Carryon wheeled luggage in Italy!
 

We will be travelling through Italy using trains, Rome,Sorrento, Florence and Venice in April.(With day trips from these cites.)
We plan to bring canyon only.
Question : Would the wheels be OK on the cobbles to and from the stations when walking to our accommodation ?
Thanks
We will be posting local itinerary , train and museum questions later. We have just finished the outlines, accommodations and flights , we are going on to the UK.
Now comes the day to day details so we can get the most from our trip.

Probably just noisy. The bridges in Venice are a bigger problem.

Cobblestones are getting to be relatively rare in western Europe and generally there are sidewalks that are smooth. Even if there are cobblestones, what is the alternative--carrying the suitcases?

By all means get the best quality wheeled bags as possible. The wheels take a beating on the cobbles as well as bumping up and down stairs in railroad stations.

Your trip sounds great!

Anyway, what is the worst that can happen; the wheels break and you have to carry the bag?

Yes, cobblestones can be a PIA with wheeled luggage - esp if you have luggage with poor quality wheels. But the other choice (carrying everything) is even worse.

I travel with only a wheeled carry on. Yes a problem on cobbles -- BUT since it is only carry on sized, IF I do hit a patch of rough/cobbled pavement, I simply pick it up and carry it. Easy peasy.

I love my IT 4 wheeled luggage because it is so light, 4.5 lbs so if I have to carry it it is easy.

It depends on what the paths to and from the station consist of and the type of wheels on your luggage. Some places have smoother surface than others. Other places have longer distances. No simple answer. For example, look at this street in Florence. www.google.com/maps/@43.7734329,11.2480195,21z. Use google street map to see the street surface. This picture was taken last year. This kind of streets give major jolts to the wheels when with the best quality large two wheelers. If you are using a quad-wheel spinner with much smaller wheels, it would be worse.

I prefer two-wheeled luggage when walking on stone-paved streets in Italy. The four-wheeled suitcases are fine on very smooth surfaces, but not on stone paving. I really wouldn't want to carry any suitcase for more than a block or so, and in Italy, the stone paving can last for a good deal more than that. In my town, all the streets in the historic center have stone paving.

Cobblestones are a particular type of stone, which is not very common in Italy, but you'll find lots of other types of stone paving.

Get wheels that are hard plastic, not the rubber coated. The rubber coated can peel off.

I use one wheeled suitcase and one duffle bag that I can attach to the suitcase. We then both carry a backpack. The nice thing about packing the duffle bag is it holds just as much as the suitcase especially using compression bags. Packing light is important when traveling in Europe. The cobblestones are hard on the wheels on the luggage. If you want to see pictures of how I pack for Europe go to http://winenchocolate.com/packing-ca...eeks-in-italy/

Since you are going to Italy, not other places in Western Europe, you will encounter plenty of walking surfaces that will make it hard to keep your rolling luggage tipping off balance, whatever the stones underfoot are called and whether you have the kind of luggage you drag behind you or spinners. It's only if you go to only the most touristy places, where they have smoothed out the ancient streets for tourists, you won't have this happen.

If you don't mind looking unstylish, backpacks are easier unless you can't use them for physical reasons.

We always use two-wheeled carryon luggage when we travel. We were in Rome recently and walked about 1/4 mile from Termini station to our hotel with no problems. However, a friend who had a spinner case had a lot more trouble with it, especially keeping it under control going up and down curb cuts.

I use wheeled luggage in Italy on stone streets, but not spinners. I used to use back packs, but that was before wheeled luggage.

Wow, vacationlady! That's at least 5 times what I pack for a trip, whether it's 2 or 8 weeks. NOT what I call "packing light," but if it works for you, that's great.

As long as you can lift the suitcase for at least short periods, as needed, you'll be fine.

Remember you need to get them up steep, narrow steps to board a train, stuff like that.

No kidding! Vacationlady, that stack of 3 suitcases doesn't really look like "carryon" to me. They really let you on the plane with all that?

As Happytourist said above, spinner bags are OK in places like airports, with smooth pavements. However, the small wheels don't do so well on rougher pavements, and the caster mechanism is prone to failure.

Backpacks are a total curse, particularly for other travellers. There seems to be a certain myopia that develops once a back pack is hoisted, the wearer becoming oblivious to the people around them.

In Venice, there are signs on the vaps advising that backpacks should be carried, not worn. For good reason.

That was for both VL and her DH, I think, so two bags each, not so bad as it looks stacked up. A backpack and duffle for one and a carry-on size suitcase and backpack for the other. The backpacks looked a little big, but the duffle looked like a small one, considering it was attached to carry-on size bag.

I hate backpacks and don't want to pull or carry much around, so I check whatever I want and carry a small tote with the essentials. I leave room in the suitcase for the tote, so never dealing with more than one thing. I did two smaller bags and a purse once. Big pia, never again!

DH likes his spinner - in airports. So it is fine for trips by air, no streets. After using it once on streets, I don't like it. Two, big, sturdy hard wheels does it for me.

It is interesting how many people going to Europe still think "backpack" as in "backpacking Europe." Before we had wheels on luggage, and you had to carry suitcases everywhere anyway, backpacks for traveling to lots of places made sense.
Of course backpacks are still necessary for traveling in areas without sidewalks, hiking, camping, etc.
However, once they put real wheels on luggage, and you didn't have to carry it, I have never seen the need for pounds on my back in towns and cities.

OTOH, the best is what works for the individual.