lbaro

Looking for itinerary help for a 10 day Italian vacation this April. 3 18-23year olds, my husband and I. Starting in Venice ending in Rome, I'd personally skip Florence, but can be swayed. We're from NYC and love exploring other cities looking for experiences and wonderful food. Thanks in advance!!

inspiredexplorer

First question is probably do you have 10 days total, or 10 days on the ground? International travel days will give you limited on the ground time: from NYC you want to take overnight flights to at least give your family a half day on the ground initially to get settled and adjust to the time.

An easy skeleton itinerary is below with all three places. If you can stretch to get the extra day in Rome, it will be worth it since there are a ton of things to see there and it is a much larger city than Florence or Venice:

Night 0 - fly overnight to Venice
Day/Night 1 - land Venice, Venice
Day/Night 2 - Venice
Day/Night 3 - Venice
Day/Night 4 - train to Florence
Day/Night 5 - Florence
Day/Night 6 - Florence
Day/Night 7 - train to Rome
Day/Night 8 - Rome
Day Night 9 - Rome
Day/Night 10 - Rome (or depart for home)
Day 11- depart for home

If you decide to skip Florence, you can get more time in Venice and Rome:

Night 0 - fly overnight to Venice
Day/Night 1 - land Venice, Venice
Day/Night 2 - Venice
Day/Night 3 - Venice
Day/Night 4 - Venice
Day/Night 5 - train to Rome
Day/Night 6 - Rome
Day/Night 7 - Rome
Day/Night 8 - Rome
Day Night 9 - Rome
Day/Night 10 - Rome (or depart for home)
Day 11- depart for home

Specific things to do and see are harder to suggest you without getting a bit more info on what you like and are interested in. If you're not sure about Italy, maybe give us your favorite things to do in NYC, and that can give us a starting point to find points of differentiation and things in common to suggest.

Venice, Florence, and Rome are often put together for first trip to Italy itineraries, so there are plenty of previous threads and trip reports on this site to assist you as well.

Good luck and happy travels!

StCirq

Every city and town in Europe has a comprehensive website you can use to get ideas. Every guidebook has information about sites and walking tours and transportation and restaurants and accommodations. Chowhound is a valuable, if self-important, site for foodies headed to Europe. Apart from that, since we don't know what is compelling you to visit Italy except "experiences" (which could be anything) and food, it's hard to make recommendations. You need to do some basic research first and come up with a plan, which people here will be more than happy to help you refine.

BritishCaicos

The best food we have ever experienced has been in small unpretentious restaurants in the countryside of Piedmonte and Tuscany. Ingredients grown across the road, wine made in the same village.

Whathello

Do we get paid for maying an itinerary ?
I'd recommend you start reading some guidebooks.

Whatever the people can sugget it will not be your trip. Your trip should be the one you like, not the one somebody devised for you.

Now the itinerary given above is ok.

suze

If everyone follows that advice, we need no Fodor's forums.

sandralist

I suggest you buy Fred Plotkin's Italy for the Gourmet Traveler. Any NYC bookstore can get you a copy overnight or call Kitchen Arts & Letters on the UES. They probably have it in stock. Have your kids look through and see what kind of a food detour they might be interested to make (or day excursion from Venice or Rome). There is also excellent advice about how to eat well in both cities (seasonally) and if your family is interested in food markets, excellent pointers.

Anybody interested in food should have the book anyway.

Whathello

'If everyone follows that advice, we need no Fodor's forums.'

So best to stay in mediocrity just for the sake of posting...

Blueeyedcod

Go to Bologna! It's on the train line and a great destination for foodies.

Also check out food blogs - Elizabeth Minchilli and Katie Parla are a couple that are very accessible.

http://www.elizabethminchilliinrome.com/
http://katieparla.com/

ashwinb

I wouldn't skip florence or Tuscany(especially Siena) AT ALL unless you've already been there. Food's great in Florence as well.
Do have a look at my TR https://ashwinbahulkar.wordpress.com...1/31/florence/ and restaurant recommendations.

bilboburgler

I'd certainly avoid Venice, Florence and Rome if you want great food, you can get it but the statistics point elsewhere.

Take the vap to Chioggia and eat at the fish restaurants, (Cozze and linguini are ..) then train to Bologna with a few days out to parma and modena, dive over to Siena and that restaurant to the side of the town hall (not any of the places in the main square), then a few place heading south from Siena (little restaurants that I hesitate to mention) and end up in Rome and the airport, try the spinaci pastry at the bar at the end of the platform. heated that can be wonderful.

Avoid all white wine (again there may be good white wine in Italy but why risk it?) Try the Valpollicelas as you enter the PO valley, go for the expensive ones and you will find tastes you never touch in NY. In Tuscany it is hard to go wrong but easy to be conned.

Gaia606

My suggestion is to plan carefully where to eat in Venice, unfortunatly compared to Rome or Florence good restaurants are more hard to find.
If you are looking for unique experience you could try a cooking lesson.
I know this, but there are many others:
http://www.enricarocca.com/cooking-school/venice
for food and restautants there are some good tips on this blog (that I love)
http://www.frommydiningtable.com/