Help! Trying to plan a Girlfriend Trip to Italy
 

I am trying to plan a girlfriends trip to Italy for three and having a difficult time figuring out the itinerary. We are traveling about 10 to 11 days in April 2017 and want to cover as much ground as possible. We are all in our ages 30s to 40s and single. We want to do the normal sight-see historic stuff, but also enjoy shopping, food, nightlife, beaches and meet people.

The places we would like to go and what I have gathered so far:

Flying from Los Angeles, CA into Venice.
Fly into Venice (2 day)
Florence (1 day)
Naples (day trip to Capri) (1 day)
Tuscany(1 day)
Almalfi Coast (2 days)
Cinque Terre (possible day trip from one of the other places?)
Rome (3 days)

Help! Is this possible. What places are not really necessary to go? Are there places I can get to easily from the the other without staying in a hotel overnight? What's the best way travel? Would I need to fly after I get to Venice or just when I get to Rome back home? Any other suggestions on where to go? Any suggestions on where we may not really want to go that's on the list? Should I spend more time in any of the other places than what I have next to each one?

Any help or assistance with this would be appreciated. Thanks!

Tina

You are flitting all over the place, and haven't taken into account the time it takes to get from one place to another. Take a look at a map of Italy and pick up a guidebook or two. Going from Florence to Naples to Tuscany (Florence is IN Tuscany) to the Amalfi Coast makes absolutely no sense at all, which the map will make clear to you. Think in terms of nights, not days - for example, you can't get from Venice to Florence in a day and have any time at ALL in Florence if you're planning to zoom to Naples the next day - simply impossible.
Pick two places, like Venice and Tuscany, or Rome and the Amalfi coast, and call it a day. Beaches in April won't be ideal - pretty, possibly, but certainly not a typical "beach scene." You need to do further research, scrap this idea, and start over.

Yes, you are jumping all over. Travel in a straight line, say into Venice and out of Rome, Florence on the way. That's a minimum of rail travel, only 2 hotel changes, day trip possibilities in each location.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Venice

http://wikitravel.org/en/Florence

http://wikitravel.org/en/Rome

Okay @StCirq I will do that. I tried looking at one map, but, some places just look like their on top of one another. Not necessarily inside of each other. Thanks.

<<ome places just look like their on top of one another.>>

You need to learn to read maps, then. Every map has a scale, usually noted at the bottom right. As in 1 inch = 25 kms or such. What it "looks like" doesn't tell you much until you know how to do the calculations. It's quite simple, though, really.

April is a great time to go, but it will not be beach weather.

You will fly into Venice and home from Rome - perfect.
Venice is great for a start because it is a relaxing way to get over jet lag.

Use trains between places in Italy.
They are easy to use, comfortable, efficient, cheap if you book ahead, relaxing and go city center to city center.

You have 10-11 days. Does that include travel time from LA? Even one day can make a difference in what you can do.

It is very important that you allow for travel time from place to place. Count time getting from your hotel to the train station, time on train to the next destination and time getting from the train station to your next hotel.

Lots of ways to do it, but lay your trip out to include travel and nights. Two nights in a place gives you 1 full day and part of another. You can see you will not have time for everything on your list. There will be history, shopping and things to do everywhere. Which you decide to keep is up to you.

Day 1, depart LA
Day 2, arrive Venice, 1/2 day in Venice
Day 3, Venice, 1 full day
Day 4, travel to Florence, 1/2 day in Florence
Day 5, day trip tour (countryside/hill town, Tuscany)
Day 6, Florence, 1 full day
Day 7, travel to Amalfi Coast/Naples area, long travel day, arrive mid-afternoon
Day 8, Capri or ferry down the AC?
Day 9, Pompeii?
Day 10, travel to Rome, 1/2 day in Rome
Day 11, Rome, 1 full day
Day 12, Rome, 1 full day
Day 13, depart for home.

This is really fast paced and short changes Rome, but it is doable with the extra day or two.
Will post a slightly different plan later.

You have way too many cities planned for this trip.
As previously stated you need to build time to get to
each place.

for 10 days I would choose 3 cities at the max

Both Venice and Florence need at least 3 alone!

Given that it is April you will likely prefer to be more in the towns than the country. Even so if Tuscany was say Siena you might like it a lot and the plants will be budding and green so the drive will be pleasant. I'd include Tuscany in this trip

I would re jig with 2 nights as a min in every place and I would stay in the north rather than truck down to Naples unless you really have a thing for volcanoes

One thing, in Italy, it is perfectly normal for a woman sitting in a cafe by herself to be chatted to by a man, this does not mean he is "on-the-pull" it merely means he is being courteous within his culture. Three women, of course is a "challenge" :-)

Sorry - you are bouncing around like a pingpong ball. Agree that you need:

A decent map of Italy on which you can read distances (either online or just get a Michelin map from Amazon or whatever)

To check out actual travel times from one place to another (go to bahn.de which has train schedules for all of europe to see travel times, then add 2 hours to that, one of pack, check out and get from hotel to train station and one to do the reversse when you arrive)

IMHO to really see much of anyhting you need to spend:

Venice 3 nights (2.5 days and the first half day is jet lagged)

Florence 4 nights (3 days, either 1 in Florence and 2 in Tuscan towns or the reverse)

Rome 4 nights (3 days, one for Vaticam one for ancient Rome and one for everything else)

This may already be more days than you have - so I would strongly suggest you either add days to the trip or drop one day from Florence.

While the Amalfi Coast is charming April is too cold for the sea, pools are closed and you can sightsee but this is not the summer AC you are thinking of (days relaxin on the beach or by the pool, visiting Isla of Capri, touring Pompeii,etc).

Now you may decide that you prefer the AC to the Renaissance Florence and that's fine - but that means you substitute one for another - not just spend one day in each.

This will be a quite expensive tip - time and money - and trying to squash 20 pounds of stuff into a 5 pound bag is not going to solve the problem.

I would identify YOUR must dos in each place to help you decide which places you do not want to miss and how much time you must allow. And do drop the idea of beach time, it's just too cold that time of year (some people oddly believe Italy is tropical, rather than temperate in climate).

I huge thank you to everyone. This gives me a starting point and an idea of what is feasible in that amount of time. Whoo hooo Italy here I come!

Is May or June better for beach weather? I would really hate to miss the Almafi Coast.

Yes June would be better for beach weather but late June would really be best. September is a great time for beach because the weather is right but the families have left, the crowds thin. September is beautiful.

I agree with Limmy, only that in late June it can be very, very hot, something like 40 degrees.
September is the most beautifull month, the weather is very nice, you can go to the beach (it is not full of people!) and there are less tourists...

Temperatures of 40 degrees would be rare at the seaside anywhere in Italy, even in July and August.

TQuilter <<Is May or June better for beach weather? I would really hate to miss the Amalfi Coast.>>

No matter what months, do not go to the Amalfi Coast for beaches! Most are pebbles or even large rocks with platforms for sunning or diving. Just want to make sure you do not expect anything even remotely close to beaches in Florida or the Caribbean! People do swim in the sea, lots of times diving off boats. Sandy beaches are very, very small and there are few of them.

Look at pictures. The AC is all about the scenery, several beautiful towns like Positano, enjoying the views from boats or the balcony or terrace of your hotel, relaxing with food or a drink. Hiking is popular and visiting the nearby archeological sites are great excursions. If you want a beach, you must go further North.