Husband and wife, fairly active in the early 40's + girl child aged 13 years are planning our first Europe trip after 20 years. We are frequent travelers and try to travel in summer holidays for 3-4 weeks and have traveled to various countries around the world including USA, Australia, Singapore Turkey, Qatar, Dubai etc etc, but this time want to see the real beauty of this world which i think is in EUROPE

We are not much into history and museums, rather more towards scenic beauty, green hills, lush countryside, small scenic and calm towns, drive to far off places (not sure if Euro train is a better option) to see the natural beauty & love shopping & offcourse city life with all the hustle & bustle

For us, the first stage is to finalize the countries which we would be visiting and the number of days we can allocate for the vacations, as we are always looking for lowest price deals for air tickets and most of the time buy 4-7months in Advance.

For this Europe trip, we would need a Schengen visa and we have short listed Italy or Germany consulate for this purpose.

Countries selected for this 25days trip are
ITALY, NETHERLAND, NORWAY & the beautiful Switzerland (we may add Germany if we apply through their consulate)

My first question is, which Route should we take for this trip. Please suggest the best route, keeping in mind
1. We need to enter through Italy
2. Our ticket is open and we may exit through Italy or any other country

Thanks a lot

For travel in the Norwegian countryside take a look at my trip report; click on my name to find it. The first part of the report deals with Oslo, but then we did the Norway in a Nutshell circuit of train, boat, bus,train to Bergen, and from Bergen we traveled by car to Trondheim. Here are the pictures:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsjpdzmt7

You only have six days for each entire country (five each if you include Germany), not that much for each country. You will need to narrow down what cities or towns are most important to you. Definitely fly open-jaw, into Italy and out of your last place.

Our Bergen to Trondheim trip was five or six days; very doable, but it eliminates all the cities in Norway not on the drive, including the beginning and end points themselves.

I spent a month just in Switzerland, and didn't see half the places I'd like to see.
https://www.fodors.com/community/eur...thanks-983126/

Same could be said of every other country you mention.

You have some wonderful options, and only you can decide which to pursue. And remember this general rule: the more places you try to visit, the more time you spend in transit instead of actually seeing anything.

Thank you for your replies

Most probably i wont be doing Germany and would try to concentrate around the Italy/Netherland/Switzerland route
I may also quit Norway, as i think its a bit far, though nothing is too far in Europe

The main question still remains un-answered that if i enter through Italy then which route would be better to do Netherland/Switzerland & Norway or Austria

We still have a lot of time to explore the city/towns option, but most probably the day split would be like
Italy : 10 Days (Rome + Venice & Florence + Amalfi coast or Cinque terry)
Austria or Norway : 05 days (Salzburg, Halsatt)
Switzerland 07 days (mostly the small scenic towns like Ginderwald, Interlaken, Murren,
Netherland 04 days

That should be the basic itinerary

I didn't really get your itinerary. Do you mean:

Fly into Naples - 3 hrs train and bus (1/2 day) to Amalfi ( 1 1/2 days stay) - 4 hrs bus and train (1/2 day) to Rome (2 1/2 days) -1 1/2 hrs train (1/2 day) to Florence (2 days) - 2 hrs train (1/2 day) to Venice (2 days) - 8 hrs train (1 day) to Muerren (4 1/2 days) - 3 1/2 hrs train (1/2 day) to Basel airport - 1 1/2 hrs flight (1/2 day) to Amsterdam (4 days) - 2 hrs flight (1/2 day) to Oslo (4 days) - flight home?

If you just check out a map, you want to do them in order geographically, so your most recent list would be a good one, except if you decide on Norway, that would obviously go at the end. You don't want to backtrack. Fly out of your last stop.

Ten days to do five places in Italy really isn't enough. You haven't figured in travel time. Every time you move, you lose at least half a day, in some cases more. In Italy, you would only have a day or day-and-a-half in each place. I think you would have a much more enjoyable trip if you cut down on the number of stops.

Also, does 25 days include travel time to get there? If not, that decreases the time you have. How many nights do you actually have after arrival?