After so much agony, we've decided to do the following in oct 05 without a car:
4 nights in rome (day trip to orvieto)
2 nights in Sorrento (to see the amalfi coast, capri, ravello, positano)
5 nights in Florence, (day trip to Siena, CT, lucca)
2 nights in Venice
1 overnight in Rome before returning to Montreal

does this make sense? I know I am backtracking to go to Sorrento, but I really want to see Amalfi. Is there a better way to do it?

It absolutely makes sense. The trip can easily be done with trains and busses.
Have you made your plane reservations yet? If not, I suggest an "open jaw" ticket, into Rome and out of Venice, saving yourself the return to Rome. The ticket is likely to be about the same price.
Also, Cinque Terre is a long day trip and you couldn't possibly do Siena, CT and Lucca in one day if that is what you had in mind.

Hi meesa,

Quite doable.

A few suggestions:

Upon arrival at FCO continue on to Florence. This will allow you to go Florence - Venice - Sorrento - Rome without backtracking.

You can fly Venice/Naples on Alpieagles or take the train.

Drop the CT. It is out of your way, and you will already be seeing gorgeous scenery on the AC. You can add the time to Venice or Sorrento.

Have a great trip.

I was going to make the same suggestion as mamc re: open jaw tickets. The you can have anthoer night in Venice!

Not bad, but I think you could tweek a bit. I think your trip is just a bit too ambitious in terms of daytrips. Also agree that open jaws would be best but I haven't found them as easy to book as others.

Ok: 4 nights in rome (day trip to orvieto)
Seems ok to me; I don't like daytripping without a car so much, but if you do, this is a decent choice for a daytrip.


2 nights in Sorrento (to see the amalfi coast, capri, ravello, positano)

Way too ambitious. Skip a night and daytrip in Florence (definetly skip the CT as a daytrip) and add a night to this leg. It doesn't matter when this leg occurs, you still need to add a day. This area isn't as easy to access as some others. Train or plane to Naples, another train to Sorrento, boat to Capri. I also found the buses on the Amalfi Coast to be very unreliable.

An anecdote: we waited in Positano for over an hour for a scheduled bus to Amalfi. At the same bus stop were people trying to get to Sorrento. They had waited even longer than I had. Finally a van stopped to let some folks off at the bus stop, and four people there asked him to drive them to Sorrento, and pitched in to cover what he asked for. The bus still hadn't come for Sorrento when we left for Amalfi.

Then, I found bus and van rides in this area to be absolutely sickening. Cars were better. I took precautions and used motion sickness meds. Was still sick as a dog.

Boats were much better, and seemed to run on better schedules. October 5 should be ok. But I still think you are planning way too much for 2 days in Sorrento. If you only have two days, spend one on Capri and one in Sorrento. Or maybe hire a driver to take you from place to place. Very expensive. But we were glad we did it.

Lucca and Siena are decent daytrips from Florence.

I hope this helps, and it isn't meant to be discouraging. I just found accessing the Amalfi Coast to be more difficult than I had thought. I was really glad we had 5 nights there.

Also, you could base in Positano, where it is easier to daytrip from in terms of Amalfi and Ravello. Sorrento to Amalfi is a hike.