Strocky

Can anyone recommend an itinerary for a honeymoon in December? I know it will be cold, but I imagine we can still have a nice trip. We wanted to hit a few of the highlights in Italy (but keep it somewhat relaxed) and then head to Zermatt, Switzerland for the end of the trip.

Cicerone

How long is the trip, and what are the dates in December? Have either of you been to Italy before? Where are you flying in and out of, our can you still choose those cities? Do you have any "must see" cities in Italy? These would help to narrow the advice you get. December is find as long as you are preapared for it, but if you have 5 days versus 15 days, that makes a big difference.

Strocky

We would leave around December 11th for 2-3 weeks. We have never been to Italy before. We would fly from Denver, but we are not sure where to fly into/out of. Probably into Italy and out of Switzerland.

Cicerone

My general advice is that with 2 weeks, you don’t try to “do” more than 4 places, and with 3 weeks, not more than 6 places. What I mean is basing yourself in not more than 4-6 places, but you can do reasonable days trips, like San Gimignano from Florence, Verona from Venice, or Osita Antica from Rome (I don’t consider Pompeii to be a reasonable day trip from Rome, and don’t at all consider Florence to be a day trip destination from Rome, IMO Florence is a destination in itself.) Also this is a honeymoon, where you may want to relax more than move around a lot on a heavy sightseeing tour, so you may want to base yourself in even fewer places. (I could easily spend 7 days in Rome, but you may not want to.) A typical first time tour to Italy would most likely include Rome, Florence and Venice (not necessarily in that order, although Florence is in the middle, so to speak, and is an easy train ride between the two).

If you do indeed have 3 weeks, you could think about including other places like Bologna, the beautiful Alp areas of the Tyrol or the Dolomites (you don’t have to go all the way to Switzerland to see snowy Alps) or Milan, which IMO is great little city in the winter. While brown in December, I think the Tuscan countryside is beautiful always and definitely “worth” exploring on foot or by car for a few days. I would avoid coastal areas like the Amalfi coast or Cinque Terre or the Lake Como area which are really not going to be at their best in December (save those areas for an anniversary trip). Venice is not going to be perfect in December as you may not want to take many vaporetto or gondola trips in those colder temps, but Venice is really a great walking city with many excellent museums and churches, and so even in winter IMO is a good destination as long as you are dressed for it.

IMO Zermatt (and many mountain areas in Switzerland) is a little bit of a pain to get to from Italy unless you are prepared for a train ride of about 6 hours or more and several changes. Even if you fly to Geneva or Zurich from somewhere in Italy, you then have a 4 hour train ride, so adding in any flight time from say Venice to Geneva, to get to Zermatt is going to take you even longer than the train in most cases. There are some night trains, I am not a fan of these as I personally do not find them comfortable and don’t get any sleep on them (and some require changes in the middle of the night); however you may want to consider them. Go to rail.ch and look at schedules. So adding Zermatt to a trip to Italy is not always easy. However, Italy has beautiful Alps, and places like Cortina or Bolzano in the Tyrol/Dolomites are only 2-3 hours from Venice. I think Zermatt is very beautiful and certainly packs a wallop, but there are many beautiful Alp areas as well that might be more convenient to a trip to Italy in December.

If your trip will indeed coincides with Christmas week and if you want to be in Zermatt or other mountain ski areas that week, a problem you may encounter is that Christmas week is THE busiest week in ski country in Switzerland and Europe in general. You may find that hotels will require a 7-10 night minimum stay. If you can be flexible and wait until the last minute to make a reservation, you may be able to get around this, as people will cancel close to 30 days out when bookings have to be paid for; but you might also run the risk of not getting you first or second choice of hotels. A way to avoid this would be to go to the mountain areas first in early December and stay in the cities for Christmas where you won’t have the hotel issues that you will in the mountain areas (these would apply in the Dolomites and other ski areas of Europe as well). If you want to ski, you may have some issues, as mid-December would be OK, but still may be early, for good skiing. (Especially judging by this year which of course was kind of a freaky year as far as snow is concerned.) If you just want to see the beautiful mountains, then IMO early December is fine. Most hotels open by nid-December in mountain areas, check dates on hotels you are interested in. You would definitely find much better rates than at Christmas when rates are at their peak. You might also enjoy unwinding from wedding festivities by first spending time in the mountains and then going to the busier cities as you get over jet lag and recover from the wedding festivities.

For specific reccos on days in each place, etc, before I do that, you should consider what YOUR interests are. Countryside or city? Art and architecture or outdoor activities? These would be important when deciding where to go. You could spend time in mountain towns or in historic cities like Rome or Florence. I would suggest you get some guidebooks and figure out what appeals to you.

Karen Brown publishes two guidebooks for Italy that a lot of people find very good, these have sample itineraries for different regions as well. One is for inns and one is for B&Bs. For her hotel reccos without suggested itineraries, you can also look on her website at karenbrown.com . I believe you can buy the books through the website.

Another thing you might consider doing, especially for Christmas week, is renting an apartment or a house. This would be good during Christmas week, IMO, as you would be able to cook your own meals and would not be tied to having Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and possible other meals in hotel restaurants, which may be what you will find to be open mostly in many areas (other than ski resort towns, where you may have the 7- day booking issue described above). The week between Christmas and New Years is a major holiday week in Europe and you may find that in cities some of the smaller (and better) restaurants are closed. Having your own kitchen could be a very nice, more cosy, way of spending these holidays (even in the mountains). I have rented through vrbo.com. There's a tremendous amount of info on all kinds of accommodations in Italy at www.slowtrav.com, a non-commercial website where travellers post their experiences. Other commercial websites to try are:

www.lupinari.com
rentvillas.com
domani-usa.com
bartolinibaldelli.it

For hotel suggestions, try the sites below.

frommers.com
tripadivsor.com (this has ratings by people who have stayed and is very useful)
relaischateaux.com
romantikhotels.ch
www.swisshotels.ch
alpineclassics.ch
lhw.com
slh.com

The last three are for Swiss hotels, but you may find links to Italian hotels. Also you might post a new question here for reccos.

Strocky

Thanks for all of the info. That is really helpful!