shabby

Stage one of planning. Please give your expert advice if you have been to Italy and know transportation logistics ect..
Husband wife two adult children in their 20's - we love nature and want to see museums and culture

1. Venice Spend the night do canals in the Am. Explore a bit
2. Lucca explore city Pisa
3. Full day Cinque Torre Hike
4. Leave Lucca for Florence -
5. Uffizi David
6. Dumo Historical tour
7- Leave Florence for Rome
8. Rome Coliseum
9. Vatican
10Pompei day trip
11 Rome to wander
12 Home

bvlenci

At what time of the year will you be traveling?

I don't see how you're going to visit Lucca and Pisa on day 2, unless you have a magic carpet to get you there from Venice. It will take you 4 to 5 hours to get to Lucca by train.

If you arrive on day 1, and you're intending to see the canals in the AM of day 2, even worse.

I also wouldn't go to the Cinque Terre on a day trip. The towns are virtually sinking under the weight of the day trippers. Most of the lower trails have been closed for over five years because of the risk of landslides, and to hike the upper trails, you should spend at least one night there, and preferably two nights. I would suggest skipping Lucca and Pisa and go straight to some place where you can enjoy nature and hike. Somewhere on Lake Garda would be much closer to Venice.

How about the following:

2 nights in Venice
2 nights somewhere on Lake Garda
3 nights in Florence
4 nights in Rome

Even this is a rather rushed trip.

thursdaysd

Eleven days is enough time to cover Venice, Florence and Rome. You are seriously short-changing Venice, which is a whole lot more than canals.

For train schedules see bahn.de or trenitalia.it.

ssander

I think you're trying to do too much. Eleven days should be three cities at most...Venice, Florence & Rome seem best (with a day-trip here or there). I suggest:

Venice - 3 days (first day jet-lagged?)
Florence - 3 days w/first day a.m. on train (and day-trip to Siena?)
Rome - 5 days with first morning on train (and day-trip somewhere...Ostia Antica?)

ssander

kybourbon

I would ditch Lucca since you don't really plan to do anything there (and didn't allow time to do anything there).

If day 1 is arrival day in Europe (from the US?), you will be jetlagged and not up to doing much. That leaves you only 10 actual days in Europe and you are planning to travel on 5 of those days.

>>>Please give your expert advice if you have been to Italy and know transportation logistics ect.<<<

Venice/Lucca/Pisa would be about 6 hours or more of travel (with train changes) if you did all that in one day.

>>>Full day Cinque Torre Hike <<<

Another several hours of train travel between Lucca/CT.

>>>>Pompei day trip <<<<

This would be about 4 hours of train travel plus getting to and from train station in Rome and your hotel.

Start over with your itinerary. Have each person make a "must see" list.

StCirq

WAY too much for such a short trip.

Kathie

You have forgotten to allow for travel time. If you have found a way to instantly transport yourself from, say, Venice, to Lucca, please share it!

Each time you change locations will take at least half a day. So it takes three nights in a place just to get two full days.

I agree with others, the most you should be doing is three locations in 10 days. You would get two full day in two locations, and three days in the third.

annhig

shabby, perhaps you have seen coach tours that move at this pace but they get up at sparrowfart and are transported from place to place where the longest they get to spend is 5 minutes being rushed past some cathedral that they only see from the outside.

You on the other hand are 4 adults travelling independently who have the luxury of being able to spend longer seeing the things you want to see and can enjoy them at your leisure. You also need to take account of the time that it will take to get from one place to another - which is typically half a day - and then to find your hotel, check in, get your bearings, find some lunch, etc. etc.

So [with thanks to Bvl] a realistic timetable might be this:

Day 1 - arrive Venice
Day 2 - explore Venice.
Day 3 - morning in Venice, take midday train [eat on train] to Garda/CT.
Day 4 - Garda/CT
Day 5 - Train to Florence.
Day 6 - Florence
Day 7 - Florence
Day 8 - train to Rome
Day 9 - Rome
Day 10 - Pompeii/Ostia Antica/Tivoli
Day 11 - Rome
Day 12 - fly home

Personally I think that I would spend another night in Venice in preference to Florence as [assuming you are coming from the US] you may be jet lagged on your first day in Venice so that would give you time to recover and to see something, though not much, of the city.

And you don't say what time of year you're travelling - if it's the middle of summer, please forget about the CT - it will be terribly crowded.