Italian Honeymoon Help
 

Hi friends,
Looking for some advice on how to divide up our Honeymoon in Italy.
We land in Florence on Sunday September 2, and leave from Naples Thursday September 13.
We're hoping to spend a few days in Florence, a days in the Tuscan countryside, visiting wineries, doing wine tastings and eating lots of delicious food. From there, we'd like to head down to the Amalfi Coast for the rest of the trip... we then plan to leave at some point Thursday from Naples, to head to our friends wedding in Mykonos. On the Amalfi Coast, we're hoping to do some relaxing, do a day trip to Capri and soak up the town we're in.
Our big questions are:
-How many days should we spend in Florence?
-Where should we stay in Tuscany so that we can do some wine tastings? We're hoping to have one home base, but are open to having more than one.
-Wineries we should visit
-Where to stay on the Amalfi Coast

Any of your advice would be so helpful!

The best way to apportion days on such a trip is to think of nights, rather than days. Then realize that a travel day, including travel and hotel check in at the next place eats up almost all of a day. So, for example, the travel day that lands you in Florence is not a day of touring. You have 11 nights on your trip. Subtract one. The day you leave Florence is a travel day. Subtract another night. And so on. Then, the last night lets you awaken to a travel day, so subtract that one. When you are done subtracting, you will have the number of touring days. Then see if there will be enough of them to do all you want to do. If not, drop an intermediate location.

As noted, September 2 is pretty much shot, as is September 13, so you effectively have 10 days minus travel time, which given you are crossing Italy, means you have 9 days on the ground and not traveling. How you apportion those days is entirely up to you and what you most want to do and see. But you don't really have a leisurely few days in 3 places.

You can taste wine on just about every corner of Tuscany. If wine is the goal, base yourself somewhere near where your favorite wines are produced. If you want to go the formal route and visit vineyards (which may be busy in September and not so eager for tourists unless they have the staff to accommodate them), make reservations ahead of time. And be very mindful about drinking and driving - the BAC limits are severe in Italy. There would be little point, given your short timeframe and the fact that wine is everywhere, to choose more than a single base in Tuscany unless perhaps you eliminate one of your other two destinations.

It's not easy to recommend a number of days to spend in Florence. The center of town is very compact, so if you just want to see an iconic Renaissance city and a smattering of art, one full day (two nights) might be enough. If you are passionate about Renaissance art, a week might not be enough. Do you have an idea of what you want to see or do in Florence?

I always think that for wine tasting it would be better to visit an enoteca, which will offer you a wine tasting with a bigger variety of wines, and can be found even in towns, so you don't need to go traipsing around the countryside to visit multiple vineyards. This is especially true if you don't have a great amount of time. I'm not a wine expert, although I live in a region in Le Marche full of vineyards. However, when we stayed in Montalcino, which is the center of the highly praised Brunello red wine, the town had many enoteche offering wine tastings. I told my husband that even the barber had an enoteca in the shop. Montalcino is also a very pretty town, surrounded by typical Tuscan countryside and convenient to many other Tuscan towns. Another choice I could recommend would be Pienza, which is charming and very central, but not quite as focused on wine. Both towns would also be convenient for visiting a vineyard if that's what you really want to do.

If you don't plan on renting a car, you could take a vineyard tour from Florence. These tours usually include two vineyards, lunch at a typical Tuscan trattoria or agriturismo, and stops in a few other pretty towns. To make this possible, you should add one night to whatever amount of time you would otherwise spend in Florence.

On the Amalfi Coast, Positano might be the best option if you want to take a day trip to Capri. There are departures from Positano, but not from most other towns on the coast. If you also want to visit Pompeii, Sorrento is a better choice, although it's not on the Amalfi Coast. Sorrento is an excellent hub for ferries to Capri and some towns on the Amalfi Coast, buses to other Amalfi Coast towns, and commuter trains to Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Naples.

Other than rural Tuscany, this whole trip can be done without a car, and if you choose a day tour from Florence, you can even some a bit of rural Tuscany without a car.

Book long-distance train tickets well in advance like Naples to Florence at Acquista il biglietto con le nostre offerte - Trenitalia or www.italotreno.it/en - two competing train companies using same tracks and stations - book your own online - www.seat61.com has lots on doing that; general info trains www.ricksteves.com and BETS-European Rail Experts.

Chianti-en-Greve is one wine town to head to for tastings - several right in the town a short bus ride or drive from Florence. Google wine tastings in Chianti-en-Greve and see what's up - lots of tours from Florence that go around the countryside.

Hotel Villa Brunella, Hotel La Minerva or even Hotel Canasta on THE honeymoon island Capri with easy day trips to the Amalfi Coast, including the spectacular Positano, would be my way to go.