16 day Trip to italy april/may 2014
 

After 5 years of researching, planning and reading hundreds of posts and reviews we have set our dream trip to Italy .Any comments or idea's for restaurants at any of the locations and or places to see in Tuscany/Rome/Positano would be a help,
Thanks to all of the current and past posters we got a lot of info>>>>
Itinerary: Fly into Milan from the US transfer to Varenna for 2 nights, Staying at Albert Milano hotel. Train to Bologna for one night so we can take the Italian days tour the next day. Rent car in Bologna and drive to the Tuscany area. Staying at villa outside of Buonconvento for 5 nights,4 days of leisure. We plan to drive one day east ,west north and south.?? Then we drop car off at Chiusi train station and train into Rome for 4 nights.2 days of leisure and one day to tour ancient Rome and one day to tour the Vatican .Then we train to Naples and transfer to positano for 4 nights, During transfer which we go to Pompeii and Paestum and return thru the Amalfi coast . 2 days of leisure and a boat trip to see the Amalfi Coast from the water.
Return to Naples and fly home.

Your time was well spent figuring out this itinerary.

You're smart to stop for 4 nights @ Buonconvento and recharge. It's in a quiet area, but on a main north-south highway south of Siena. Day trips should be good.

I would suggest you visit the very popular hilltop city of Orvieto and return your rental car (Hertz) at the train station. It's a very easy drive from your villa to Orvieto, and you'll then be less than 90 minutes out of Rome Termini.

While in Paestum, do consider making time for the museum -- it has some unique and quite wonderful artifacts.

Enjoy!

If I understand correctly, you're planning to see Pompeii and Paestum on the same day. I think this is too much for a single day. It's also not clear, but it seems that you want to do this on your way from Rome to Positano. (You said you'd visit these places during your transfer, but I don't know if you meant during your four days in Positano, or during the actual trip to Positano.)

You can stop at Pompeii if you take the Circumvesuviana from Naples to Sorrento; they will hold your luggage while you visit the site. However, I'd leave Rome very early if you want to do that, because Pompeii is a large site, and you'll still have a fairly long trip to Positano afterwards.

You can easily visit Paestum from Positano by taking the bus or a boat to Salerno and getting the train from there. It's not a large site, but you should definitely visit the museum, which isn't large, but very interesting.

Bamaman,thanks I look into changing the drop

bvlenci , we are doing Paestum on the way to positano. We will have 2 hours there so we will do the museum ,thanks for the advise. We plan to do Pompeii on one of our days of leisure in positano.