HELP! Planning 8 weeks in western europe

[chchchchia]

Hi all. I'm planning an 8 week of tour of Western Europe, starting this June, and need some help getting the specifics down. I've been to France (Paris, loire valley, and Normandy) before, but was young, though I still do remember it all. I love cooking and brewing, so I kind of want this trip to have a culinary / drinking aspect to it.

I've got my plane tickets set (In and out of London) and I have a 2 month flexi-eurail pass (15 days)

My plan so far:
Fly into London, stay a day, take the train to Brussles (my first base city)
Brussles a few days, then Amsterdam for a few days
Germany
Hamburg, ->Berlin -> Munich -> Stugartt/Romantic Road -> Cologne -> Strasburg

France, Pt. 1
Strasburg -> Dijon

Switzerland
Bern/Geneva/Zurich (I could use some real guidance here)
-> Lyon (back in France again) ->

Italy
Venice->Rome (Naples?) -> Florance ->

France, Pt. 2
Nice -> Aix-en-Provence/Marseilles -> Nimes/Avignon -> Toulouse -> Bordeaux -> Tours -> Nantes -> Paris -> Calais ->

England
Take the ferry from Calais, and work my way back to London quickly.

I really want to see the tour de France, maybe in the Pyrenees

Am I being overly ambitious in my plan? Have I left out any critical places?

Any comments would be helpful.

[herrbert]

To get a better overview to see if you are too ambitious you should add the days you want to stay in these places. You will quickly see where you don't have enough time (or time left.)

I counted quickly and see around 25 places (plus some questionmarks) so getting that into 8 weeks can be a bit too much to ask.

If you want to see the tour de France, and checking you shedule, my guess would be that trying to see it in the Alps would be a better bet. (Morzine would be very doable from Geneva.)

You have the romatic road (Romantische Strasse) on your list. How are you planning to do this? If you want to rent a car, I would start with a trip to Füssen to see the Castles, and then start from there. If I am correct the route starts in the neighbourhood of Füssen. (If you rent a car, check the town of Nördlingen.)

If you can book in advance you can get pretty cheap tickets on the eurostar.

[chchchchia]

Here's an updated version:

Fly into London, stay a day, take the train to Brussles (my first base city)
Brussels - 2 nights
Burges-2 nights
Amsterdam-3 nights

Germany

Hamburg - 2 nights
Berlin -3 nights - night train to
Munich - 3 nights
Romantic Road - train to fussen, see mad ludwig's castle - then take the late train to Augsburg - 1 night
Work my way North via train to Frankfurt
Frankfurt - 2 nights
Cologne - 2 nights

France, Pt. 1

Strasbourg - 2 nights
Nancy - 2 nights
Dijon - 3 nights

Switzerland

Bern - 2 nights
Interlaken - 3 nights

France, Pt. 2

Lyon - 3 nights
NIce - 3 nights
Marseilles - 3 nights
Avignon or Nimes - are either of these cities worth it? I could drop Toulouse if need be
Toulouse - 2 nights
Pau - See the tour go through - 1 night
Bordeaux - 3 nights
Nantes - (if I include nantes, I'd have to skip seeing the tour...worth it?)
Canterbury - 1 night

England

Canterbury - 1 night

Take the ferry from Calais, and work my way back to London quickly, with 1 night in Canterbury and then take the train the day of my flight from Canterbury to London. This seems like a bad idea to me, what do you think?

I dropped Italy from the list - I figured I didn't have enough time to do it justice.