I would look for a cheap flight from Paris to “somewhere” in Spain or Portugal and develop my itinerary based on what I found. Take the train (and possibly bus) within Spain and Portugal. If you can’t find a cheap flight, there’s an overnight train to from Paris to Barcelona and you can connect to Madrid from there. I do not think the overnight train will be cheap. Getting from Spain to Portugal isn’t as easy as it appears, so while it’s definitely doable by day or overnight train, I’d look for a cheap flight for this, too.

I would fly to Italy. Again, I’d look for a cheap flight from somewhere in Iberia to somewhere in Italy and design the Italian itinerary around the best flight I found. I believe there is an overnight ferry from Barcelona to Genoa, so that’s a possible alternative. You will definitely want to take the train within Italy.

PS. I did not suggest flights to save time. I believe flying is the best and sometimes the cheapest way to accomplish these long treks.

Thanks for the advice!
I’ll definitely have a look at more flights and see whats available. I best cut my travel weight down first if ill be flying as i’ve been living in Europe for the past year and now about to start travelling for as long as possible before heading back to Australia.

Thanks again!!

You can take the Elipsos trains overnight from Paris to Madrid. There’s one that requires a change at roughly 6:00 (12 hours in duration) and one that’s non-stop (13.5 hours in duration). The TGV website has these tickets for as low as 72 euros, depending on which train you choose. Getting between Portugal and Spain often requires bus travel.