3 Weeks in Italy--Input Needed!
 

My husband and I are planning a trip to Italy for next year. We are considering the last 3 weeks of September, We are open to any time of year, as we are retired--but would prefer not to leave home in the summer. This will be our first time in Italy, although not our first trip to Europe.
Our style of travel is pretty laid back, we enjoy wandering the streets, exploring the lovely churches. and visiting a few of the most "improtant" museums. (my husband is not a huge museum fan) We especially appreciate beautiful architecture and love to visit any market!
We really enjoyed our several train trips to smaller towns outside London and Paris this year, and are hoping to do the same in Italy.
We are having difficulty in deciding how much time in which cities! Certainly, we want to spend a few days in Rome--maybe 5-7?? We are also thinking of Florence. Venice is a must, with a side trip to Murano, as I am a glass artist. We are planning on a "open-jaw" internary, so as to not spend time and money backtracking.
We prefer apartments over hotels (we LOVED our apartment in Paris this year!) We travel on a pretty strict budget--around 120 Euros. per night for an apartment. (Less is even better!)

We are open to a few days (maybe 3) renting a car, but really prefer train travel.

We have been to the library and book store and read many guide books, but they make everything sound wonderful--and we just can't do it all in 3 weeks.

Whew! Hope this is not too long winded, any input from veteran Italy travelers is greatly appreciated. It's hard to know where to start!
Thanks!

We have stayed here in Venice and enjoyed it:
http://realvenicevacationflats.com/
The web site is a bit out of date, so the costs may be different. The owner is in San Francisco, and she's good to deal with.

I wrote a little about Venice - it is here:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...st-verbose.cfm

We spent three weeks in Italy a couple of years ago:
Venice - six nights
Verona - two nights
Como - two nights
Florence - four nights
Assisi - three nights
Rome - four nights

It worked well for us, except that Como was very "flat" in January.
We went back again, and spent about eight weeks in Venice, and will go again this november for another eight weeks.

We rather like venice!

For some really fine glassware, you might look at glassware made by Carlo Moretti. It is very special, and the showroom is near San Marco. We've spent the odd euro there, and treasure the glasses.

http://www.lisola.com/

Lucky you having three weeks to spend in Italy. :-)

Assuming you indeed have 21 full sightseeing days, one way to spend them might be:

-Venice, 3 days
-Florence, 5 days
-Pisa, 1 day (can be a day trip from Florence)
-Siena, 1 day (can be a day trip from Florence)
-Rome, 5 days
-Tivoli, 1 day (can be a day trip from Rome)
-Naples, 2 days
-Pompeii/Herculaneum, 1 day
-Amalfi coast/Capri and such, 2 days

Have not been south of Rome, so the suggested times for Naples/Pompeii/Herculaneum/Amalfi/Capri is a guess based on research I've done.

Feel free to adjust as you wish.

I would suggest fewer apartment/hotel changes than the previous posters.

Arrive Venice, spend 5 nights, 4 full days. This allows for lots of time to visit Murano, the Glass Museum, the glass shops in Venice, other Venice sights and architecture and still keep a laid-back pace. (FYI, most of the glass demonstrations on Murano only occur in the morning.) If you wanted to make a day-trip out of the city, Padova or even Ferrara are easily reached by train.

Train to Florence, spend 5 nights, 4 full days. Day trips to Pisa/Lucca, Siena/San Gimignano or Bologna are easy by train or bus. IMO, exploring just the major sights of Florence at a casual pace could easily take 3 days.

Train to Perugia, spend 5 nights, 4 full days. Perugia is the center of a great network of public transportation to all of Umbria, making Umbria IMO a little easier to explore without a car than Tuscany.

Train to Rome for the remainder of your time. Day-trips to Tivoli, Hadrian's Villa, Ostia Antica, Orvieto if you must.


An alternate idea would be to skip Perugia/Umbria and spend that time at one of the lakes before heading to Florence and then Rome. Staying at mid-Lake Como (generally Varenna, Bellagio, Menaggio) would give you a base for exploring the entire lake by ferry and even day-tripping to Lugano, Bergamo or Milan on public transportation.

I think that Jean has made some very good suggestions there! Three weeks, three places - is good.

The lovely thing about staying longer in fewer places is that you get to know people a little bit. You have the time to go to places twice, discover a favourite bar.

If you are going to Murano to watch glass being worked, it is really worth doing some research, to discover a place where high end glass is made. Venini, places like that.

There is an awful lot of glass being made on Murano, the sad corollary to that is that there is a lot of awful glass being made on Murano.

Hello vacation Queen, I can't wait to get back to Italy someday, and hope that whatever you decide you will love Italy-it's hard not to, especially when you have that much time to explore and soak up the culture. So, I would split three weeks between Florence, Venice and Rome and side trip from there. I would suggest staying in a smaller town near Florence for a few days, but I think without a car this will be most convenient. On our first trip to Italy, we day three days each in Venice, Vernazza in the Cinque Terre, Florence, Rome, Sorrento, and one day in Pompeii/Naples. For us, this was pretty rushed. Even in the cities where three days was enough time to see everything, I felt like we were always on the go, and packing and unpacking too often. The next time we went, we spent four days in Spello in Umbria, 4 in Siena with several Tuscany sidetrips, and another 4 back in Venice (we love Venice:). We found this to be much more relaxed. If you need specific Rome, Venice, and Florence tips, I would be glad to look back at our photos and try to recall...this was in the pre-blog days:)

Hi...boy, this is great. Yes, we are going on a company trip with over 150 other Americans and staying in Provence for 5 nights then, thought we would rent a car and go to Florence for 2 night, then train to Rome for 2 nights, then fly out after that...shorter time...but wanted to see Italy too while we were there...any thoughts on car rentals? From Nice to Florence? Little B& B's...yes, we bought the books too. Thanks all.

Sandra, you should start a new thread so as not to 'hijack' thevacationqueen's thread about a completely different sort of trip.

Wow! Thanks so much for all the great ideas. Peter-- I enjoyed your trip report. And I'm sure you are right about some awful glass in Murano, although I'm hoping to see some wonderful glass work AND take a class and/or tour.

At this point we are a few weeks away from making our reservations, so we are still considering all our options!