How long to stay in Italy?
 

We are not sure the best way to divide our time between the three cities we plan on visiting. Rome, Florence, and Venice. WE heard you don't need too much time in venice..so this is our plan right now.

Our plane lands in Venice at 2pm on October 7. we are planning on leaving venice the morning of October 9 to head to Florence. sating in the Flornece region until the morning of the 13th then heading to Rome. Flying out of Rome on the 16th. We heard that venice doesn't require much time...so we will only be there for 1 1/2 days.. Is that enough?

Once we get to Florence..we thought we would take some day trips to fifferent cities so we are allowing much of our time in that area. Can anyone let me know if we are dividing our time correctly amongst theses cities? thanks

I would never say Venice doesn't require much time. Many people have been there for weeks and not come close to "finishing" with it. But given you have only about 9 days, your division is as reasonable as any.

I wouldn't really expect to do more than one daytrip from Florence.

I would be tempted to split your stay between two cities only. You will be rushed with this plan, in my opinion.

Thanks Wiltravel,

What cities would sou recommend once we arrive in Florence. I don't want to bit off more then i can chew..which can be tempting. My partner wants to incluse Cinque terre..but perhaps thats too much...What itinery would you recommnend if we arrive in florence late afternoon on the 9th of october..and leave for rome on the morning of the 13th

I agree with sticking to only 2 cities in that time frame. This past Xmas, we were in Rome for 6 days (7 if you include our daytrip to Pompeii) and Venice for 2.5. I wished we had alloted for more time for Venice. While Rome may have more "sights" - I just loved the "feel" of Venice and enjoyed wandering the streets.

"We heard that venice doesn't require much time" - where on earth did you hear that? I spent six nights there in Nov. and would have loved longer! And I met people who were happily spending several weeks there.

The thing about Venice is that on the one hand there are loads of museums and churches to visit, and on the other hand just wandering around taking in the views can keep you occupied for hours. And don't skip the islands in the lagoon.

We just got back from Venice, Florence & Rome. We arrived in Venice on Dec. 26, 2007 and stayed 4 nights. We took the train to Florence & stayed 5 nights, then took the train to Rome for 7 nights.

The only change I would have made would be to add one night to Venice & subtract one night from Rome. Not because we were bored in Rome (to the contrary!), but Venice was just so lovely & peaceful (gotta love the off-season!!)

We didn't take a gondola ride in Venice because we ran out of time. Since Venice was at the beginning of our trip we have a hard time remembering it. The combination of jetlag & the sites of Florence & Rome kind of "crowded out" our memories of Venice.

We both agree that we would love to go back to Venice and that we could easily stay a week!

i've been to Venice twice. 5 days each time. i would not want to go for any shorter period... and would have loved to stay longer!

heck i'd sooner skip Florence and split your time between Venice and Rome only myself.

I too think you will be far too rushed with that plan. You need more time in Venice (with 1.5 days, sure you could walk the well-trod path to St. Marks with all the other tourists but you may come away from Venice without appreciating it very much. The joy of Venice is seeing where the real Venetians live and getting lost wandering through small alleys and tiny campos...) I'm not even sure you'll want to take many daytrips from Florence once you're there as you don't have that much time allocated for Florence either. And (here I go again) Rome will be insanely rushed too.

On my first trip to Italy, we spent 6 days in Rome and 4 in Venice and felt like that was about right, though we would have been fine with slightly less time that than. We skipped Florence altogether and will visit there in Sept this year as part of a trip with 4 days in Florence and 6 in the Tuscan countryside. You might want to consider doing the same thing, only seeing 2 of the Big 3 and save the 3rd for another trip when you have more time for it. That said, I understand the feeling of "we might not ever get back here" and wanting to see it all. Italy is to be savored, though, and a mad dash from one end to the other wouldn't be my choice for how to experience it.

We had only one day in Venice on our trip to Italy in 2006 and wished we could have been there for much, much longer! We are going back in November for a week. I agree with previous comments that half the fun of Venice is just wandering around and "getting lost!" You can definitely see the main attractions in a day (if you get up early!) but having a few days to really enjoy this city is a better way (IMHO) to go.

Enjoy your trip!

If you can't give it more than a day and a half, I would skip Venice this trip.

I agree with the others who suggested in 9 days you do only two cities. My recommendation would be 4 nights Venice and 5 nights Rome, but you could easily switch out Florence for Venice if you prefer.

Cinque Terre is too much to do as a daytrip from Florence. I would recommend Siena from Florence. Easy to do by bus.

Hi

How to divide the time depends on what you are into and what you want to see. In my opinion there is more to see and do in Rome and Florence compared to Venice.

Here is my trip report with pictures from Florence http://gardkarlsen.com/florence_italy_travelogue.htm and a similar one from ROme http://gardkarlsen.com/rome_italy.htm . My general advice would be: don't try to cover everything in one trip....it will only wear you out.

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com - trip reports and pictures

I would skip Venice, not that we didn't love our stay there, but because since you are time constricted Florence and Rome are closer together, and you would spend less time training between cities. Venice is magical and deserves more time, but since it is the furthest away, my vote would be to split your time between Florence and Rome.

In this case, though, the original poster lands in Venice. So I'd probably suggest Venice and Rome, with the express train (that takes 4.5 hours) between them. This would allow daytrip time for each city.

clifbob,

As everyone else has been pointing out, you're cheating yourself on time in Venice. Now I personally prefer Florence over Venice but would suggest that if you really want to spend some time in all three places, that you add a day to Venice at the cost of Florence as you're probably not going to be good for anything much before noon on the 8th what with jet-lag. That gives you just 1/2 day in Venice; not enough for even a taste.

So, it looks like you have nine (9) nights on land. Perfect! Spend three (3) nights in Venice, two (2) in Florence and four (4) in Rome.

Anna Roz