or2nh4me2

We are a mother-daughter with 10 days in Italy at the end of April '14. I need to decide on an itinerary before I can book anything. Venice looks to be a definite, now do we add Rome or Florence or both? Don't want to go crazy. Both of us like museums + architecture and are also interested in 1-2 days CT. Many thanks!

kybourbon

Does your 10 days include travel to and from days?

That's too many locations for such a short time. You and your daughter need to look at some guidebooks for those cities and narrow down what's really important to you.

It's easy to train between Venice/Florence/Rome. CT is more complicated and could take most of a day to reach from Venice.

or2nh4me2

Thanks for the response. Best case scenario we will arrive 4/25 and depart 5/4= 9 days. So it sounds like you are suggesting either Rome or Florence in addition to Venice? CT has always been a dream of mine, but I understand that the weather might not cooperate. Would you have a suggestion for a couple days of down time? And FWIW, we are both adults. I'm traveling w/my Mom.

Jean

April 25th (Liberation Day) and May 1st (Labor Day) are Italian national holidays. Most museums, etc., will be open on April 25th, but you may find much closed on May 1st.

April 25th also happens to be the feast day for the patron saint of Venice, St. Mark, so there will be processions and other events. Piazza San Marco should be pretty busy that day, and it may be difficult to access the sights in that area. On May 1st, you may encounter parades of workers or protest rallies if you're in a big city.

Also, because the Liberation and Labor holidays are only a week apart, many Italians take off the week between. Trains may be more filled than usual.

Lastly, Sunday, April 27th, is Divine Mercy Sunday. You probably wouldn't notice observance of this unless you happened to be in Vatican City that day.

If Venice is a definite, I suggest you split your days between Venice and Rome. Save Florence, small Tuscan towns and the Cinque Terre for another trip.

Were it my trip, I'd push the departure to one week later.

or2nh4me2

Thank you for the advice Jean! Unfortunately, our dates ate not flexible, however the 25th would be our 1st day, so maybe with careful planning we can work around the holidays. We want to see 2 locations, but also hope for some down days. Do you have an alternate location to CT that would serve as a breather from the bigger cities we will visit? Also, would you rec an open jaw flight?

ellenem

Venice is a small city. By spending more days there, you will have room to relax and have down time. Once you move away from the major tourist areas, it is relatively quiet and small townish. You can ride vaporetti to the out island for a real countryfied feel. The same goes for Rome. It is not so much the busyness of the city as the busyness of you.

An open jaw/multi-city flight is the way to go. Usually this will not cost more than roundtrip through one city. And even if it does cost slightly more, you would save money by not having additional train trips to return to your departure airport, and save precious vacation time considering your brief 9 days.

dwdvagamundo

I'd vote for Venice and Florence.

As ellenem says, take the vaporetto from Venice to Torcello which has a rural feel and a great old church. We always go there as a break from Venice proper.

You can take a bus to Fiesole from Florence which also easily gets you out of the City and into a (hopefully) less crowded place.

As you like museums and architecture, skip CT altogether.

nytraveler

In so few days I would do 2 cities/hotels - the one you land in and the one you depart from.

If you try to do 4 places you will spend half your time just traveling from one place to another. (Do NOT get a RT ticket - go for multi-destination, they don;t cost any more.)

Jean

I agree with ellenem's comments. If you stay a little longer in a place, you can have quiet days/times without feeling rushed to see/do everything.

or2nh4me2

Thank you all!