How were you planning on getting around?
A lot can be seen in 12 days, but yes, you probably are being overly ambitious.
Check out Vueling and see if any flights might help you form your itinerary.
It might be too late to take the Eurostar from London to Paris, but there are other ways to do it, maybe you should check out the Transport forum.
Other people might have different and better suggestions, but my first instinct is to tell you to drop Milan and Venice.

Personally, I see no point in this. You can’t get any real impression of a place in such a short time, but then each to their own. I suppose their is a certain charm of travelling so quickly, especially if you really are short on time. It will be very stressful however and no time for daytrips either.

“Crazy” would describe if you knew what you were doing, and went ahead with it anyways. I’d say you’re just inexperienced and maybe need to study geography a bit more.

Also, browse other threads. People come here all the time with itineraries such as yours (they pick all the well-known big cities and try to cram them into an itinerary), and we give them great alternative itineraries. It’s not just about the big cities, there’s a lot more.

That would keep you nicely busy for 2 weeks. Any more than 5 large cities in 2 weeks and your vacation is going to become very stressful.

Ideally, if you had the time you would go and spend tons of time everywhere and get to know a city and its people. However it sounds like you are in the position that I was in for my first trip. I was only able to have 2 weeks to go to europe. So we (my friends) decided to see as much as possible in the time we had and it was the best decision we made. My only thought with your trip is that geographically it does not make the most sense. Since your zig zaging europe. Going from England to Italy to Spain is a huge distance. If you can change your flights, I at least recommend making your trip flow a little more. Bottom line, I would rather see as much as possible with the time I have. It was a blast, we saw and met so many cool people and places and we are going back again in September doing the same thing. Check out our youtube video Euro Trip 08 (London, brussels, amsterdam, interlaken, florence, rome) and now we are going Madrid, barcelona, zurich, munich, salzburg, vienna, prague, berlin.

Sounds like my first trip to Europe Rocagirl…Your trip is definitely do-able but it will seem more like a mad dash rather than a vacation.

If you never plan on traveling to Europe again, I would say go for it. If on the other hand you expect to travel for the rest of your life from time to time, I’d say cut out the spain section and save it for another day (mayve a spain, portugal Morroco trip). Also do a search of this board and see what people have to say about Milan (not good). I would probably add more time to France (maybe Versaille, Founainbleu, etc.)

My wife and I have traveled a lot, and have found that for planning, we should leave a travel day for each change of location. We don’t fly in Europe, as the airlines often have severe restrictions on how much luggage you can take, and you pay quite a bit for any of what they consider excess baggage; I like the trains anyway, as they have more space and better scenery. Between packing to move, finding the train, finding your next lodgings, and unpacking, you can easily burn up a whole day. Even years ago when I backpacked, the one day rule was valid, as often transportation is unreliable and you have the same problems with packing, unpacking, and finding lodgings.

So I think 8 destinations in 12 days is a bit much, but some people like to travel that way and that is their choice. If you want to look around and get a feel for a location, I think three days is minimal. Of course, we like to see great art and historic sites, and not everyone shares our interests. For example, we spent two weeks in Amsterdam, and didn’t have to rush around. Some people say two days is enough, but they almost certainly didn’t see all the art museums, many of the canals, Haarlem, the Anne Frank house, and the flower fields and Rembrandt’s house , nor the dykes.

If you plan to return and are just scouting out some places to see if you want to go back, perhaps going to a lot of places makes sense, but too many sites in too few days won’t give you much of an idea of what each place is really like.

I’d have to say yes you are crazy for thinking of going to 8 cities in 12 days, it looks exhausting just reading about it. You have picked all huge cities and the only way I see you getting around to do the things you want is running around the streets snapping pictures left and right. Especially if this is your first time to Europe, I think you should reconsider the scheduling of the trip. You should devote 4 to 5 days in each place so that you have time to both explore downtown and also to get out and see the outskirts of the city, to get the whole ambiance. What is getting me frustrated is that Rome, Venice and Florence are all on this list and in reality you cannot enjoy all of these cities in one or two days (possibly Venice because it is smaller). Since you’re restricted on time (12 days) you should select two or three of those 8 cities that intrigue you the most and save the rest for when you have more time. I hope I helped in some way and good luck.

You can take three days out for Londom – Paris, Paris to Milan, and Rome to Barcelona (and Barca to Madrid) for transit even if you were flying at best.

Four days from your twevle…. and I haven’t even factored in the intercity travel time in Italy.

I guess in Italy you’ll only pass through the train stations if you want to catch that flight in Madrid.

It’s completely NOT DOABLE.

You need to drop at least three destinations

It’s doable if you do a lot of flying, but you’ll be spending most of your time sightseeing near airports and train stations while rushing to get your next connection.. With only 8 days I would concentrate on smaller geographic areas or straight line travel

London 2 days, Paris 2 days, Lucerne 1 day, Florence 1 day, Rome 2 days:

London 2 days, paris 2 days, Versaille 1 day, brussels 1 day, Amsterdam 2 days