italy and driving
 

I'm planning my first trip to Italy, probably in september or october. I want to cover Venice and points west, florence and the surrounding area, ending in rome.
So far, it looks like 20-25 days and I wan to hit a lot of towns like Pisa, Milan, Turin, Bologna, Siena, Verona, Asissi, and some more.
We're not exactly hiking fools so we'd like to be able to do them in a leisurely fashion.

My first inclination is to land in Venice and rent a car but maybe I should wait train it west touching on the towns thru Turin while based in Venice and then rent a car for the trip down to Florence and Rome. Also looking to do San Marino if it makes sense. So, does this make sense?

Also, I'm hoping to rent an apartment in each of the three big cities for about a week each. Anything wrong with this?

We'd be flying out of Rome to return to the states.

Any and all suggestions appreciated

You need to take a map of Italy and then use viamichelin.com to get distances and estimated driving times. At that point you will be able to pare down your itinerary to something that is more manageable. I would leave out Milan and Turin and concentrate on the large area south of the Po valley, mainly Tuscany and Umbria, although I would not leave out Ravenna for its fabulous mosaics.


Browsing through the relevant albums might give you some ideas of what to see:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...7623039746640/

It's not clear to me what your goal is. Do you want to just make day trips from Venice/Florence/Rome to the smaller cities and return to your apartment each evening??

Whether you drive or take trains, you've listed 11 cities/towns over 20-25 days. I think you need to cut the list by half if you want to "do them in a leisurely fashion."

I wouldn't base in any of those three cities if the plan is to have a car as you aren't allowed to drive in any of those cities (ZTL). If you had a rental car in those cities, you would have to park it somewhere outside the ZTL at a cost of 30-40€ per day.

You need to rethink your plan and realize you can't day trip to Turin (or Milan easily) from Venice. Assuming you aren't just wanting to check towns off a list and want to see things in those towns, you will need to figure out what you want to see and what days/hours it will be open. Site closings vary (in Florence, many things are closed on Monday).

Although we often hear from folks who want to move to way too many towns as bases, I think you are thinking about too few bases.

For a 20 to 25 day trip, and if you've not been to Italy before, perhaps you should consider at least 4 bases.

A car won't do you much good outside of Tuscany and Umbria. Plan on trains for many cities and towns.

Photoman: Welcome to Fodors Travel College. Michael (above) and I, and a good many other Fodorites have quickly suggested to anyone "attacking" a country for the first time, to get a MAP, check the mileages (or kms) from point to point, etc.

To put this in proper perspective, Italy is 120,000 square miles, twice the size of your home state Florida. Now add Georga to Florida at another 60,000 square miles, you have a country Italy's size. Even though you aren't planning to "do" more than half of Italy, let's say its your first trip to USA...you are going to do a similar trip to the one you describe...taking in about 11 cties and towns in 20-25 days...not knowing the language, dealing in another currency, following road signs you may not be able to translate, doing some of your driving on narrow country roads.

Before you undertook this trip, you'd want a map, to visit Atlanta, Savannah, Macon, Jacksoville, Daytona, Pensacola, Lakeland, Orlando, Tampa-St.Pete, Sarasota and Miami...two days per town. Your leisurely trip has disappeared and your Wow! factor is gone.(and you haven't had to deal with Italy's ZTL's)

Believe me, travel is exciting fun, so much so that most Fodorites plan ahead each year for it and in fact plan their lives around it!

I hope you get a map soon, and begin to pare down your schedule. Happy travels, Photoman.

photoman - Italy is not all cities, and you don't have to be "hiking fools" to enjoy the countryside. Also, hiring a car is not conducive to a trip that involves seeing so many cities as they all have ZLTs [limited traffic zones] where you get fined if you go into them, which is very easy to do,

if you've got between 3 & 4 weeks, you have time to fly into Venice, pick up a car and do some touring when you leave, [perhaps going to look at the Dolomites and Lake Garda before going south to Ravenna] then to drop the car off at a convenient point, and finish your trip in Bologna/Florence and/or Rome.

Alternatively, fly into Milan or Turin and go up to Piemonte, then drop down through Tuscany, [perhaps via Lake Como] before returning your car and travelling onto Florence.

That time of year, with only two of you, you wouldn't need to pre-book accommodation outside the big cities, but you should definitely pre-book Venice, Florence and Rome.

Photoman,

Using trains and buses would be better for your itinerary, which is certainly doable in 20-25 days without hiking around constantly like fools.

However, seeing Turin is not possible from a base in Venice, and Milan only works well if you fly into Milan and then go to Venice. But you can certainly see Verona as a day trip from Venice (or enroute from Milan if you stow your luggage in the Verona train station).

From Venice, you should plan on taking the train to Florence, and do day trips from there to Pisa, Bologna, Siena and Assisi. I don't think it makes sense to go to San Marino. You should plan on spending at least a week in Florence.

From there, go on to Rome by train.

By all means, rent apartments in each of the cities.

Two more thoughts, Photoman

If it is really important to you to see Turin, then you might consider flying into Milan and going there immediately for a few nights, and then seeing Milan as a day trip on your way to Venice (and seeing Verona as a day trip from Venice once you are settled in). But if it is not all that important to you to see Turin this trip, I would skip it, especially if you only have 20 days and not 25.

The other thought is that I would find it nicer to spend a night in Assisi rather than do a long day trip from Florence. So you might want consider leaving Florence and spending a night in Assisi, and then taking a train or bus to Rome.

Starting in Venice and ending in Roma is a most cogent strategy as you will eliminate time consuming backtracking.

First of all, you should consider prioritizing your itinerary because you have too many places to visit. You want a vacation not a marathon at a dead run. The poster Tower made some great suggestions for you to evaluate. Plan on returning because Italy will seduce you and you will want to return and then you can visit whatever you missed the first time.

Since this is your first trip the train will take you almost everywhere you want to visit depositing you in the center of a city relaxed and ready to go. Buying point to point tickets are usually cheaper than buying any type of rail pass, but you need to do the research.

As for San Marino, this was a childhood dream since the 4th grade.and last May we spent a night there. We liked it so much we are spending three nights there this July. This time we plan to visit the Ferrari Museum in Maranello, a district of the tiny republic. Traveling here would be easier with a car. This would be a great destination on your second trip list.

Buon viaggio,

rbciao47, you can visit the Enzo Ferrari Museum in Modena and the Ferrari Museum in Maranello without a car. Ferrari operates a shuttle service that makes a circle from the Modena train station. You can book the tour that drives into the factory and past the track.

http://www.vivaraviaggi.it/happy_cir...happy_circle=6

I was puzzled reading Tower's post that he appears to think that Photoman wants to see all of Italy. Photoman basically wants to see Rome, Florence and Venice, and use them as bases for day trips. This is a very typical trip that people take to Italy, in far less than 20 days, and most people do not find it exhausting.

While it is true that if people do day trips then they are visiting "11 cities in 20 or 25 days" -- but again, for most people, seeing Pisa and Siena as a day trip from Florence is normal. So is visiting Verona from Venice.

Whether or not people feel in a "rush" or a "marathon" or a "dead run" is partly a matter of attitude and organization. Do people really think this is an undoable itinerary:

Day 1 Arr Milan
Day 2 sightsee Milan
Day 3 see Verona en route to Venice
Day 4 Venice
Day 5 Venice
Day 6 Venice
Day 7 Florence
Day 8 Florence
Day 9 Florence -- day trip Siena
Day 10 Florence
Day 11 Florence - day trip to Bologna
Day 13 Florence -- afternoon day trip to Pisa
Day 14 Assisi overnight
Day 15 Travel to Rome from Assisi after lunch
Day 16 Rome
Day 17 Rome
Day 18 Rome
Day 19 Rome
Day 20 Rome

And if somebody had 5 more days, Turin and San Marino could be included with some rearranging.

I hasten to add that if Photoman wants to cut destinations , I'm not discouraging it, and I suggested cutting San Marino. But travelers taking day trips from bases in Venice, Florence and Rome is usually not interprested as having "11 destinations" and it is quite normal for travelers in Italy to visit Pisa, Siena, Bologna. Assisi and Verona as day trips.

By the way, if you do want to visit San Marino, then I would suggest considering picking up a car after Venice and doing a mini-road trip to San Marino, then Assisi, then Siena. Drop off the car and take the train to Florence to see Pisa and Bologna, and go from Florence to Rome by fast train.

That means you'll be bypassing Bologna at one point to get to San Marino, only to return later to see it. But given the hassels of daytripping to Bologna by car, taking the fairly short train ride from Florence to Bologna for a day trip gives you more flexibility, I think.

Jean,

I know it is possible to visit both museums with the provided shuttle, but that wasn't on my radar at this time. Things can change and it is certainly a possibility.

Thanks, though, for the input.

Buon viaggio,

thank you all for the wonderful input. I was thinking of using the three major cities as basis for day trips to the smaller places and I appreciate sandralist for the suggested itinerary.
All the information helps me clarify the train vs. auto conundrum. I guess it's no big deal to rent a car and drop off at another location, and a combo of train/auto will probably be the way to go.

"I guess it's no big deal to rent a car and drop off at another location."

But you do have to research the hours for locations at both ends of the rental and plan accordingly. Many rental offices are closed for a few hours in the middle of the day, aren't open Saturday afternoons, and aren't open Sundays at all. Airport locations are the exception.

And you need to learn about ZTLs for all of your driving destinations.

<i>Even though you aren't planning to "do" more than half of Italy</i>

Sandra, I think I made it quite clear that they wouldn't be taking on "all" of Italy...who does? I was merely trying to give Photoman an idea of the potential difficulties trying to see 11 cites in 20 days in a foreign country, with the usual barriers one would face. Remember, this is their first trip to Italy.

That's a good chunk of time to drive and discover Italy. I would train to Venice and then rent a car and head down from there. Touring through Tuscany, both north and south is great. Please learn about parking regulations in Italy, road signs, and definitely learn about the ZTL non-car zones--especially in places like Florence. The little towns all have ZTLs too, but they are usually the tops of hilltowns or the historic centers with tons of parking just outside.

I would suggest touring around the Crete Senise (clay hills) of the south, Siena and the Roman bath towns just south of Pienza (my most favorite Tuscan town!). Then, you could end your driving vacation by heading over to the East to take in Cortona (Under the Tuscan Sun fame), Castiglioni del Lago (Great lakeside town), and then drive down to Chuisi Scalo(great Etruscan Museum up in the hilltown of Chuisi) and return your car there. "Scalo" means the town has a train station. Take the older, but relaxed train back to Rome. You don't need a car there.

Have a great trip! We did 3 weeks spread out over a wider area of Italy, so I think you can take a more relaxed attitude... take your time with each village or town. Soak it in. Spend less time in the tourist places like Venice and Pisa and Florence (although if you stay IN Florence, a few days would allow you to relax a bit more). Spend more time checking out the small treasures. Pienza, Lucca, Vinci, Montereggioni, and San Gimigano (later in the day).

Here's a hint. Plan your trip with the help of Google Earth. You can zoom in to ground level view to see what the roads are like, to check out the location of that agritourismo (is that factory next door?) or hotel, and look for the best driving roads with best vistas. Look for clusters of photos on Google Earth, then click on them. This gives a good idea of what is in a given area... I found things I never knew were in Italy that way.

Also, if you have a handicapped placard, take it. I parked all over Italy for free, even in for pay public parking garages (like 1 block off the Miracola in Pisa). You can park in any legal parking spot, not just the handicapped ones.

Have fun.

--Jerry