Micheled

I will be traveling to Italy for the first time. We are flying into Rome and spending most of our time there. We would like to take a trip somewhere else and spend three nights. We were thinking either going to Capri or going to Florence. Any recommendations considering time of year and seeing a different part of Italy?

annhig

Hi micheled,

The first question is how long you are staying in Rome, and whether you are planning on going back to rome, or not? [oops, that's two questions].

however, if you have only 3 days for this side trip, Capri is quite a long way. what you could do is a trip to the amalfi coast and to incorporate Capri as a day trip. this would only be worthwhile in spring/summer/autumn; otherwise IMHO Florence would be a better bet.

or you could stick with Rome and do a succesion of day trips -ostia antica, orvieto, tivoli, are the obvious ones, but there are loads more possiblities.

what time of year is your trip?

zeppole

You forgot to say what time of year you are going.

The fact that this is your first trip is unimportant. What's important is how you want to spend your time. And when you are traveling.

It is possible that there are no two places more unalike in all of Italy than Capri or Florence, and I'll bet you already knew that. They are both relatively easy to get to from Rome using public transportation.

How long will you be in Rome?

In wanting to see someplace else, are you hoping for the greatest possible contrast to Rome? You would have to go to several dozen different places to begin to understand what a varied place Italy is.

zeppole

Capri is a long way from Rome? I don't think so. It's between 3 and 4 hours travel time.

zeppole

(And getting to Amalfi is usually longer unless you drop several hundred dollars on private car transfers.)

Micheled

Sorry, I did forget to say we will be there the third week of October and we have 10 days. We are staying in Rome for the first 4 nights and would like to spen 3 nights somewhere else. We are fine with renting a car or using the train. I think we would like this part of our trip to be more relaxing since Rome is such a big busy city.

zeppole

In the third week of October it is really hard to commit to a trip to Capri. You could have storms. You could have summery skies.

My suggestion is that you read up on all the possibilities -- the day trips annhg mentioned, how to get to Capri, what you might get out of going to Florence, and then wait until you are in Rome to decide what you want to do.

In the 3rd week of October, you don't need to book hotels in advance except in some of Italy's business cities (Bologna, Torino, Milano), so you can do this by mood and weather.

annhig

hi micheled,

in that case why not take the opportunity to explore Umbria? the region of Italy just north of Rome. there is a thread going at the moment about places to stay for a few days or longer, the most attractive idea, IMHO, being Spoleto.

alternatively, the area around Alba, rather further north, would make a very attractive base for that time of year. or Puglia [which in summer would be very hot] would be lovely.

if you search this forum for all of those, you should have some great ideas.