesday, must be Belgium." I don't want to pile on, but as someone who is considering a somewhat similar itinerary, I will say that you will ultimately find something is going to have to give.

While three weeks seems like a long time, when you have so many destinations - and the distances between them - suddenly you're doing more moving than actually being there and seeing.

Think of your itinerary in terms of nights. 4 nights in a town nets you 3 full days sightseeing, 3 nights is 2 days and so on. Do not underestimate how much logistics cut into your plans. Logistics of checking in/out of lodging, actual transit time, getting lost, eating, etc. takes.

Remember if you plan any day trips in a base, that also removes time from town. Example: let's say you have 3 nights in Bruges - so 2 full days and also want to see Ghent (as you mentioned), going to Ghent as a day trip will then take a day you allotted from Bruges and leaving you with only 1 full day.

Use rome2rio for transit times but be sure to check underlying links for specifics. Another fantastic resource is seat61.com for all things public transport.

Getting a couple of guidebooks, as already suggested, will help you really identify your goals in each place. In my case made my decisions worse but only because of shiny penny syndrome! But seriously, they are helpful.

Seriously!
Thankfully, there are LOTS of "pennies" out there that shine up quite nicely.

Just to point out that Amsterdam is not a country. It is the capital of the Netherlands, and the Netherlands is so much more, and so much nicer, than over priced, over touristed Amsterdam.

Agree with the others that you are trying to see too much and cover too much ground in 3 weeks. You need to look at distances involved in your wishlist. Nice is nearly 1000km from Amsterdam as the crow flies, and considerably more on the ground, without any diversions to Brugge, or the Rhine, or Switzerland.

How do you plan on getting around?

OK, if you have 3 weeks you can have a fair crack at your plans, but you won't be able to keep everything. But I'd encourage you to think about confining your trip to, for example, a two- or three-country region (so either NL/BE/DE or the south of France / Monaco, influenced by your airfare). If you are hamstrung by that airfare - if south of France does not fit your interests, you can always take a side flight to a northern airport and just use Nice as your first landing point, and not see it.

So a preliminary outline might look like this:

Land in Nice, fly directly to Amsterdam (one way flight); jetlag day
4 nights in or near Amsterdam (I think you will have to fill in some of the detail here;
travel day to ?
3 nights other Netherlands cities - perhaps to the Kröller-Müller museum to see van Gogh, perhaps Delft, perhaps Utrecht - you get the idea
travel day to Antwerp; 3 nights Antwerp
travel day to Ghent; 1 night Ghent for the altarpiece
travel day to Bruges; 3 nights Bruges
travel day to Cologne; 3 nights Cologne, seeing Cologne, Rhine towns and Mainz
travel day to Cologne airport; flight back to Nice; flight back home

That is roughly 18 days. You have a bit more time you can play with so can add days here and there or different destinations along the way. I kept you based in Cologne in Germany so you can access the airport easily, but you could easily pivot to a flight from Frankfurt/Main to Nice. This is just somewhere to start and doubtless others will have comments or will want to neaten my very rough plan. That's all part of the process .

Lavandula

Thank you for all the suggestions. Here is where I am coming from. I originally booked a Viking cruise along the Rhine, but decided that 8 days was not long enough and that we would enjoy ourselves more if we explored the regions on our own for about 18 days. So I thought we could roughly follow Viking's itinerary, as the towns looked charming and beautiful. Our thought was to end in Geneva and take the scenic Bernina Express. We couldn't figure out where to stop/start since there is no stop in Geneva.. Our goal was to get a feel of each place and take day trips as needed. But we definitely needed some "home bases" as I didn't want to constantly move luggage. We planned on traveling via train as it seemed quicker than renting a car. To throw a wrench in things - we would also like to spend a few days in Berlin - I believe we would fly there as it is so out of the way.

Roughly here is where we would like to go, although I'm not sure of the best order. We are willing to hear any and all suggestions, and we are not wedded to anything. I do have all of the guidebooks, but I am still having difficulty figuring everything out. Our wishlist:

Amsterdam
Bruges, Antwerp, Ghent
Maybe two lovely towns along the Rhine were we could take a day trip or two via train. We love the idea of staying a few days in local villages, etc... but are not sure which ones.
Berlin - maybe 3 days
Some beautiful place in Switzerland - we thought Geneva, but are open to ideas. We would love to take the scenic Bernina Express but we couldn't figure out how to go about it as it doesn't leave from Geneva.

Thanks again for the help

As I see it, you need to make some difficult choices, as you really can't do justice to everythiing on your wish list in just 18 days.

Some thoughts:

Personally, I’ve never understood the argument that one get “get a feel” for any place in just a few hours or even a day – with that time, you might be able to get a few glimpses of the most heavily touristed options , and honestly, I don’t think that gives you a feel for anything other than how crowded it is. Yes, you might see some amazing things, but you certainly won’t get a “feel” for the place. What’s more, if anything disrupts the “perfection” of the day, you can end up with a bad feeling for a place you might actually love.

If you’ve told us what interests you about the places you’ve mentioned – other than that they seem “charming and beautiful” -- I’ve missed it. Yes, these places have charm and beauty. So do a million places in Europe.

IMO, 3 days is not much for Berlin. If you must include it, think carefully before committing to a flight: A flight takes MUCH more time than you might realize. You would need to get in and out of whatever city you are in (airports are often some distance away; train stations are generally central) and you would need to be at the airport a couple of hours before your flights – so you would easily need at least 4 hours more than flight time itself.

Switzerland is full of beautiful places. While I enjoyed Geneva, it wouldn’t make my top 10 list for that country and it certainly would not be a place I’d go if my goal was for scenery. The Bernina Express covers some lovely territory, but so do regional trains elsewhere in the country. Honestly, I don’t see any evidence that you’ve researched what a visit to Switzerland can involve.

You say you have “all the guidebooks.” I think you need to study them a bit more thoroughly. Look at maps. Look at rome2rio.com to get a sense of how much time it will take to get from place to place – and be sure to add time to check in/out of hotels, to get to/from train stations, to pack/unpack. Give some serious attention to what you want to see in these marvelous destinations. Think about how slow or fast you want your trip to be. Think about what it means if this is your only trip to the area – and BTW, I’ve always assumed my next trip might be my last, and so I want to make the most of every moment, and that means limiting travel time (among other things).

And if you are still thinking of flying into/out of Nice, I really have to wonder if you are serious about this trip.

Sorry if my response seems harsh. I am trying to help.

The reason I posted to this forum was because I recognize that our itinerary is packed and I wanted some help culling it down. Several people said not to fly out of Nice so I took their suggestion. But trying to plan a trip is overwhelming. Our original trip was Spain - 1 country. However, a level 2 alert against Americans was just issued so that is why we switched areas. I did not expect to encounter “harsh” reactions such as yours, so I will figure it out on my own.

The thing you have to realize about river cruises is that often (but not always), they travel from port to port at night. Which eliminates the need to travel during the day. You are able to arrive at your next city in the morning, set out after breakfast, and so on. When you travel independently, you can certainly do this yourself. But most of the time, that is just not a viable option with lodging, public transport, etc.

Never mind that cruises, even river cruises, do not ever have enough time in a port for you to truly and actually SEE the city beyond a few sights here and there.

You are never going to actually get a "feel" or even a "taste" for any where if you are darting from town to town. This is exactly what you said you did not want to do, and seem to have set your mind to do even after advice was given.

You said you have read the guidebooks. Ok, so, I imagine you have a general idea what you want to see in each city? Keep in mind that some towns, especially places like Bruges, Amsterdam, Ghent, Berlin can get CROWDED. You need to plan around that. Not to mention, some sites take longer to visit than others. A big site like a museum or a castle - sometimes need to plan at least 2-4 hours, a cathedral - while not usually much more than an hour, you also have to contend with everyone else that wants to see the Ghent altarpiece, for example. And, some cities may have closure days of certain landmarks on a day each week, often Monday or Tuesday.

One of the things I do is plot everything on a calendar. I note: opening times of each attraction, their closure days if applicable. I generally plan one big attraction in morning and another in afternoon, and then fill the gaps with smaller sites. I also map out how long it takes to get from destination to destination on the calendar. Doing it this way helps me see if I have too much in a town or if I need to add days to the destination before booking,

This approach helps me, perhaps it will help you so you and your spouse can decide what your goals are. Good luck.

I can see Ghent etc, The Mosel or Rhine wine towns and Berlin along with lots of lovely places along the way

Geneva and Nice do not 1) appear as attractive to me (though season can change this) 2) are not along any natural path linking to the others. Monaco is way off my attractiveness spectrum.

You could add in Wurtemberg, Kassel, Rudesheim, Magdeburg

It may be worth looking at seat61.com

Fly into Schipol, out of Berlin

Now when are you going?

You hvae 18 days, presumably not including flight days.
You want to spend a minimum of three days in Berlin, several days along the Rhine, though imho the Moselle is more attractive, travel on the Bernina Express, plus visit three places in Belgium and the Netherlands that require many days, also assuming you don't want to see anything else in the Netherlands than over priced over touristed Amsterdam, and presumably still want to leave from Nice?
Each move cuts into your sightseeing. Just Berlin and the river trip is half of your days at least.
Something has to give.

You can get a nighttrain from Amsterdam or Brussels to Berlin, which would save you a day, assuming you can get tickets for it, bit flying will take all day. So maybe do Amsterdam plus day trips, the Belgian cities and train to Berlin and fly home from Berlin

As suggested above make a plan of the days you have available, look up travel times, add to that the time to get to and from your means of transport to your hotel when you change bases, and play around with what you can really fit in in your 18 days. Decide what is an absolute must see, but allow for some downtime, some unplanned things that may cross your path.

Bear in mind museums such as the Van Gogh, Rijks and Anne Frankhuis all need booking, and certainly the latter sells out fast.

River cruises can do their itineraries because the places they visit are on the river. But trains have their own systems, so the place where I would start is to look at a railway map of Europe and figure out which of your destinations are near, or even on, high speed lines. E.g. I would never advise travel from NL into Germany, because those cross border rail connections are shabby, but would always travel into Belgium and even France along the Eurostar Netwerk. That way you can use Brussels as a pivot point: you can arrive from NL in Brussels and either go on to France, and again use Paris as a hub for Germany, Switzerland or the South of France. Or travel to Cologne in the Rhineland from Brussels via Liege. If you look at the logic of the trainlines, you can also see how you can use destinations near high speed rail stations very easily with intercity and regional trains. You could even buy Eurail/Interrail for this so your transportation costs go down.

I'm not sure what a level 2 warning is or why it was issued only for Spain, but if that is the country you want to visit then go there. Plenty of US citizens visit without any problems.

Heti, the OP is probably referencing the US state department travel advisories:
https://travel.state.gov/content/tra...visories.html/

A level 2 warning is often issued when there are increased local protests, which Spain has had.

OP, I do hope you do see our responses. Your follow-up was released after I replied last night so I didn't see it. Now, I know Spain is at a "level 2" but is not at a level where you should avoid, which is reserved for counties listed as level 4 and sometimes 3. It just means to be cautious, which you should do anyway.

Spain is perfectly safe. Read the multitude of trip reports of Fodoritss who have gone just in 2025 if you need peace of mind.

Planning a trip can be overwhelming, but part of what might make it so overwhelming is by adding too much to the itinerary.

We are here trying to help, truly, albeit may be a bit blunt and to that apologize if I was one of them.

Regardless if you go to Spain or Belgium/Netherlands/Germany, just try to identify your goals and how to get around. Use the websites we've mentioned above to help you with logistics.

Some people will say "less is more" and if this is your first independently planned European trip, that might be a good rule of thumb for you. There is simplicity in slowing down.

Spain is fine apart from a little long term weather thing that I'm not allowed to discuss

If you want to fit in Berlin I would dump the Nice airfare as it doesn't fit your needs. You would need to fly open jaw into Amsterdam and you could do Berlin taking a side flight from Frankfurt and a flight home from Frankfurt or Berlin. I would spend at least three days there. But if you then wanted somewhere in Switzerland I think you really need more days, or drop time somewhere else. You can do it, you just have to figure out your priorities. And avoid too many one-nighters or you will have an itinerary where you don't have enough time to see things but have to keep moving because that is what you booked. Do get a big map and stick pins in it. Understanding European geography is key to most of this, and also understanding which airports are hubs. If you are in the US, you can probably get a flight home from Frankfurt or Berlin but then Cologne would be less important to your plans.

I will linger here in case you want to discuss this further, but you have to make some hard decisions about what to keep or figure out how to get more time for your itinerary.

Lavandula

I didn't see that the OP had included Berlin, as seems like an outlier from the rest of the possible destinations, as does Nice.

I generally plan trips by focusing on what I want to see in my destination. For example, last time I was in Amsterdam, third time going back over 50 years but my husband had never been and so our priority was the Anne Frank Haus and the Rijksmuseum, as well as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue and the Jewish Museum. The Stedjilek was still closed for renovation. I had previously been to the Van Gogh Museum and we had seen a major Van Gogh exhibit at the Albertina in Vienna previously, plus we live in NY and are both Met and MOMA members. We had planned a day for possible canal boat ride and seeing the residential architecture, as well as the Museum of Dutch Resistance which was newly opened but our plans changed as we had a day of heavy rain, so walking around not a good plan and we ended up just visiting the Van Gogh Museum. We picked up rental car the next morning to drive to Bruge with a stop. in Antwerp to see the Cathedral. Two days in Bruge and drove back to Amsterdam Airport for a flight to Israel for famly wedding. We stopped in the Hague for coffee and a stroll over to the Mauritshaus which was in preparation to close for renovation so they had free admission and I was able to see Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring in a gallery which I had to myself. Subsequently it traveled to the Frick in NY, where people waited online for hours.

Point being for me is to plan what we want to see, work around the amount of time needed. In this case, we had a Sunday night flight to Amsterdam and a Saturday night flight to Israel and you can see what we saw and did during that trip.

I’m sorry you found my comments so harsh. As I said, I was trying to help. And several other Fodorites are also trying to help. So if you want to figure it out on your own, that’s your right and I wish you well. OTOH, there might be advantages to taking the advice we are offering, or at least clarifying where it seems to you that we are off the mark.

Best wishes for a successful journey!