Yes another "post your itinerary" thread

[dsanchez]

Hello everybody.

I joined this site about a year ago with some questions on my previous 2 trips and got a lot of great input and information. I have now found myself with a 4 week trip, plus a couple of days if I need them, so I have some questions. I have the last week of July, plus all of August off. Right now, lets assume I have 28 days, or 4 weeks. My rough route is this:

3 nights in Amsterdam (been there twice, love the city)
3 nights in London (first time there)
3 nights in Paris (was there before, but the evil hostel bar kept me from seeing everything I wanted)

3 nights in Interlaken (was there last summer, love the alps and want to hike some more)

3 nights in Cinque Terre region
3 nights in Nice (day trip to Monaco)

3 nights Barcelona (do I break this train ride up by staying somewhere in between Nice and Barcelona?)

Where to next?????

So, as you can see I have some days to fill. My question is: what is a good base for the Cinque Terre? I was thinking Genoa, with a day to walk the Cinque Terre trail, and a day to visit Pisa, which seems feasible from here. Also, do I fit in Venice for 2 days between Interlaken and Cinque Terre?

I would also love to fit in some time in Spain, and Portugal if possible. Never been to South of France, Spain or Portugal, so some advice would be great!!! I would like to make Barcelona, and I am not married to the idea of visiting Madrid.

So, to sum it up, my questions are:

1/ Home base for Cinque Terre, and is 3 days enough?
2/ Do I squeeze Venice in between Interlaken and Cinque Terre for 2 nights?
3/ Destinations for Spain and possibly Portugal
4/ Will I run into problems of boredom, etc. since I've heard some places shut down for the month of August, which will be the bulk of my time in Europe?

I have 10 days to play with given the above schedule. Any way to improve my schedule? I realize I have some lengthy train trips in there, but I found from my last trips that I don't mind a 4 or 5 hour train trip. It helped me relax, unwind and I met some amazing people travelling by train. I also realize that I'm hitting some of the most expensive spots, but whatever. That's not a concern of mine. Mind you, I don't like to piss my money away either.

I would like to keep the night trains to none, but will fit in 1 or 2 if necessary. I did that from Budapest to Rome, and it was worth all of the aggravation as I loved Rome!!

Thanks for the input. Would love to hear your thoughts. I am very capable of dealing with little sleep and hangover mornings, so I can handle hectic itineraries. If you ask me, backpackers should be deprived of sleep, drink every day and not hold back for anything. At least that was my motto last year anyways.

Look forward to your thoughts.

Cheers