Some itenerary questions

[offhegoes03]

Alright, I hope this is in the right section of the message boards. I came here two years ago and got some awesome advice about a trip to Ireland with my brother. I forgot about this site for a while and I recently remembered about it and have been lurking recently as I've been planning a trip.

A little bit of a background. I have been teaching for this past year, but I am quitting at the end of this year and possibly going to grad school. If I get in to grad school, I definitely want to travel for a month this summer because I have no clue if I'll have to do research for the next couple of summers.

I'm looking at going to Spain, France, the Netherlands (most likely just Amsterdam, but any other tips would be great), Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. I can always cut out either the Netherlands or Switzerland, but I'm thinking of going for 30 days total and maybe only spending 2 days in the Netherlands and Switzerland and longer in the other areas. I just got a bunch of guide books from the library, so I'm going to start doing more research.

A couple questions. I was looking up airfare and it looks like it's about $1300 or so to fly into Spain. It's maybe $1100 for Amsterdam. It looks like it's much cheaper to fly into Ireland ($800) and I could always take a ferry to France. Any of these options sound better or worse? This is only my preliminary research, so I could probably find cheaper flights.

When I went to Ireland, I used the bus system almost exclusively. For mainland Europe I'm looking at getting a Eurail pass, probably one of the youth flexipasses. I'm going back and forth between the 10 and the 15 day in 2 months passes. Any advice for this? I've been looking at a lot of stuff on Rick Steves's website and it's really helpful.

Anyways, I'll be doing a bunch of research in the coming months, but I just wanted to get some advice as I'm starting to look at things. I'm also planning on going alone and really looking forward to it. Thanks.