Three weeks in London, Paris, Switzerland, Italy
 

I am planning a three week trip in September and I would like to arrive in London and depart from Rome with the following cities in between: Paris, Zurich, Lucerne, The Swiss Alps, Venice, Verona, Florence, and Cinque Terre. Would this be the best order? Also, how many days do you recommend at each place? I would like to know about best places to eat traditional and authentic food at each country as well as a traditional place to have afternoon tea in London. I am overwhelmed; all I have worked on is in the most important attractions and airline tickets.
I would appreciate your input in general as this will be my first time traveling to these countries.
Thank you,
Rosie

So you have three weeks - how many nights on the ground? You have listed 10 locations. Each time you change locations, you will lose a minimum of a half a day, perhaps a full day. Even if you have 20 days on the ground, you would be traveling half of those days.

If you have any interest in these places, and it sounds like you do, you will want to cut at least half of the destinations you list.

If you have some budgetary constraints, be aware also that the more often you change locations, the more money you will spend on transportation.

Let me say that the error you have made in calculating how many places to visit is the usual beginner's error. A bit more research will help you be more realistic. You might want to look at info on trains to have a better idea of how long it takes to get from place to place.

Also, pause and consider what the most important things are that you want to do/see/experience on this trip.

Not remotely possible.

If you mean 21 day total, that nets you 18.5 days on the ground and then you have to subtract all the travel time. With ten destinations that is about 5.5 days just transferring place to place. Ten destinations with about 12 days free to see/do. . . And you ask how many days we recommend in each place? About 2.5 times more than what you have.

Three weeks - - a nice itinerary would be London Paris Rome and one other city in Italy (or possibly 2 other cities/places in Italy)

If you visit all the places you mentioned in UK, France and Italy, you will have no time for Switzerland.
Fly directly from Paris to Venice or take the overnight train Thello.

Thank you everyone for your input, I appreciate it.

You are overwhelmed because you are trying to do an 8 week trip in 3 weeks.

There is simply no way you can get to all of these places and see anything. It appears you have 21 days - and that cannot include the day you arrive and the day you depart. And you have 10 places. So you have to deduct at least 7 days just for getting from one place to another - so you have 10 places in 14 days - so mostly 1 day in each place - with a second day in 3 places.

You will spend so much time and money just trekking around that your time seeing sights - or relaxing - will be next to nothing. Perhaps 2 sights in each place with a little bit of walking around.

To really see even the most major sights you will need to allow at least 5 nights (4 days) each for London, Paris and Rome - that would be 15 days. This gives you the chance to see one more major place - and perhaps do a day trip from 1 or 2 places.

Once you sit down and determine which places are really your must sees come back and people can help you organize a trip that makes sense.

Look at some travel guides and tour brochures to help pick out the places you want to see MOST. (Don't think you can travel at the speed of tours - they are run by locals who know exactly the best way to do anything, require 7 am starts and long days on a bus every day - and will also allow you to see only one or two major sights in each location.