Hi,
I am going on a trip to Italy in May of 2007 for my 30th birthday. I have never been to Italy before. I am going for 10 days. There are so many places I want to see - Rome, Capri, Venice, Lake Como, Cinque Terre, Florence, Tuscany Region. There will be three of us and we would like to rent a car. Can anyone reccomend hotels, restaurants, how nights in different areas, cities to visit/not to visit, things to do & see, routes to take, everything & anything you can think of. I don't care if it is somewhere that I have mentioned I want to see or somewhere else.
Also, has anyone heard of a town/region called Gargano. My family is from there and I definitely would like to fit this in the itenerary.
Thanks,
Steph

I posted this twice. Sorry I didn't mean to do that.

Hi Z,

8 destinations in 10 days?

There are 5 Gargano's in Italy. Do you have more info?

Do you mean the Gargano peninsula in Puglia? I've never been there, but I've heard that it's beautiful. I've heard that people go there on hiking and photography trips, especially to see the wildflowers.

You are trying to squeeze in too many destination in 10 days. would you be willing to narrow your trip down drastically, maybe focusing on the Gargano peninsula, plus maybe Rome if you're flying in and out of there anyway, and maybe one other destination in southern Italy? Or would you be willing to skip Gargano for this trip and maybe just visit selected areas of central Italy (Florence plus some other parts of Tuscany) and then a few days in Venice?

For a 10-day trip, I'd definitely narrow it down to doing either northern Italy or southern Italy. Seems like yesterday but seven years ago I did a 10-day tour of northern Italy and am presently planning a trip to southern Italy in a couple of months. I'd highly recommend my northern Italy itinerary in which we didn't rent a car where we flew into Milan, train to Como, ferry to Bellagio (from where we took an impromptu day trip to Lugano, Switzerland) train back to Milan and onto Venice (my favorite place in the world), train to Florence, train to Cinque Terre and train to Milan where we got our return flight. It sounds like a lot of travel but we like that and found it relaxing and were able to see so many different places.

This trip, I'd like to fly in to Rome and do a trip south Amalfi coast area for a few days and then back to Rome and then head north into Tuscany for a few days since we bypassed it on our previous trip!

Good luck in your planning and Happy 30th when the time comes.