please help me work this out

[Elizabeth]

ok so I am almost ready to buy my ticket but I just need to develop a feasible itinerary

my plan is 22 days, the most important stops are:

Lisbon (I fly into/out of there)
Rome
Paris
Pamplona

other places that I want to go but could be cut:

Gimmelwald (in the Swiss Alps)
Cinque Terre

Mostly I want to pick stops that will break up the journey between those four key places so I'm not spending 12+ hours on the train, especially in Iberia. Just an example - its 16 hours from Lisbon to Pamplona.

Help please. I'm very fustrated

[florencia9699]

Seeing as you'll be travelling through the Peninsula Iberica (sorry, it's too late, dont wanna translate...besides no idea of the correct English spelling for it) I think it'd be really cool to stay in Madrid, if at least for a couple of days... it seems to me like you'll be missing out on a huge part of Spain... I guess it'd be a pity to go to Spain and only stick to Pamplona... If you're not interested in Madrid, then perhaps you could go to Salamanca instead, or perhaps check out what there is to see in Burgos or Valladolid (I'm mentioning cities that are in the general direction between Lisboa and Pamplona)... but try to Spain-up your itinerary!!
Anyway, that' my 2 cents.

[tumblezweedz]

Would you consider overnight trains? Then you don't notice the long distances quite as much, and have days in the places you want to be.

Looking at a map, Salamanca is more or less en route between Lisbon and Pamplona, Bordeaux is en route from there to Paris, you could stop in Gimmelwald en route to Cinque Terre, and from there down to Rome. Then, I guess you could get a flight back to Lisbon, maybe via Jerez or some other low fare hub?

Or you could pick a smaller town on the train route, just to experience something besides big cities. We did that in Austria with memorable results.