europe. trip. eurotrip

Hi all, me and a friend have decided to drop our lives for a month next year between May and June and do a bit of travelling around Europe. Neither of us have ever been on a trip like this before and at this stage we have nothing booked just a basic itinerary of 10 countries in 30 days in mind by train on a month eurail pass after flying to/from our starting/ending cities. We basically wanna experience the different cultures, foods, see a few sights, have a laugh and party.

I hate to be “that guy”, but as a poor college student I’ll take all of the help I can get

I plan on going to Europe next summer from May 27th-July 3rd. I’d like to fly out of the Bay Area, CA (so SJC, SFO, or OAK), and I’d like to fly into London. The departure date isn’t in stone, and anything between May 24th-27th I’d take if the price is right.

However, my return flight will need to be out of Madrid on July 3rd. I didn’t want to plan my trip in a giant circle so I’d rather keep it a multi-city flight.

I’m starting my planning for Europe now and I don’t want to pick too many cities. What is an ideal amount of cities when traveling in the Spain-France-Germany-Italy area of Europe? Should I hit all the major cities? Do you know of any minor cities that would be better to visit in any of these places? How long should I spend in each city?

Also, you think a final detour to Russia would be worth it for this trip?