Europe Planning

Update on our trip through Europe!

Basically, I spent all Christmas Day planning our trip through Europe. I've been running into a few snags in that we don't know exactly what's happening in the next year in regards to money, given that my job's ending soon and I don't yet have another one and Cal's job is ending soon after that. We might be able to afford to go December 2013, we might not. Regardless, a lot of flight booking sites aren't allowing me to look so far into future anyway. But here's the general plan thus far:

Brisbane, Australia to London, UK.
Stay in London for a few days, getting over jetlag by visiting familiar sites (for me, anyway).
Day trips from London: Dover, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Oxford, Canterbury.
(Total time with London as "home base": ~7 days)

Train up to Edinburgh for a night or two.
5-day tour around Scottish Highlands through Haggis Tours (look 'em up, they're awesome). Would prefer non-tours and ability to do our own thing, but as public transportation isn't great up there, this is much more convenient and relatively well priced, too.
(Total time with London as "home base": ~7 days)

Train back to London; probably stay the night.
Train to Paris, stay one night. (We just want a picture with the Eiffel Tower, basically--we're okay with a short amount of time here)
(Total time in Paris: 1 night)

Flight from Paris to Rome (only 40ish pounds each!)
Stay in Rome for 3 days, soaking up the various sites and what have you.
Train to Florence (only 1.5 hrs!), stay for a few days.
Train to Venice (2.5 hrs), stay for a few days -- be sure to take a Gondola ride and hit up Murano.
(total time in Italy: ~8 days)

And that, my friends, is 3/4 of our planned month-long trip gone--and here is where it gets a bit dodgy.

Austria: probably take train from Italy. Not exactly sure what we want to do here, except that we want to go. Salzburg, perhaps?

Prague: A few nights, again, can probably take a train--hit up main attractions.

Germany: Head to Munich, from there do a day trip to Neuschwanstein Castle (accessible by train), along with Schwangau Castle and the Museum of Bavarian Kings. (able to see all in one day--right next to each other).
Probably also see Berlin.

Netherlands: Spend a few days here, soaking up Cal's heritage.

Belgium: Just one day in Brussels.

Then: Take train from Brussels back to London, flight from London back to Australia.

I think you can tell where my internet stopped working and/or I got sidetracked looking at backpacking backpacks. Getting so excited for this trip. But I had to cut out Norway, Spain, and Greece for this particular itinerary--as it is, we'll be running ourselves pretty ragged, and I want to take some time to enjoy what we are seeing, and those three places I think need a lot of time spent in them. Oddly enough, Norway, Spain, and Greece are three places I'm most interested in, but I think that just means they're the places I want to spend the most time in, and there's just not enough time!! They're also the places I can see taking kids to down the track (I know it seems like a long way off, but by the time we head Europe-way again, we'll probably have them).

So here's the timeline of our various travel:

January: New Zealand.
Possibly December: Europe.
After/Between: I'd like to do some more travel within Australia. I figure I get to do more of this once Emily and Sarah get here!