First trip to Italy sept 2012...please help with itinerary
 

Hello all. My husband and I will be traveling to Italy the middle of September 2012 for a wedding just outside of Florence. We have never traveled to Italy and could really use some help planning an itinerary for a 10 day trip. We are not really worried about budgets too much as this will possibly be our last trip to Europe for awhile so we want to enjoy as much as we can. All suggestions welcome! Thank you!

Maybe I should add that we love sightseeing, beaches, wine and food,music and culture

If you're serious about beaches you need to start with that to build the trip. Many beaches it Italy aren;t - pebbles or even small stones, narrow and with water that just sort of sits there - hardly any waves.

So if you want to spend some time on a nice beach you should start there and then build. (Although I find beaches in general in europe to be so poor versus what I'm used to (Long Island/NY - not the perfect carib island) that I just don;t do beaches there except for a day on the way from one place to another. So I prefer to do what you can do only in Italy - history, art, culture, food and wine.

jersygrl,

You need to tell us how much time out of your 10 days must be dedicated to the wedding and exactly where "outside Florence" the wedding will be held.

The wedding location is the Castello Di Vincigliata in Fiesole-Firenze, Italy

The wedding is on a friday and we will be attending the rehearsal dinner on Thursday nite. I'm assuming we will arrive in Italy on Wednesday and have wedding stuff thurs, Friday, and Saturday morning. From then on we would love to do some traveling.

How close is lake Como and the Italian riviera area?

You have plenty of time to plan. Suggest you read a guide book or two to see what may interest you.
Come back to Fodors after you have educated yourself somewhat.
Hope to see you again.

Maybe arrive a day or so earlier so you can recover from jet lag and, if you fly overnight, sleepiness. I can imagine you falling asleep at a long, wine-fueled Italian rehearsal dinner.

Are you flying into Pisa? If you want to go to the Italian Lakes, look for a return flight out of Milan. Pisa works for the Cinque Terre. Or are you looking at farther norther on the Italina Riviera?

Another thought is training to Venice after the wedding and flying out of there. Or ditto Rome.

Flying into one city, out of another is called an open-jaws ticket -- or multi-city on the airline websites. It costs about the same as a round-trip ticket and saves the time and money you'd spend backtracking to your arrival airport.

Your villa is just up the hill from the center of Florence

Day 1- Wed - arrive Italy - Florence/Fiesole
Day 2- Thu - rehearsal dinner - Florence/Fiesole
Day 3- Fri - wedding - Florence/Fiesole
Day 4- Sat - last bits of wedding fun in morning, then . . .
Day 5- Sun
Day 6- Mon
Day 7- Tue
Day 8- Wed
Day 9- Thu - (must be positioned near outgoing airport by this evening)
Day 10- Fri - fly home

Do I have this outlined correctly? Do you arrive in Italy on Day 1 (or Day 2)? Do you travel home on Day 10? If yes, as you can see you have about 5 days to apportion to your other locations. And each time you change hotel locations, you will probably use about half a day doing so (checking in and out, traveling, waiting at stations).

I agree you don't want to go to Italy for beaches so much. You could either go to le Cinque Terre and hike along the spectacular coast for three nights. Or Venice, with side trips to nearby locations like Ravenna or Bologna, or north into the mountains.

Both Lake Como and the Italian Riviera area are a half day trip from Florence. One thought is to set aside Sunday for Florence if you haven't had a chance to spend time there earlier and then to travel either to Cinque Terre or Lake Como for the remaining 4/5 days. Personally, I would spend the time in Venice.

There are in fact some terrific beaches in the south of Tuscany near Grossetto. you could do a very interesting and enjoyable trip driving down via Siena, a couple or three nights on the coast, then back up to Florence [or Pisa] or carrying on down to Rome to fly home.

We were just in Cinque Terre, staying the nights of Sept 29th and 30th in Riomaggiore, and the weather was extraordinary. It was in the high 70s and sunny, and we regretted not packing our swimsuits into our daypacks on the day we hiked the trail. There are wonderful places to swim in Vernazza, and lovely sandy beach areas in Monterossa. The water was so clear and inviting (and all we could do was wade!)