Please review our 22 day european itinerary for first timers

Arrive LHR 9/20 at 2pm; Depart LHR 10/16 10am
End of trip have to spend 4 days in Mallorca Spain, 10/13-10/16 for wedding, fly home 10/16
That leaves 22 days for the rest of the trip
London (8 days - set dates, can’t change) > France/Paris (9 days - flexible) > Italy (9 days - flexible)

Questions?
How’s our itinerary look? Too long in Paris, more time in Italy?
Should we bring our big technical backpacks or rolling suitcases?
Should we buy transit passes in each city?
We want laundry 2x, so about once every 9 days. Laundry service easy to find?
Getting european data sims for the trip

About us
Haven’t been to Europe since I was a kid. Wife’s first time
Husband and wife. Mid 30s. We tend to walk a lot and explore places during travel, walking cities, outdoorsy hiking lands or swimming holes if special parks. Enjoy history and cultural experiences.
hit the touristy things as long as they are higher quality than a Costa Rica volcano town (been there, done that in costa rica). Like museums.
We are hikers and wilderness backpack in california. We like to bike if biking is nice.
Enjoying different local cuisines. Don’t mind fancy restaurant as long as it’s not filled with 70% non locals.
see locals going to and from work. Watching locals work. I like historical experiences, but not a huge fan of going out of the way to see a simple site eg stonehedge
Don’t mind paying for guides. Our best experience so far was 3 days for a guided rainforest corcovado national park in costa rica.

Willing to do special experiences, even if they come with some headache / work.
We don’t use social media or social media pictures
Not a huge fan of water or beaches if all we’re doing is for pictures. If we can do something like cliff jump or swim; that’s different.
No fancy hotels, we spend 12 hours a day out and about anyway; our budget will go towards experiences and food.
Limited more by time than cost.
Do not like spending time in lines, will try to avoid by going early/late hours, paying for special pass tours, etc. (Italy worries us for this reason) any ideas how to get around?
Detailed itinerary
London (9/20 - 9/27, set dates)
9/20 Arrive LHR at 2pm. Travel to Windsor, stay overnight
9/21 Windsor Castle; shuttle to Hampton Court Palace in afternoon. Head to London.
9/22 - 9/26 London. Will probably buy a 5-day London Pass. Doing a guided walking tour first day, Buckingham Palace, V&A, British Museum, Churchill War Rooms, Westminster Abbey, Shakespeare’s Globe, Houses of Parliament, St. Paul’s Cathedral, etc. Not interested in making the trip out to Stonehenge.
9/26 Hever Castle in the afternoon; overnight stay.
9/27 Fly from London (LGW) to Paris (CDG)
France (9/27 to 10/5 tentatively)
9/27 - ?? Paris. Louvre, etc.
Versailles
Normandy? Mont St Michel?
10/5 Fly from Paris (CDG) to Venice
Italy (10/5 - 10/13, tentatively). 2 or 3 cities? We need to fly out of Naples, so I think Rome will be one of them. Fly in to Venice from Paris?
Or skip venice and just do Rome, Naples and pompei?
10/5-10/7 Venice
10/7-10/13 ??
10/13 Fly Naples to Mallorca (PMI)
Mallorca (10/13 - 10/15, set dates)
10/13 - 10/15 attending wedding celebrations
10/15 Fly to London (LGW). Stay overnight near LHR.
10/16 Fly from LHR back to States

Arrive LHR 9/20 at 2pm; Depart LHR 10/16 10am

Welcome to the forum. Do you mean tomorrow or a year from tomorrow?

Not in a position to answer that question?

Assuming next year -
Looks ok to me if that' s what floats your boat - steady pace not too rushed. I might have suggested in London spending a few nights out of the city rather than day trips, but whatever suits you. Others know France better than me so wait for their comments. In Italy, at least 2 nights in Venice, 3 in Rome, but 4 would be better, and assuming an early morning train Rome -Naples so you have at least half a day in the city, you could get away with 2 nights with a tiring day trip to Pompei (30 minutes on the local train from central Naples) in between, though you could pass your half day in Naples just in the Archaeological museum and miss the attractions in the city which would be a great shame - just hope for a nice sunset when you walk along the via Partenope round the bay.

How’s our itinerary look? Too long in Paris, more time in Italy?

It's fine. You could spend months in Italy, of course.

Should we bring our big technical backpacks or rolling suitcases?

Whatever suits your needs. It doesn't matter much.

Should we buy transit passes in each city?

Only if you think you're going to get your money's worth. You will have to do the comparisons when you know what your itinerary looks ike.

We want laundry 2x, so about once every 9 days. Laundry service easy to find?

Yes.

Normandy? Mont St Michel?

That's a long day trip from Paris.

Italy (10/5 - 10/13, tentatively). 2 or 3 cities?

For eight nights, no more than two. Your itinerary is already pretty busy, and all of your Italian city options have more than enough to do.

We need to fly out of Naples, so I think Rome will be one of them. Fly in to Venice from Paris?

Not if you're not staying in Venice.

Or skip venice and just do Rome, Naples and pompei?

Yep.

10/5-10/7 Venice

Nowhere near enough time.

10/15 Fly to London (LGW). Stay overnight near LHR.

A day wasted travelling, but I don't know if there's anything you can do about it.

London (8 days - set dates, can’t change)

I remain a bit concerned it's actually this year ... it's very rare for a booking more than a year out to be that un-changeable.

If it's next year, and I sure hope it is, buy open-jaw tickets so you don't have to backtrack.

To be fair, it's 2:30 am in California - so it might take a few hours for our intrepid OP to respond ... and I really do trust the trip is in 2020.

sorry, busy prepping for the trip. We're at the airport now reviewing this post. board in 15min. Thanks for the responses.

We've booked our London stays, so that's pretty firm. We are spending 2 nights outside London, on of them in Hever castle. Hope that's going to be cool.

We haven't booked the paris > italy flight yet and haven't planned what to do in Paris. It seems like we should just stick to Paris.

Would you leave Paris a few days early to get more time in Italy?

if we do keep it to 9 days in Italy, we'll follow your suggestions on two major cities max. which ones though is the question. VEnice, Florence, Rome, Naples

I would reduce Paris by two nights (to five), fly to Venice for say four nights, then a train to Rome (five nights), then train to Naples for two nights - seeing Pompeii on your full day there - it's just a commuter train and not very far away.

Or possibly three nights each for Venice and Naples.

In Paris we enjoyed excursions to:

• Versailles Palace (of course)
• Chartres Cathedral
• Château de Fontainebleau
• Provins (beautiful mediaeval town)

None of these is a huge trip from the city; much closer than Normandy and Le Mont-Saint-Michel. Paris is an interesting city, but five nights gets you a pretty good percentage of what seven nights would.

There is so much that you can do to fill your time in and just outside of Paris that I am not going spend any effort in describing them. But note that to enter the Louvre you will need to prebook and arrive at a set time, and then find your way through the throng inside. Unless you have a clear and compelling idea about what you want to see there, you may prefer to spend that time doing other things. Such as visiting the Panthéon with Foucault's pendulum:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthéon

You might consider trimming your time in Paris to include another region of France as part of an overland itinerary to Italy.

For example, you could travel by fast train (TGV) from Paris to Metz (1.5 hours), a fortified Franco-Germanic city (it has swapped hands a few times) in the NE corner of France. Then onto Basel, a quadrilingual (at least) city just over the Swiss border that is full of art centres, modern architectural wonders, old buildings, and youthful university students. Then go on by train via Zürich through mountains and lakes to Milan, and then to Venice.

Or travel by TGV to Dijon (1.5 hours), the capital of Burgundy with the ornate buildings that testify to that. The old town core is very walkable.

From Dijon go to Lyon (2 hours by regional train), France's third-largest city that made its wealth from silk and now is a centre of film-making and other contemporary arts. View the numerous Roman ruins and visit the museum of the resistance and deportation, and dine well and more cheaply than in Paris.

Or go directly from Paris to Lyon by TGV (2 hours) if the above detour doesn't appeal.

From Lyon, take the TGV through the Alps to Turin (4 hours). Perhaps allow two days for the city itself, and then rent a car for a day to visit Alba, just to the south, for the white truffle festival and to visit one or two wine centres nearby that are home to the mighty Barolo and Barbaresco red wines.

• https://www.fieradeltartufo.org/en/

There are castles and monasteries galore surrounding the vineyards in this region, but note that I am not proposing that you visit the vineyards themselves as this is not possible. Look for cantinas, wine-maker cooperatives, or any decent-sized wine store (enoteca) to do your sampling and to make purchases. There is a superb cantina in the gorgeous hilltop town of La Morra, about 20 minutes south from Alba. Enjoy the views across the valley along with the wine.

But also within easy reach of Turin, and accessible by car or with a tour, is the extraordinary Sacra di San Michele. I recommend it highly.

• https://www.sacradisanmichele.com/en/

From Turin, you are 1 hour by regional train to Milano Centrale. If you decide not to stop over in Milan (I would encourage this, but see how you go) you can change trains for an express to Venice (Venezia Santa Lucia) that will deposit you directly onto the edge of the Grand Canal. There is no better way to arrive in this city.

I suggest that you allow at least three full days for Venice, if not more. Parts of it will be very, very busy, but the visiting hordes tend to stick to predictable routes, and you can avoid these. Explore the city on foot and by using ferries, the vaporetti, as well because the single vaporetto tickets are expensive and so you may as well buy a pass and get value from it. You will visit during the tail end of the art biennale. There is an entry fee for each of the two primary exhibition compounds, Giardini and Arsenale, but these venues are themselves are very much worthy of your attention even if you hold doubts about how much you might appreciate the exhibitions they hold. The individual country pavilions at Giardini are a sight.

• https://www.labiennale.org/en

However, elsewhere around Venice at this time are fringe exhibitions that occupy otherwise unused palazzos, courtyards, and shopfronts and these are free to visit. Entering them is an opportunity to see inside old buildings that you may experience elsewhere.

From Venice, take a train to Rome and use up the remainder of your time there. Done.

Some insightful thoughts from emmeff above. Given your dates it could be something like this, give or take (and the list shows where you spend each night):

27 Sep - Paris (after arrival from LHR)
28 Sep - Paris
29 Sep - Paris
30 Sep - Paris
01 Oct - Lyon
02 Oct - Lyon
03 Oct - Turin
04 Oct - Turin
05 Oct - Venice
06 Oct - Venice
07 Oct - Venice
08 Oct - Rome
09 Oct - Rome
10 Oct - Rome
11 Oct - Rome
12 Oct - Naples (via Pompeii first)
13 Oct - Mallorca (fixed date)

It's fairly fast-paced, but there is a lot of reward in such an itinerary, and essentially all by land. Fast trains are very fast, and such trips are very much part of the journey, not a bug.