bulldawgz13

We are starting to focus on 5 or 6 days in Paris and then 7 to 10 days in Italy. We really are loving the idea of going to some BIG cities, but venturing to small towns, so I suppose that is kind of our "vacation style". We for sure want to take in the french countryside and definitly prefer to rent an apartment while in Paris. Any suggestions for a reasonable itenerary for Italy? We of course don't want to spend the whole time packing and unpacking and want to be reasonably realistic with travel time while in Italy. Again, thank you sooo much for all of your advise!

nessundorma

I suggest you concentrate on Roma and then, depending on your personal interests, focus either on Tuscany or the Napoli/Pompeii/Amalfi area. Autumn can be a particularly nice time in Tuscany, when the harvest is in. You could leave Roma for Orvieto by train, and then pick up a rental car, tour some smaller towns, drop of the car in Firenze and fly out of Pisa.

If you are extremely interested in Italy, Italian culture and Italian history, Napoli and Pompeii are incomparable adventures. You could top of your trip with a a few days on the Amalfi coast or in Capri. The Amalfi coast is touristy, however, so you might have to choose carefully if you want to avoid that.

People will surely try to persuade you to go to Venezia, but I think the distance you need to go means sacrificing detail for broadbrush, and you should save it for another trip and enjoy a much more geographically compact area, and get to know it.

harrowgirl

My husband and I travelled to Europe in September (September 2 through September 25)of 2005. Our itinerary was as follows:

4 nights London
4 nights Paris
4 nights Venice
3 nights Florence
3 nights Sorrento
4 nights Rome

I thought this was a good amount of time in each city - could have spent more in London, Paris and Rome, but 4 nights gave us a good taste and enough time to see the major highlights without being too rushed.

A good 16 day itinerary (assuming you are including your first and last travel days in the 16) might be:

5 nights London (gives you 4 1/2 days)
5 nights Paris (gives you 4 1/2 days)
5 nights Rome (gives you 4 1/2 days)
and one swing day to add to any of the above.

Or you could do 4 nights per city and add one more city.

bob_brown

Why the zeal to visit only cities?
Other than a few of them, Paris, London, Vienna, Berlin, they bore me after a while.

bulldawgz13

I certainly do not have any zeal to visit only cities...we know we for sure want to see Paris and want to see what we can of Italy in 10 days whether its cities or small towns, etc! We actually definitly do not want to visit only cities and really want to see a lot of the country side...all within reason of course bc while we would love to have 4-6 weeks to travel, we are limited to just a couple!