My husband and I have an open-jaw trip to Europe coming up this late May / early June. We're flying to Lisbon, where we will be 3 days for a wedding, and then we're flying into Rome and out of Venice with 11 days in between to plan (we originally had 13 days in Italy, now 11, explained below..).
After we booked our flights we realized that in the middle of our time in Italy our favorite band that rarely makes live appearances is playing in London on my husband's birthday. We couldn't pass that up, and now we'll be flying from Rome to London and back, spending two nights and one day in London. When we get back from London, we'll be continuing on to Umbria / TBD (recommendations??) for 4 nights, and we'll spend our last 2 nights in Venice.
The impromptu trip to London happens 5 days after we fly from Lisbon to Rome. We were originally only planning to spend 4 days in Rome. So I'm wondering if we should spend all this time in Rome before our flight to London, or if we should spend 3 days in Rome and 2 days somewhere else. The Almafi Coast? We would like to see Pompeii. The Sabine Hills? Tivoli? Extend stay in Portugal by 2 nights? I really want to see Sintra, which I don't think we can currently fit in with the wedding taking up an entire day and jet lag and whatnot. Note that we are currently scheduled to fly from Lisbon to Rome on a Monday so if we changed our flight to be in Portugal only one more night everything will be closed the extra day we're there. It only makes sense if we extend by two days. Or should we just settle into Rome and enjoy for the entire 5 days? Our hotel is in the Trastevere neighborhood.
For reference, I studied in Perugia in college. Hence the need to go back to Umbria, though Rome is a bit of a fuzzy memory. My husband has not been to Italy, and neither of us has ever been to Portugal. It would be great to fit Florence into this plan so that my husband can see the masterpieces there. I've been twice and don't love the city (I'm already contemplating a Milan > Cinque Terre > Florence > Bologna > Lake Como trip for another time!).
Thanks in advance for your help, and apologies for the long post.
5 nights in Rome, or Elsewhere, on our 11 day Italy Itinerary?
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Your thoughts are all over the place, and I don't think you're factoring in how much travel time is involved with any/all of these possible destinations.
If it were me, I'd just spend the time in Rome. Assuming you're counting the travel day from Lisbon to Rome as the first Rome day, five days is not as much time as you might think. Moving from Rome to another place (and then back to Rome for the flight to London) would waste a lot of time.
I'm curious to know -what band?
Sorry, I'm confused. Is this your itinerary?
Lisbon 2 nights
Rome 3 or 4 or 5 nights
Maybe somewhere else 2 nights
London 2 nights
Umbria 4 nights
Venice 2 nights
I would definitely stay put in Rome for those nights and not squeeze in any other destinations.
I would stay all 5 nights in Rome. If you want, go for 1/2 day to Tivoli.
3 nights for Lisbon (including the wedding) is a very short time. I would stay longer there and to go one day to Sintra also.
Is it not possible to stay longer in Lisbon, then fly to London and then from London to Rome?
Right now our itinerary is:
Day 1: early morning arrival in Lisbon
Day 2: wedding in a town outside of Lisbon
Day 3: Lisbon or Sintra, night in Lisbon
Day 4: early morning flight to Rome
Days 5 - 8: Rome
Day 9: day in Rome, fly to London that evening
Day 10: London
Day 11: early morning flight back to Rome, travel to destination TBD in Umbria
Day 12 - 14: Umbria / TBD
Days 15 & 16: Venice
Day 17: fly home
I realize we don't have much time in Portugal, but before the concert came up the purpose of the trip was in large part to visit Italy after this wedding. We do wish we had a bit more time in Portugal, especially to see Sintra, but the trade off at this point would be less time in Rome.
We can't fly from Lisbon to London and then to Rome due to the timing of the concert.
So the consensus so far seems to be to spend the 5.5 days in Rome?
Do you have your flights booked? You said you're already planning another trip to Italy...have you given any thoughts to shaking this one up a bit?
Just to throw it out there, Portugal and England would make a great 16 night trip. Or Lisbon, London, and Rome.
Then focus only on Italy your next trip.
That may not be what you'd want to do at all, but I figured I'd suggest it anyways because I know from experience it's easy to get bogged down when trying to make everything fit into an itinerary.
Thank you for the suggestion. We've booked our plane tickets and are relatively locked into the flights. We might be able to move the Lisbon > Rome flight on day 4 to day 6 so as to spend more time in Portugal and less time in Rome, but that is it. Also, we've both been to the UK several times and seek to see other places for now.
I realize it's a bit of a madcap itinerary, but we're up for adventure and are pretty excited about our plan. We just need to work out a few kinks.
My remaining questions are whether it would be too much to try to fit either Florence or Bologna into days 11 - 14 or if we should just spend this time in one Umbria / Perugia base before continuing on to Venice for our last two nights. Also still a bit unsure as to whether to extend time in Portugal to days 1 - 6 and spend days 7, 8 and 9 in Rome or just spend days 4 - 9 in Rome with several day trips as noted above.
If you haven't previously been to Rome, I would spend the 5.5 days there. With all the arriving and departing, that is certainly not too much time. I would then do one of three things after your return from London. 1) go to Umbria as planned and to Venice; 2) spend go to Bologna and Venice or 3) go to Florence and Venice.
We spent 7 days in Rome--and are ready to go back that wasn't long enough.
Sounds like a crazy-making itinerary. I can't even being to parse it.
I have been in Rome only 3 nights and it is not enough at all even to get a first impression of the city.
I would reduce Umbria instead.
Why fly back to Rome from London if your night staying there? I would look at flights to Pisa/Florence/Bologna/Perugia instead.