We have booked airline tickets for June in and out of Zurich . We want to visit Lake Como, Cinque Terra, Verona, and Venice as well. What would be a good itinerary for 12 days(14 with travel from US)?
Thanks in advance!

As a rough itnerary, I'd do:

Como: 3nts
Venice: 4nts, with a day trip to Verona by train from Venice, or spend one night in Verona
CT: 3 nights

That gives you some travel time in between. If you have an extra night in there, I'd spend it in Venice, but that's just MHO.

of Zurich . We want to visit Lake Como, Cinque Terra, Verona, and Venice as well. What would be a good itinerary for 12 days>

1- Lucerne R&R - direct train from airport in about an hour or so
2- Train or drive to Lake Como
3- Lake Como
4- Train or drive to Cinque Terre
5- Cinque Terre
6- Train or drive to Verona
7- Verona
8- Train or drive to Venice
9- Venice
10- Venice
11 Train to zurich


other two days expand where you wish - or you could put Florence easily in the itinerary between 5 Terre and Verona

Palenque's itinerary shows that you will be traveling 5 out of the 12 days of your trip. is that what you really want to do? It's possible to take a trip like that, as PQ will say, but do you really want to be packing and unpacking and moving half the time?

I suggest you cut out a destination. Or two. Cinque Terre is the most logical one to cut. These itineraries leave you no time for Zurich. K9corps's plan is better, if you really want to do all the places. Also, next time you go to Europe, get a plane ticket called multi-city or open-jaw that allows you to fly into one city and out of another, to avoid backtracking. I am assuming you can't change your current ticket without penalty.

I would have also said to cut the 5 Terre but I was trying to include all the spots OP wanted to visit.

5 Terre is a good detour and IMO I would add those days other places as well.

If your preference/priority is Italy, then fly immediately to Milan on arrival and fly from Venice back to Zurich. If you want to see a little Switzerland, then you've got to drop some destinations in Italy.

Jean is right--not enough time.
I would drop CT.

Lake Como, Cinque Terra, Verona, and Venice as well. What would be a good itinerary for 12 days>

To me 3 days in each of 4 stops is rather leisurely and actually if you limit Verona to one day then you'd have four days someplaces - of course you'll spend a half-day traveling between them - but yes if you do want to spend more time in Switzerland than just a night coming and going then you'd have to cut.

Verona could be a nice day trip from Venice - and then you do not have to relocated one more time - always a hassle IMO

No time actually in Switzerland?

Perhaps just using Zurich because of frequent flier points or the best service from their area? Makes sense if that is the case.

Yes, the flights in and out of Zurich were TONS cheaper. In retrospect, maybe not the best idea....but it is done! Thanks for all the suggestions. Thinking it all through.......Would we be better to get a train pass in US or get individual segments locally?

Oooops.....one more question. has anyone taken an overnight train from Venice to Zurich? Is there such a thing? If so, is it direct?

Check train schedules and details here: http://trenitalia.com/homepage_en.html

Compare between point to point and passes here: http://www.railsaver.com/

For the itinerary previsioned in the OP I would doubt if any railpass would be viable. To help plan a train trip in this area I always spotlight these fantastic IMO sites - www.seat61.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com; www.ricksteves.com. For schedules I find the German Railways web site, which has schedules for all of Europe, www.bahn.de to be the easiest to use and also very accurate.

I've taken an overnight train Venice to Geneva, but hear that it doesn't run that route anymore (sorry I know that doesn't answer your Zurich question).

Overnight trains between Italy and Switzerland have indeed, according to my info at least, been scrubbed a few years back.

SBB (Swiss) railways currently has an overnight departing Venice S.L. at 10:51 p.m., change at Innsbruck at 4:31 a.m. (22 minutes), arriving Zurich HB at 9:20 a.m. Both trains have sleeping and couchette cars.

http://www.sbb.ch/en/index.htm

I do not think many tourists would consider the option of taking two separate night trains with a change of trains at 4:30am - involving two separate sleepeing compartment or couchette berth charges, which with a longer route could make that a very expensive trip unless you can nab some far in advance online specials.

I'd never take an overnight train anywhere with or without a change, but I leave it to the OP to decide for him/herself.