First Trip to Italy!
 

We are hoping to plan a spring or fall 08 trip to Italy, we've never been to Europe and we are looking for prices and ideas for our plans. HELP!

You should probably check a guide book first to get an idea of things that appeal to you.

If that is not feasible, maybe you could let us know your interests (art, history, nature, food, etc.) and whether this will be a tight budget (and what that means to you), middle of the road, or maybe even a splurge the sky's the limit trip.

How many days? What kind of budget (hotel prices, etc)? How many people per room?

Here's where you should start:

http://www.bobthenavigator.homestead.com/

10 days is perfect for the beautiful Italilan trifecta of Venice/Florence/Rome. My husband and I did this trip in March and it was perfect timing and didn't feel too hurried. It went roughly like this:

Fly into Venice for 3 nights.
Rent car in Venice (driving on the autostrada is surprisingly easy in Italy- it's the tiny roads in the "city centers" that can get a bit tricky though).
Drive to Florence for 3 nights/2 days.
Drive to Rome for 3 nights via all those gorgeous hilltop towns in Umbria (and don't forget to stop and do the factory tour at Gracia in Deruta- the oldest of the cermic factories and they are happy to give a free tour).
Drop the car off at the Rome airport (so you don't have to drive in Rome at all!) and take the train in to the city center from the airport.
Depart Rome.
HAVE FUN!!!

p.s. we did a (long!) day trip from Rome to Pompeii, but only because we'd been to Rome before. Up to you if you want to add on that trip south toward Naples.

Other than that- those 3 big cities is a LOT to see in 10 days. Definitely save Lake Como/Belaggio for another trip- it deserves savoring. Same goes for the Amalfi Coast.