Hello everyone,

I'm new to forums, so I hope I do this right..

We are a big family of 4 adults, 2 toddlers and 2 elderly. We are planning a Europe trip of 14 days. Must cover desinations are Paris, Rome+ Vatican, Venice and Switzerland. So far plan is Paris 4 days, Venice 2 days, Rome + Vatican 3 days and Switzerland 5 days. We need suggestions on how to spend our time in each city/country, keeping in view we will have toddlers and elderly people with us, also how to travel between cities/ countries..

The day distribution is flexible, as tickets are only booked fromour native country to Paris and back. Could you all help with your experiences on where to go and what are the must sees?

Thanks so much...

Welcome to the forums. To best answer "what are must sees," we need to know YOUR interests. Art museums--love them or hate them? Hate historic sites, love natural beauty? Hiking? Shopping? You get the idea. Your idea of fun may not be the same as mine. You must have some idea of what you'd like to include, since you chose the places you did. Give us an idea and we can offer suggestions.

Keeping in mind that you have toddlers and elderly people, I would not move around so much. I would probably drop one hotel move from your itinerary. Each time you change locations, you will lose at least a half day to checking out of hotels, traveling to stations/to airports/by car, the actual trip, arriving in the next place and finding your hotel, settling into your hotel. With a group your size that includes toddlers and elders, it will take even more time--just assume the day will be totally lost to travel.

Therefore with Paris, Venice, Rome, and Switzerland, three days will be lost to traveling between the locations, giving you less time to actually visit the place. (In counting and assigning your days, are you including the day you arrive and the day you depart?)

Can you change your flights? One way to save some time is to use the multi-city option and then arrange your itinerary geographically. For example, Fly from home to Paris, travel to Switzerland, travel to Venice, travel to Rome, fly home from Rome.

This will be an exciting trip and great memory for your family.

You did fine

Now the bad news. That is a <B>very</B> aggressive itinerary for a group of 8 including two toddlers and two 'elderly'.

You will be packing/unpacking/moving cities essentially every 3 days. That will be "crazy making". You will just <i>barely</i> get acclimated in a place and will immediately move to the next place.

I would cut your plan significantly -- slow down and actually see something. One day is lost to jet lag -- for some or all of you. And as mentioned -- all that moving really eats into your sightseeing. Plus you have to back track to Paris to fly home which will lose another full day.

I'm afraid that I have to agree with janisj and ellenem. you are going to find this very hard work with the personnel involved. Much better to treat it as a real holiday rather than a tour, IMHO.

as ellenem says, it would be better if you could change your flight into an "open-jaw" one. this should cost very little more than the simple return tickets you presently have. if this isn't possible, one option is for you to fly immediately to your "final destination" which can be a good use of your first day when you are already at the airport, and quite possibly feeling jetlagged so not up to much sightseeing.

for example, if you decided to end in Rome, from Paris you would immediately fly to Rome, without seeing anything of Paris at all. this puts you in Paris at the end of your trip, ready to fly home, rather than having to worry about getting back there in time to get your flight home.

Now - the route. what is it you hope to see in all these 4 places? [Switzerland is of course a country, the others are cities] if you choose your resort in Switzerland well, the most child/elderly person-friendly place is in fact Switzerland. lots of lovely scenery, boat trips, train rides up mountains...a wonderful place for a family holiday. Why not make that the focus of your trip with a city either side?

you could spend 4 days in Paris, get the train to Luzern and have 6 days there, then get the train to Venice or Rome to finish your trip.

Many thanks janisj, ellenem and annhig. We are mainly into sight-seeing, only Lourve and Vatican museum is a must see museum for us. We'll be looking to stay in serviced appartments everywhere. The trip timing does not include trip back to paris (i've assumed an additional day for that) Its my parents first trip to Europe they want to see all the hot spots as they may not get a chance to come again. How to manage Switzerland in 5 days is my main concern. The Rome/Paris/Venice part is still do-able given that they want to see some history and city lifestyle next to no museums. I've only been to Geneva myself that too for work, so no idea what are the must do's for the country. Want them see some ice (cos we hail from Singapore and the weather is always 23-26 degrees here), mountains, landscape beauty... The kind of beauty you see in movies is what i want to show them.. hope that gives some idea of what kind of travelers we are.

hi akansha,

wel of course you can't see all of Switzerland in 5 days. better to pick one place - Luzern, Geneva? and use it as a base for seeing as much as you can. this will inevitably be a compromise as to how easy it will be to get from your cohsen spot to your next destination. you could start another thread about that - "best base in Switzerland to see..."

if you use the trains to get between places, you will have the chance to sight-see en route, thus seeing even more of the lakes and mountains of Switzerland. also this would be far less hassle than getting your troops to and from so many airports. you could search this forum for ideas of which are the best routes for this.

my feeling is that a route that takes you from Paris - Luzern -Venice - Rome, would be the best way to go, but others who have done this may have different ideas.

ps - for trains, try looking at bahn.de. you can put in any number of different options and see what comes up.

Thanks Annhig.. I'll start a new thread on switzerland.. checked bahn.de very helpful...