7 days in Italy
 

I will be 7 days in Italy. I am looking at Rome Venice and Florence. Any recommendations of how many days per city?

I was in the same predictament as you were until I came across something different that made it better. We ended up staying 1 week in a place called, castello di Todi http://www.thekeytoitaly.com/Blog . We rented a car and found out that Rome and Florence was only 1.5 hrs each away... This is just an idea. It worked out for us!

Is this plan absolutely fixed? three is too many cities in too little time, IMHO. You could easily spend 7 in Rome all by itself and still feel you had missed more than 1/2...

Pick two. (I would pick Rome and Florence, but this decision would be further dicatated by your preference-art, architecture, food, shopping,cafe-people-watching, theatre,pubbing? opera? history?-well thats a given!)

I agree that seven days is too little time for three cities. Does that seven days also include travel days or will you have a full seven days to spend? Are you flying open jaw, i.e. into Rome and out of Venice? That might help you squeeze in all three cities in the full seven days. If you are flying in and out of Rome, I'd do four days Rome and three days Florence with a daytrip to Siena from Florence. If you are flying open jaw, I'd do three days Rome, two days Florence and two days Venice.

Hi T,

With only 7 days to do the Big 3, I suggest flying into Venice - 3 nights.

Taka an early train to Florence for the day.

You can store your luggage at Florence SMN.

Take an evening train to Rome - 3 nights.

A DAY IN FLORENCE:

Train to Florence SMN:
The Luggage Office is to your left as you leave the train.

From Piazza d' Stazione, walk up via Nazionale to via d'Ariento and the Mercato Centrale, wander through.

Take any street going NE to Via Degli Alfani and go right to the Accademia for The David.

Take via Ricasoli SE to the Duomo, the Baptistry and the Opera Museum (Originals of the bronzes on the doors)

From the Campanile, take via Calzaiuoli S (do some window shopping) to the Piazza d' Signoria. Look around, take a break.

Continue S to the Uffizi. Visit.

From the Uffizi, walk W along the Arno River to the Ponte Vecchio.

(You can walk up to the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens if there is time. Great views of Florence from the top of the Gardens)

If you have time, walk E along the S bank of the river to Ponte alle grazie and cross over to visit Santa Croce.

If not, go W along the Arno from Ponte Vecchio to Ponte S. Trinita and go right. Go left on Via d'Spada to via d'Fossi and go right to Santa Maria Novella. Look around.

SMN is across the square from the train station.

If you have time, take the no. 7 bus (you can find it at the SMN train station) up to Fiesole (0:20 hr 1E) to watch the sunset from the terrace of the Bar Bleu.

Be sure to have lots of gelato (in a cup, not a cone), take some wine breaks and a light lunch.

Train schedules, prices and tickets are at http://www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html
Call center from outside Italy is 39-06-68475475

Bus routes are at http://www.ataf.net/
Buy your ticket before you get on the bus. Stamp it in the yellow box on the bus.

Uffizi and Academia Museum Reservations
The easiest and cheapest way is to call Florence 1010987 (dial around number), 011 (U.S. international access code) 39 (Italy's country code) then 055-294-883 8:30-18:30 M-F and 8:30-12:00 Sat. Florence time. There is a long listing of press 1 for this and 2 for that--press 4 for bookings. You will get an English speaking operator and in 2-3 minutes YOU CAN RESERVE FOR BOTH. This is through the reservation service at the Uffizi and costs beyond the normal entry fee only about 3 euro for the service. This is MUCH cheaper than the commercial booking services.

You will not be charged for the reservations unless you use them.

Have a nice visit.

((I))