I’d skip Frankfurt.
Any particular reason for Florence? Unless you are an art lover (and I am, and I’ve visited and enjoyed Florence) I just wonder if another city might suit you. How are you getting from Prague to Munich? I liked Munich but wonder if you might enjoy Salzburg, Austria more? Just throwing these ideas out.

Innsbruck is a ski town and Frankfurt is mostly a transport hub, so not much reason to visit those.  Salzburg you might enjoy though.  Have to agree with Cil, I don’t see your reason for going to Florence, but if you must. 
 
I think you will come out cheaper if you buy a german rail pass, as trains in germany are expensive.  The other countries are pretty cheap, so you’d just have to get off at the border towns and buy a ticket from there.

thanks for the input..

regarding florence, we chose this city because based on the input of others, it is supposed to have a great balance of culture with night life. perhaps we should weight it out vs. rome once again?

i didn’t even look into salzburg because i don’t see a direct train route from this city to prague, and i believe it would make the trip down to italy a long(er) hike. care to opine?

innsbruck we can drop in that case. a friend just mentioned that this is a really fun and relaxing town, but i don’t know much else about it (and can’t seem to find out a whole lot online).

I’m not an art lover (however, David was worth the price of admission to the Accaddemia Gallery), and I hated Florence.  I wouldn’t change it now, but it won’t be a place that i’ll return to.

thanks, nivid.

i enjoy art, but i don’t know if i enjoy it enough where i will be checking every city’s art museums. being in nyc, i feel like i have enough great art around me that my focal points will be more cultural and culinary (yes, we have all types of restaurants around here, but that’s not the same as having the real deal in europe).

architecture and city layouts, on the other hand, is something that  i love. i think that was going to be one of the selling points for innsbruck for me. seems like a european country town straight out of a disney movie. i definitely want to experience something like that during my trip (though i’m still open as to where).

A day trip to Rome from Florence will be a nightmare.  Rome is a busting city with tons of things to see.  You wouldn’t even figure out what you were looking at in a day.  3 days is about the minimum for Rome IMO.

i went for a week in 2005 and was able to the vatican, the forum, via del corso, the wedding cake, the pantheon, and spanish steps in less than a day. could have had time to see the coliseum but we really took our time on corso.

not saying i’d want to do all of that again in one day, but i think those are the “major” sights in rome which could be done in a day, which is a whole lot.

i should speak with my friends though. perhaps we should do rome instead of florence.

I feel the same way.  Experiencing the arcitecture is #1 for me in any city.  I love European style buildings, and it’s often a highlight of some places for me.  Culture is also big, and food comes next.  I really don’t spend much on food, but sometimes you just have to experience it.  I’m not a huge museum fan at all, but there are some which I have loved (The Louvre in Paris, National Gallery in London, Vatican Museum, Anne Frank in Amsterdam,  etc.).  Florence was a city, that for me, there was very little to do.  I did end up taking a half-day trip to Pisa.  Even though the tower was the only thing there, it was worth it to me.  And at only 10 Euro’s RT, it was inexpensive too.

would anyone care to give a brief blurb/opinion on the cities i listed?

and feel free to add other cities i haven’t mentioned… i’d like to think i’ve researched most of my options, but some cities just have a lot less info flying around than others..

couple days left in my itinerary, was thinking maybe stopping at murren (got the idea from the gimmelwald thread) between rome and dusseldorf… what do you think?

Why only 1 or 2 nights at Berlin? It seems like you do have enough time in 3 weeks. Berlin is big so getting around might cost you time. It’s lot to see in Berlin anyway, but depends on what you like.

follow-up.. do you think 3 nights is too much for amsterdam? on one hand, it’s 3 recent college grads so you can’t have too much partying, but on the other hand, maybe i would be better off shifting one of those days to berlin or towards a small overnight trip.

no
I think you can fill up 3 days in Amsterdam without seeing everything
the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh would take me a day total
day2 : Anne Frank house, Amstelkring, Rembrandt’s house
day 3: bike tour into the countryside: cheese farm/clog factory, Rembrandt’s favourite windmill