nextexit

Would love all of your amazing help, you have been so kind to me with all of your advice. We will be traveling with our two small children (ages 4 and 6).
Hotels are all booked in Salerno, Positano, Venice and Rome.
July 1 Arrive Rome 7:30am
Train to Salerno (train tickets are already booked)
July 1 Salerno
July 2 AM - Ferry to Positano
July 2, 3, 4 Positano
July 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Orvieto/Tuscany/TBD – HELP. see below.
July 10 AM train from Florence to Venice (train tickets are already booked)
July 10, 11, 12 Venice
July 13 AM Train from Venice to Rome (train tickets are already booked)
July 13, 14 Rome (any suggestions with the kids?)

July 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 TBD – this is our grey area and we need help!
I wanted to try to stay the 5th at the same hotel in Positano, but it is already booked.
My ideas are the following: (but please suggest away!!)
July 5th – change hotels to another Amalfi town near Positano for one night? Which one? Or go straight to Orvieto? The car rental place is closed on the 5th and 6th, so we’d be stuck without a car till Monday. =(
July 6, 7th Orvieto Hotel Day trips - 6th Orvieto then 7th TBD???
July 8th, 9th Agriturismo near Siena? Any suggestions? Or, should we stay in Florence the 9th? (hubby and I have both been to Florence before but nowhere else in the region)
Must be at Florence Train Station by 10am for train to Venice.

Thank you in advance for any and all help!!

annhig

Hi next exit,

I had a bit of trouble working out the shape of your trip, until I realised that you are flying into and out of Rome, which has obviously made planning a bit difficult.

2 things occur to me - you are not really spending any time in Rome itself, and you have small children with you, which probably explains it.

If you are determined not to spend those middle days in Rome [and I certainly wouldn't do so with children that age unless I could find a hotel with a swimming pool] then I would hire a car on leaving Positano and drive to an agriturismo in southern Tuscany [with a swimming pool] and use that as a base until 9th July - then drive to Siena, return the car there, get the train to Florence, spend the rest of the day and night there, and you're in the right place for your train to Venice.

That gives you this:

July 1 Arrive Rome 7:30am Train to Salerno, stay Salerno
July 2 AM - Ferry to Positano, stay Positano 3 nights
July 3 Positano
July 4 Positano
July 5 leave Positano and drive to Tuscany. stay 4 nights
July 6 Tuscany
July 7 Tuscany
July 8 Tuscany
July 9 drive to Siena, return car, train to Florence. Stay Florence
July 10 AM train from Florence to Venice (train tickets are already booked) 3 nights Venice
July 11 venice
July 12 Venice
July 13 AM Train from Venice to Rome (train tickets are already booked) 2 nights Rome
July 15 Fly home

[it is very confusing if you keep repeating dates in your itinerary as it can look as if you have more days than you have - if you have a line per day it's much clearer]

sandralist

With your small children, have you given any consideration to staying in the town of Amalfi instead of Positano, or in Atrani -- not for just one night but for your entire coastal stay? Those 2 towns I mentioned are not relentlessly steep, and you might find it easier. But I can understand if you don't want to undo hotel reservations now.

As for July 5, were it me with 2 kids, I think I would leave the Amalfi coast by taxi and go to Sorrento to pick up a car. I would probably stop along the way for the night to lessen the stress of the 5 hour drive, but some people would prefer to just keep driving to southern Tuscany or Umbria. I would stay at ONE agriturismo for the entire time and wouldn't switch to another one before making my way to Venice. On July 9th, I would visit Siena and, at the end of the day, drop off the car in Siena and take the train to Florence.

Booking.com can be a way of locating an agriturismo in southern Tuscany or Umbria for your dates. You need to read reviews, and in particular you want to check out about mosquitoes. Book a place with window screens or mosquito nets in the bedrooms if you can't find air conditioning (usuallly rare). You can use the interactive map to see where the agriturismi are located. I would stick to southern Tuscany so you don't have a very long drive from Sorrento if you decide to do it one day.

If on July 5 you would like an overnight along the way, you might take a look at the town of Palestrina or somewhere around there. All you need is a nice place to sleep with easy parking and someplace to get a meal. You can locate something on booking.com.

nytraveler

This is a very busy trip with 2 little kids - and I agree that your way of laying it out made it look like you had more days than you actually do.

Not sure why you are going to Florence - since you really don;t have any time there. Also you only one day in Rome. I guess you need to stay there for your flight out - but with two little kids I would find a hotel with a pool (very unlikely in city center - perhaps in one of the chain hotels near the airport) since you would have very limited time to see anything in part of one day.

kybourbon

I don't see the point of a one nighter in Salerno. I would go on to Positano on arrival day. It will be very hot in July so hope you booked somewhere with a pool for the kids to cool off. I would check the ferry schedules from Naples. You can always hop off your Salerno train there and take the ferry on to Positano.

You would probably need to spend the night in Florence to catch your train to Venice.

nytraveler

No - actually they could just drive straight to Venice and return the car there - instead of multiple stops in the same day.

RonZ

If Orvieto: stay at the hotel Duomo, day trips [if any] by train to Cortona and Arezzo.

nextexit

Okay, you are all AMAZING.
I've made some changes to my plans based on your recommendations. I tried to extend a few days in Positano but our hotel was booked on both ends. =(

We have rented a car in Sorrento on the 5th and we will spend 5 nights en route to Venice. I have the option of keeping the car all the way to Venice or using the train tickets (which are non-refundable) from Florence to Venice on the morning of the 10th.

I would love some help on planning that 5 days on the way to Venice. For sure, we will play in Sorrento the morning of the 5th, then grab the car and head over to Pompeii. I know it will be HOT in the afternoon, but we don't have much of a choice, right?

Again, our big decision will be to spend all 5 nights at one AG or split them between 2 or 3 to cover more ground.

I would love to do Orvieto, Perugia (to far?), Montepulciano, Siena, San Gimignano... what else. I'm totally okay to skip Florence all together. We WILL need suggestions for great AG if you have any. Budget is $100-200euro a night for 2 adults and 2 small children.

THANKS in advance.

kleeblatt

Less is more, especially with children. Long train rides get boring. Constant hotel changes with small children is a lot of work. You're dealing with jet lag too.

Agree: Skip Florence completely. Find one spot in Tuscany and stay there (it's short notice now so good luck.)

Italy is not about seeing everything but living it and breathing it. Your children will remember the gelati and just bits and pieces so don't overfill.

sandralist

I think your kids are too small to make it sensible to go to Pompei on a summer's afternoon. Also, don't forget it is the site of a truly frightening natural disaster, where thousands of people were wiped out in terrifying circumstances. There is really no place for them to just play there (and you might be made nervous by the loads of stray dogs that roam the site).

You are so close to your travel dates that what you really need to do regarding an agriturismo is find one that suits your lodging and budget needs. Try booking.com or any search site that allows you to plug in your dates and see what is available. Booking.com or venere.com also lets you book with a credit card rather than wait for e-mails to be answered.

Once you have gotten a place to stay, take a look at what neighboring towns there are. Even people without 2 small children could not manage to see San Gimignano and Perugia as part of the same trip. All the places you are naming have huge crowds of tourists and steep hills to climb. If I were your kids, I would go on strike!

You need to trust that Italy is a beautiful, beautiful place with a great density of enjoyable things. Historically, many people in Italy never left their home towns. Even today, Tuscans are rather puzzled by visitors who spend morning and afternoon in their cars repetitively seeing one castle hill town after another. These place were built to have everything a body could need without having to talk to your neighbors on the other hill or depend on them. Enjoy the life of your own piazza, where the kids can make friends and see what it feels to live like an Italian for a few days.

Shar

kids and steep hills in Positano? Not really a kids type of town. You will be carrying them up the steep hills. Fun to walk down but back up???? I think it is good advice to find another place to stay but it is rather late for that. What going to salerno and no Paestum? beautiful ruins there- best preserved temples, etc. and lots of running around room for children. Pompei, I agree might not be good for children that age. There are statues of people encased in ash. I admire parents to take journeys like this with young children - lots of work to try and find things they will also enjoy. Best of luck....

nextexit

Thanks, all.
And thanks for the reminder about not fitting too much in. Last year, we based at our friend's home in Provence and did day trips almost daily and the kids were fantastic! But, it was Spring, flat terrain and not 100' outside.
I'm not too worries about Positano, the bus goes directly to the BB we chose going up the hill.
And, perhaps you have convinced me to do Paestum the morning of the 2nd before we ferry to Positano. My husband will be sad to miss Pompeii (I was there 20 years ago) but I will try to convince him.
xo

eastave

I agree that you should stay in one location for your days in Tuscany. This would put you in a similar situation to what you had last year in Provence. We find it really nice to have the same home base for as long as possible. We try to plan out our days so that if we have a fairly long driving day one day, we have a short day the next day with the afternoon around the pool. Also, keep in mind that the time it takes to get between places is longer than it looks.

sandralist

Just like Provence, you can do day trips daily in Tuscany wih your kids. There are beautiful small towns all over Tuscany, no matter where you stay. Am I right to guess that in Provence you sometimes went to little towns that you had never heard of, and they were perfect and fun? In some ways people miss the point of being in Tuscany when they drive long distances so see famous towns like San Gimignano or Perugia. They don't realize they are driving right past other little towns they might even enjoy more but don't get mentioned in guidebooks.

If your husband is grieving not seeing Pompei, then why not stay in a hotel in Pompei your first night instead of Salerno? Book a place with a pool. Maybe the first day you arrive, when you are so jet lagged , you can see Herculaneum (much easier than Pompei) if it is not too hot and swim afterwards. Then the next morning, you can visit Pompei for a couple of hours right when it is open at 8am. But then take the hour train ride to Sorrento (or Salerno) and catch a ferry for Positano. But if it were me, I would arrange for a driver to take the family from Pompei to Positano.