Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Final exams AND Italy planning at once? Ahhh!

It's the middle of exam week at my college, and I just realized I'll be flying to Italy in two weeks! Two weeks! After two *years* of waiting until we had enough money saved and a period of time without school or internships, my boyfriend and I are *finally* going to Italy! Ahh! If only I could just focus on a pile of guide books and NOT the pile of textbooks beside my computer!

Anyway, before we go, I thought I’d post our itinerary/trip info to get some last-minute feedback from the knowledgeable Fodors forum :-)

Background: We’re both college students (20 and 21 years old). He’s never left the country before; I’ve lived abroad a few times, including 3 years in Rome—that makes me the “knowledgeable guide,” which has me a little nervous! ;-) He is most interested in archaeology; I am most interested in art.

Itinerary:

Fly from Philly to London Gatwick, then from Gatwick to Rome with an 8-hour stopover. We’ll catch the train into London, catch a train to Brighton, or hang out at the airport, depending on how tired/jet lagged we are.

8 days/9 nights in Rome- This is the heart of our trip. We’ll be staying with a friend of mine in EUR (yes, far from the sights- but free!). We would like to balance seeing the tourist sights with visiting my friends and seeing a few of my “personal” sites (my old school, my favorite bar, favorite market, favorite bread shop, favorite gelato- etc). I lived in Rome longer than I’ve lived anywhere else, so I am very sentimental about the city. We’ll also be making a daytrip to Pompeii to meet up with some friends, and we are toying with daytrips to Ostia and Tivoli.

4 days/4 nights in Sicily- This is the “adventurous excursion” part of our trip. We’re flying into Palermo from FCO (we were able to get a student rate that was cheaper than the ferry, and we booked before Trenitalia advertised the 15 Euro sale). We’re also splurging to rent a car, since we have so little time. We’ll be covering new ground for both of us, as I have only been to Sicily once and stayed primarily on the eastern half of the island (the military base in Sigonella). This time I’ll get to see part of the west; we’ll be basing ourselves in Sciacca (at Verdetechnica) and would like to see Agrigento, Segesta, and Selinunte. We are also interested in Erice and beaches, although we are trying to plan this segment very loosely so we can see how much time we have and what we feel like doing when we get there.

Fly Ryanair from Palermo to London Stanstead. We have a 24-hour stopover before we fly Gatwick-Philadelphia, during which we’ll be staying in a hostel and catching a glimpse of London (which we would like to explore thoroughly on our next trip to Europe!).

Our round trip Philadelphia/London airfare was $415 after taxes, which is why we chose to fly through there instead of directly to Rome (which was hundreds of dollars more!).

So . . . suggestions about our itinerary? Anything we’re overlooking? I know it is short, but at this stage in our lives it is all we can afford (both in terms of budget and the amount of time we have between when classes end and summer internships begin). Suggestions for how to make the most of a very brief stopover in London? Suggestions for guidebooks that go onto a PDA? We have a paper copy Oxford Archaeological Guide to Rome for the old stuff in Rome, but we haven’t purchased anything else yet- we’re still browsing (we’ve planned from some of my older books, but I think their info may be outdated). We would really love to get a good electronic version to minimize what we have to carry.

I look forward to any feedback you can provide! I feel like I am going to forget or overlook something- or like there is something I should be asking that I haven’t thought of yet!

-Liz