Santorini is nice but I liked Crete better, it was less touristy and more interesting, also taking the ferry back or from Athens ws also great fun. The port is not near the airport so keep that in mind. Renting a car a few days here and there made our vacation much better as we could get to places without waiting for buses or figuring out schedules .

Our favourite place to stay on Crete was the Marin dream hotel had great views it is not a budget hotel so we stay a couple of days . Going out into the country we like Kavoisi there are some great places to stay around there and some sites to look at.

I haven't heard of Crete before. will have a look. yeah good idea to rent a car in some places.

Ah, but have you heard of the Minotaur?

No I haven't.
However My 5 week European highlights itinerary so far:
Melbourne – Athens: 3 nights
Athens – Santorini: 3 nights
Athens – Rome: 3 nights
Split – Dubrovnik cruise (5-7 nights) (Fly to and from Rome to Split)
Rome – Florence: 3 nights
Florence – Venice: 2 nights
Venice – Munich: 3 nights
Munich to Interlaken: 3 nights (would love to stay in Lauterbrunnen or Grindelwald)
Interlaken to Paris: 4 nights
Paris to Amsterdam: 2 nights
Amsterdam to Melbourne
Now this list is based on the destinations I would like to visit. It does look achievable on paper as I don’t mind a fast paced holiday.
Question I have is based on the places to visit is what should be my starting and ending point from Melbourne? I am not able to find this unless I start looking on flights or visit a travel agent. Any suggestions.

Still WAY too fast-paced for my preferences!

With many (if not most or all) of your moves, you will "lose" about 1/2 day to relocation. That means (for example) that 3 nights in Rome really means at most 2 or 2.5 days in Rome -- a city that many of us think easily warrants a minimum of days just to see the most important highlights at a fast pace. I don't mind a fast-paced holiday; OTOH, I hate spending a HUGE proportion of time in transit rather than actually seeing the places I want to visit. And I think this plan means that -- spending way, way, way too much time in transit and way, way, way too little in the places to/from which you are rushing. YMMV.

> what should be my starting and ending point from Melbourne? I am not able to find this unless I start looking on flights

Most of the guidebooks I have include a section that lists how to get there from Australia.

I'm sorry - that isn't really an itinerary. It is merely a list w/ 3 nights almost everywhere. It doesn't seem you have researched what is actually IN each of those cities. All places are not equal/3 night destinations.

A few might rate a 2 nighter but several others need 4 or 5 nights minimum.

sorry, that should read: "Rome -- a city that many of us think easily warrants a minimum of <b>4</b> days just to see the most important highlights at a fast pace"

May be you have a look at my post above (Dec 10th) again:

I begun with Craotia, because wheather gets usually more and more cold and rainy during the month of September. If you can't be there in August, try at least the first weeks of September!
Greece has summer weather until mid September and fairly good weather with some clouds and may be little rain until mid October. Therefore I placed the Greek leg at the end.
I based my whole proposal on extremely cheap easyjet and volotea flights. With your itinerary (old and new) you will pay more for transportation.

Hi Jasmine_Vaghera
We recently went on our first trip to Europe in Sept/Oct this year for 6 weeks as well - you're going to love it.
A couple of thoughts/suggestions from our trip:
- We had a min 3 night in most places we went (other than Cinque Terre for 2 nights), some places we stayed 5 nights. We didn't really think the holiday was too rushed, but we like to stay on the move. It was better for us to get a taste of each place and figured we can always return to the places we want to see again.
- Now you have a rough timeline perhaps research each place and see what things are a "must see" as this will give you some idea on how many days you actually need to stay in each place
- Try to mix the fast paced places with a few slower placed towns (we found this worked well to give us a breather every so often). Amsterdam and Venice were breathers for us as we basically chilled out and walked around and did minimal tours.
- We flew into Amsterdam from Perth and thought it a good 1st visit place as we found it quite laid back (to assist with the recovery of jetlag). We landed at 7am in the morning and pushed through the day even though we tired so we recovered better. We did city tour on the morning we arrived and this helped to get our bearings (and stay awake). We also did a bike tour of the countryside here - fantastic and would suggest it.
- Rome, Paris and Switzerland (based in Lausanne - great base for day trips) were 5 night stays (Paris was 8 nights as we did 2 x full day world war tours) and full on every day. But again depends on what you want to see.
- perhaps do a day trip to Florence from Rome instead of staying a few nights.
Happy planning.