We are group of women who travel every year and this year we have chosen Italy. We are flying from Texas to Rome and hope to fly back from Venice to Texas. Any suggestions on cheaper airfare? We also love seeing unique sights-not your everyday things, we like off the beaten path....any ideas? We also would like a house on the Canal in Venice if we can find one to hold all of us. Would love to see your ideas!

Don't know about cheap airfare, but you might consider flying into Venice and out of Rome, as flights back to the USA from Venice leave very, very early and getting to the airport at dawn isn't easy or fun.

Delta does have one flight from Venice to JFK each day at 1:05, looks like.

tonyau, how are you searching for airfares right now? I use Kayak.com all the time - you can set up fare trackers that will email you when a certain one-way or round-trip flight goes below, say, $900. (The last time I tried it the alerts did not support the multi-city option for that, though you can certainly search for them on the site. So in your case I'd set up alerts for round trip from Texas to Venice and to Rome. That'll give you a very good idea of an open-jaw price.) You can also look at their fare charts to see what prices have done over the past few months.

When this year are you planning to go? I went in May of last year and found plane tickets then to be cheaper than those in June or July. If you have some flexibility in your schedule, you might be able to save quite a bit by playing around with the dates.

Go a lot always find cheapest air into Milan(MXP) aa.com
usually cheapest for group out of Texas I usually save hundreds RT then seat61.com/italy nice train from there.
www.bauervenezia.com has several Grand Canal Palazzos they rented one to Angelina Jolie when I was staying there May year last. Will not be cheap on Grand Canal. www.italyby.com has some nice Dorsoduro places that will be lots cheaper.Do be careful many INDIVIDUAL apartment touts/scammers/tax cheats here and on the other travel boards check reviews carefully pay with Credit Card and look at the beds and baths(tend ot be super small) and location small back canals very smelly. AC is a must in summer.Personally prefer upscale hotels usually go for the Bauer or Westin Europa Regina www.spg.com right on the Grand Canal in San Marco in the
best area.

Happy Planning!

Good advice from St Cirq. Also Venice gives a more relaxed entre to Italy than the more hectic Rome. Train from Venice to Rome is easy.

If you want "off the beaten path" things to see in Venice, grab a copy of "Secret Venice" by Jonglez. There are many unusual, non-touristique things noted in that book.

We have stayed inn Venice a couple of times and I wrote trip reports.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...rip-report.cfm and

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...st-verbose.cfm

They may give you some ideas.

<<We also love seeing unique sights-not your everyday things, we like off the beaten path....any ideas?>>

Can you give us a better idea of what you mean?

What time of year is your trip?

It sounds like you are going to visit Rome and Venice only. Is this correct?



You take the train between the cities.

Love the tips! We have to go in the summer because we have a few school teachers in the bunch and that's their only time off.

We would like to stay 2-3 nights in a few places. Rome, Umbria or Tuscany, further north around Genoa maybe, and then over to Venice. We hope to be able to stay in the city while in Rome and Venice and then in smaller towns or the countryside in between.

We will definitely look into leaving from Rome instead of Venice! We would love any more help you all can give us. Thanks!

Do you like spas? Tuscany and Umbria have some fabulous spa facilities, some of them very much "off the beaten track," remote and unforgettable. But you'd need cars.

You should reallae that Italy in summer is VERY hot - often high 90s and humid but unlike Texas - many palces _ esp modest hotels, apartments, shops and restaurants do NOT have AC. Heat is one thing when you go from the AC house to the AC car to the AC school or office or? But if you're subject to the temps 24/7 it can be truly hell.

So just make sure you reconfirm that everyplace you are considering has real AC (american style no european air cooling - which seems to be a fan that lowers the temps about 5 degrees.)
You do;t say how long you have - but you can do a reasonable itinerary in 2 weeks - assuming you include all 3 weekends and leave on a Fri night - that is 17 days total.

Sorry - missed you title - seeing all of those places in 11 days in really rusing - I would do 3 hotels at most - 2 if possible - to waste as little time s possible getting from one place to another.

Moving a group of 10 is not easy, although I'm sure you know that from your previous travels with this group. Multiple taxis, longer hotel check-in/check-out process, etc.

I would strongly suggest you reconsider your plan of staying in four geographically distant places (Rome, somewhere in Tuscany or Umbria, Genoa, Venice) in 11 days. Instead, spend a couple of nights in Venice, a few nights in Rome, and a couple of nights somewhere geographically in between. I assume you're traveling by train (rather than 3 cars), so you should peruse the train timetables to understand the travel times involved.

http://www.fsitaliane.it/homepage_en.html