Hi folks,

Wonder if you could review this itinerary with me. My hubby and I have been before and this time we are taking our teens with us (4 of them!). They love the ocean, history, and being active. We are flying out of the East Coast. I was able to locate a direct flight into Milan to start us off.

Day 1: Land in Milan (morning)
Travel via private driver or car rental to Cinque Terre
Check in

Day 2, Day 3: Full days in CT ---> Should I add another? ...Or continue on to Sorrento?

Day 4: Train to Sorrento

Day 5: Pompei
Day 6: Mt. Vesuvius
Day 7: Sorrento +/- Capri

Day 8: ?
Day 9: Travel to Rome
Day 10: Ruins, Colloseum, Forum
Day 11: Vatican Tour

Day 12: ?
Day 13: ?
Day 14: Travel Day

What time of year?

It would be ending May/beginning June 2019 ��

You will need a transport van for 6 people and luggage, so consider the train.
I would add another day to Sorrento to see the Amalfi coast or Naples or relax, and add your other two days to Rome.

Are you planning to fly home from Rome or Milan?

I assume you know that the train journey between the CT and Sorrento will take 8+ hours and involve 2 connections/3 trains. Pack light!

Driving that route would not save time (and could easily take longer), but you'd only have to load/unload the luggage once. As yorkshire noted, you'd have to rent a large van which might only be available at Malpensa (or perhaps Genoa). However, driving 4 hours after an overnight flight is a very bad idea.

I agree with yorkshire's suggestion to add a day to Sorrento and the extra days to Rome.

"You can then take a high-speed train to Naples (takes less than 3 hours) and there you go, you're by the Amalfi coast."

Not exactly. The fast train from Florence to Naples takes 3 hours, but it doesn't deliver you to the Amalfi Coast. Naples is an hour +/- from Sorrento, and even Sorrento isn't on the AC.

Yes fill in last few days with Florence would be great. You may want to break up long day CT to Sorrento with a few days in Florence. As for long-distance express trains booking as early as possible at Acquista il biglietto con le nostre offerte - Trenitalia or www.italotreno.com- 2 competing rail companies using same tracks, stations and similar trains - check first class too as it sometimes can on discounted tickets be nearly as cheap as remaining 2nd class seats and there is a bit more comfort though 2nd class most folks find to be perfectly OK - first class always more OK though - for more on Italian trains and things like classes and onboard ameniies - www.seat61.com; BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com.

day 8 you could take ferries to Amalfi Coast proper - like to Amalfi and go up to Ravello or Positano. Or to Naples a really neat old city.

If 3 days in CT you'll want to hike as the 'lands' or villages are tiny and also super mobbed most of year. Or could day trip to Genoa.

Day 1: Land in Milan (morning)
Travel via private driver or car rental to Cinque Terre
Check in
Day 2, Day 3: Full days in CT ---> Should I add another? ...Or continue on to Sorrento?
We’ve spent 2 nights based in Monterosso previously, "adequate" for what we wanted to do in Cinque Terre (village hopping, hiking Monetrosso-Vernazza-Corniglia – watch Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre - Visit the Park - Paths and Outdoor for status of trails). You don’t need a car in CT, and there are lots of trains from Milan Centrale – some direct, some via Genoa or La Spezia, so you don’t need a private driver either.


Day 4: Train to Sorrento
I think others have already pointed out getting to Sorrento is a long haul, so breaking journey en route is advisable.


Day 8: ?
You will need at least a day to explore the Amalfi coast villages themselves – Positano, Amalfi, Ravello etc.


Day 12: ?
Day 13:
Lots to do in Rome itself to keep you busy e.g. Trastevere, Villa Borghese/Museum in addition to the “usual suspects”. Perhaps a day trip to Tivoli – see The Villas of Tivoli - Art and History - Travel ideas or Ostia Antica if you want to step out of Rome


For trains, the correct websites are Trenitalia - Homepage English - Trenitalia (state owned) or https://www.italotreno.it/en (private, operates some of your routes, and occasionally cheaper than Trenitalia) - I usually use trainline.eu a reliable reseller which sells at the same prices as the operators themselves / easy to use and will consolidate connections across both rail operators on a given route where relevant so you can compare and choose.

I agree with ANUJ that there is a lot more to see in Rome than the Colosseum and the Vatican. In fact, I would say that if you only see those two massively overcrowded places, you will go away with a poor impression of Rome. Ostia Antica is a very interesting site. My teenage nieces loved it. However, it isn't "stepping out of Rome". It's actually part of the city of Rome, a vast archaeological site, bigger even than Pompeii. It also has a lot more shade than Pompeii, and is nowhere near as hot and crowded. (If you go to Pompeii, try to go early in the morning, bring lots of water, and wear a sunhat.)

http://ostia-antica.org/

In Rome, my advice is to try to arrive at the Colosseum as early as possible, and to avoid the weekend. It opens at 8:30 in May. You should buy the tickets in advance, either online or at the nearby entrance to the Palatine Hill. However, having tickets in hand won't guarantee that you won't have to wait in line to get in. There's a limit on how many people can be inside at once, and I once had to wait almost an hour under the blazing sun with some visiting American relatives. That was a Saturday at mid-morning. The Colosseum has excellent signs in Italian and English. If you want a guided tour, the official Colosseum tours are quite good and cost a lot less than private tours. The tour of the Underground is very popular and the English language version sells out almost as soon as they go on sale.

https://www.coopculture.it/en/colosseo-e-shop.cfm

The Roman Forum rarely has a queue to get in. One ticket gets you into the Colosseum, the Forum and the Palatine Hill, but the last two are considered a single site, so you can enter either one and pass through to the other, but you can't enter one, exit and then enter the other. The ticket is good for two consecutive days, so you could visit the Colosseum one day and the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill the next. In this case, I would suggest starting both visits as early in the day as possible, to avoid the heat. I would advise having a guide at the Forum and Palatine Hill, because it isn't obvious what you're looking at. I don't think they still have official tours there. Don't miss the Palatine Hill. It's very beautiful, uncrowded, and has great views over the Forum and the Colosseum. If you'd be interested in a private guide, which is more affordable when divided by six, I can highly recommend Daniela Hunt of Mirabilia Urbis Tours . She will gear her tour to the level of interest and knowledge of your teens, and she has a vast knowledge of archaeology and Roman history.

For the Vatican Museums, my best advice, if it's possible, is to visit on a Friday evening, when they accept visitors only by reservation. During the day, and especially on Saturdays during high season, the museums are incredibly hot and crowded. Mondays are also usually very crowded, because the Vatican Museums are closed on Sundays and lots of other museums are closed on Mondays. The visiting relatives I mentioned at the Colosseum had reserved an expensive private tour at the Vatican Museums on a Saturday in June. They had three teens with them, who when they saw the crowds inside absolutely refused to take the tour. (Two of the teens were children of friends, so my cousins couldn't really force them to take the tour. Outnumbered, my cousins went away without taking the tour.) You can choose either a self-guided visit, an audio tour, or a guided tour. If you can't go on a Friday evening, your next best choice is to pay more for the early entry. There are private tours that offer early entry, or you could choose the Vatican's own early entry with audio guide and breakfast. In my experience, most tour guides are a bore for teens.

Visit the Museums - Vatican Museums

St. Peter's Basilica is well worth a visit, but that also can be very crowded, especially on the weekend. Entrance is free, but you have to go through security, and there can be very long queues. The Basilica opens very early for services, and there usually isn't a queue if you go before 9. Otherwise, if you decide to visit the Museums on a Friday evening, you could try to visit the Basilica after 5, when the crowds should have thinned out. Leave 20 minutes to get from the Basilica to the Museums, as you have to walk all around the walls of Vatican City,

Other places that should appeal to teens:

The Villa Borghese Park, where you can rent go-karts or bicycles, and tool all around this vast park, which also has great views of the city from the Pincian Overlook. There's also a little lake where you can rent boats.

Don't miss the Pantheon. It's usually crowded, but there's not usually a wait to get in, and entrance is free. From the inside, you can appreciate the enormous dome, an incredible feat of ancient engineering. For over a thousand years, it was the world's largest dome, and it's still the largest unreinforced concrete dome. The hole in the center provides the light for the interior. Underneath there's a drain to carry away rain water. If you put your camera on delayed shutter release and lay it down right in the center of the drain, you'll get a great shot of the dome.

The Galleria Doria Pamphilj, a huge Renaissance palace, very near the Pantheon, with period furnishings and the family's art collection. It's still owned, and partially occupied, by descendants of the powerful Renaissance family. There is an excellent audio guide, narrated by a member of the family, which is included in the admission.

The Baths of Caracalla, very well preserved enormous Roman baths.

The da Vinci Museum, with working models of some of the inventions of the great genius. There are two in Rome, but I think the best is the one in Piazza del Popolo, just below the Borghese gardens.

Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, which has a great collection of ancient Roman art, including statues, mosaics, and wall frescoes. There are also various household objects, ancient jewelry and Roman coins. There's even a mummy, of a young girl.

My nieces were very impressed by the Catacomb of Saint Agnes, the easiest catacomb to get to from central Rome. Saint Agnes was a young Christian girl, aged 12, who was killed for refusing to marry the son of a Roman official. It's the only catacomb to have grown around the tomb of a Roman martyr. The entire complex is interesting, including the church of Santa Costanza, the daughter of the Roman Emperor Constantine.

Unfortunately, my cousins, with the three teens in tow, didn't have a great impression of Rome, because on the first day there, they waited in line for an hour to get into the Colosseum, which was so crowded they didn't get much of an impression of it. Then they went to St. Peter's Basilica but when they saw the queue to get in, they changed their minds. On the next day, they renounced the tour of the Vatican Museums and took the kids back to the hotel to swim in the pool. They were staying outside of Rome because they had a van. By the way, they rented a 9-person van for their trip to Rome, so you might consider doing that. It left plenty of room for their luggage, and also for two other people (including me) who went to Rome with them.

When I took my nieces to Rome, I arranged the itinerary myself. We avoided the Vatican Museums altogether, but visited the Basilica. We admired the Colosseum and Roman Forum from the street, but I took them to Ostia Antica, which they loved. I took them to one museum, the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. We visited Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, and Trevi Fountain. All in all, they loved Rome.

A treat for teens could be taking them to the McDonalds by the Spanish Steps - very unlike any McDonalds in U.S. - indeed since being remodeled it has become a top tourist site in Rome - even getting rve reviews on Trip Advisor.

I don't see what's so attractive about that McDonalds. It looks big, but they used a very wide-angle lens. I can't imagine why it's such a big tourist attraction. It's otherwise just like a generic fast food place.

We took an Italian kid with us on a trip to the US. He wanted to visit the Hard Rock Café in every city. They have one of those in Rome, too.

The times I've been in that McDonalds-well before interesting renovations it was packed not with Americans but Italians - especially younger ones.

In the video, though, it looked like mostly Americans.

You obviously have not gone to MacDonalds in Italy or you'd know they have tons of Italians too - I have not been for several years but doubt that has changed. The Spanish Steps one being in heart of tourist area obviousy gets many Americans but anyway again something Amercan teens may enjoy for a respite and the place is a tourist attraction because of its unique design for McDonald's and put yoursef in shoes of ordinary American teen abroad. Anyway just listing options not recommending - I do not eat MickyDs foods except for frozen yoghurt or gelato and coffee in Europe but I find them a great place to relax from rigors of sightseeing and rest at table with no waiters and also most importanty for tourists a good place to use the WC - not a trivial thing.

<< even getting rve reviews on Trip Advisor.>>

That alone is enough to put me off visiting anything.

I've skipped much so sorry for any duplication.

DH and I enjoyed Pompeii and took a tour of the museum in Naples which included many more items.
You may find you run out of time on day 10 of your initial itinerary. Those sites are large and you will get hungry and tired. Same with Vatican--one day for St. Peters; another day for the Vatican Museums. If you aren't taking tours, do start early. Piazza del Popolo, Borghese Museum*, and the wonderful Piazza Navona would be "don't miss" on my list.

Have a super time and please write back about your trip.

*Get reservations.

Love sitting by Trevi Fountain and seeing folks throw coins over shoulder - great for resting and people watching - I've picnicked there but think that is Verboten now. And yes Piazza Navona also neat perching place - local kids playing soccer, etc. Yeah the public squares are worth more than a walk by.

It's hard to get anywhere near Trevi Fountain these days. My daughter spent a year in Rome when she was a student, and every time she returned, she used to throw a coin in. For several years now, she's given up the idea. I was in Rome with her last October, and she wanted to go to the fountain to try again, thinking there wouldn't be a big crowd in October. Wrong! She would have had to push and shove to get near enough, so she threw in the towel (instead of a coin!)