nitishraj

Hi,

I'm planning for our Honeymoon to Italy in the month of Feb 2014. We are from India and are planning a 11/12 days trip.

The places we plan to cover are Venice, Rome, Florence, Tuscany, Amalfi Coast etcc..

Our Budget including travel within Italy(Not from India) , Food, Stay is about 1800 Euros per person. Since it is our Honeymoon, we would like to stay in reasonablly good hotels.

Can you pls suggest an itinierery, hotels and how we proceed on our honeymoon. Also if you can suggest some good Honeymoon packages and operators which will fit our budget...

Thanks...Nitish

jamikins

Congrats on your upcoming wedding!

With 11 - 12 days you can only realistically see 3 places in my opinion. You need to factor in travel time - finding your hotel, checking in, then checking out, getting to the train station, waiting for the train, travelling, re-finding your hotel etc...we always budget about 1/2 day lost to this every time we move. You have listed 5 places - which will eat up about 2.5 of your days in just travel alone, leaving you will little time to even see the places you are visiting.

Also, every time you move you greatly increase your costs. You have approx. €300 a day as it is to get your hotel, train tickets, food, sites etc, which isnt much so trying to move around so much will eat a lot of your budget.

With 11-12 days I would pick your top 3 places and focus on those to give you a chance to actually see the places you are visiting. You could plan a very nice trip flying into Venice, then moving to Florence (which is in Tuscany) and spending a few days there with a day trip to say Siena to see the countryside, then heading to Rome and flying home from there after your last few days.

Any more than that and you will spend most of the time on a train or running to and from the train/hotels.

As much as I love Amalfi, it take quite a bit of travel to get there so I would personally drop that. If you want to keep that then I would drop probably Venice and fly into Naples and home from Rome.

Good luck!

stevewith

In February, you could encounter enough bad weather in Italy to make it hard to visit some of your destinations. It is best to travel between cities and use the trains, which will be running all the time. In other places, where you need a car or a boat or a bus, you might not be able to get there (or get out of there!) if the weather is very bad.

You might not like being on a package tour for your honeymoon, and most of them will cost you more money and give you worse hotels than if you find your own hotels and buy your own train tickets. Train tickets in Italy can be extremely inexpensive if you book in advance. Bed'and'breakfasts are often much more charming and romantic than hotels.

I think your per person budget is quite enough money for 11 days. You can even afford to go on some guided walks in each city if you would like that, or hire a driver for a day from Florence if the weather is nice to see the wine country in Tuscany.

But is best to plan a trip where you reserve hotels in cities and travel between them by train. You should either begin in Venice and fly out of Rome or the other way around. In February, there is sometimes the Carnival (dates change every year) so find out when that is because it could affect your plans.

nytraveler

I think you need to reconsider your itinerary based on a couple of things:

Amalfi Coast does not make sense. A beach resort in winter - with many hotels and restaurants closed, ferries running on meager schedules or not at all and not a lot to do based on weather - is IMHO just a wate of time.

Tuscany you would need to do by car and again, the countryside is not very pleasant in midwinter. You can certainly see a couple of the hill towns - but need to determine if you are comfortable driving on roads that may be icy or snowy.

You are much better off in cities where things are open - and bad weather doesn;t matter quite as much. You may not get any snow - but 40s (F) and raining still requires winter clothing and won't be alot of fun being outdoors.

Separately, you are trying to stuff a large number of places into very few days. And since it is off season many sights will be open shorter hours - often 9 am to only 1 or 2 pm versus all day - so you need to allow more time in each city to see the same number of things as you would in season.

Suggest you study some guide books and pick 3 cities only - so you are not rushing around in bad weather - rather than having a relaxing time. (If it were me I would wait until May, so you can do outdoor cafes and experience la dolce vita - versus trying to make the best of potentially very bad weather.

nitishraj

Dear Jamikins, nytraveler and stevewith,

Thank You all for your detailed responses and i really appreciate your time and efforts...Thanks again..!!!

I did not reply all this while as i was writing for my wedding date to be finalized and finally its done. The wedding is on Feb 1st.

Also considering all factors have dropped Italy off my list. I have my sister too who lives in Dusseldorf Germany and i plan to visit her too during my Honey Moon visit.

So now my revised plan is as follows :

5th Feb - Arrive in Dusseldorf ..stay uptil 7th (Pls suggest places to see in and around on 6th and 7th)

8th Feb - Plan to leave for Switzerland by Train...Pls suggest some key/ important places to see for 3 days (dont want it too tight as its my honeymoon)...Also please suggest good Hotels to stay. My budget is 300 Euros per day including Food and accomodation.

12th Feb - Plan to leave for Salzburg, Austria and stay for two days...I have a friends accommodation there...so only need to see around and if you could recoomend some important places.

15th Feb - leave back to Dusseldorf and on 16th or 17th - Fly back to India....

Would be really thankful for your views and advices....

Thanks again,
Nitish