Italy in October
 

Planning 12 day trip, never been to Italy and don't know where to start. Considering a trip to Messina to visit family as an add on - but also want to see typical sights.

What would be best options :
- guided tour
- lease apt in a city & take guided trips and/or using the rail
- combinations

Would appreciate any & all suggestions

I suggest you get a guidebook. I am a seasoned traveler, and that's the first thing I do once I've decided on a destination.

Italy is a big country, and twelve days (that includes fly in day and fly out?) isn't much time. You haven't stated whether you have traveled much on your own or not. An easy itinerary for you would be Venice, Florence, and Rome, by train. Fly into Venice, out of Rome (called an "open jaw" saves the time of backtracking). The trains are very efficient in Italy and high speed lines connect those three cities.

I would suggest you get more than one guide book.

An apt depends on how long you will be in a given city, and how many in your party. Please don't count the elevator boy.

For a first timer, I would suggest a hotel. You can get advice at the hotel.

As Andrew said, stick to the big 3.

Messina?, are your kidding? Getting there, visiting family will take your entire 12 days.

You're a new member as of June, 2012 and no other posts, so I have to view what you say with some level of suspicion.

Rastaguy - didn't come here for 'suspicion' or 'criticism' - and YES Messina is one of the trips being considered; as other websites I've been to indicated that we could fly from Rome to Messina.

All that being said, I have already been looking into the open jaw suggested by Andrew, flights to anywhere but Rome are non existent from EWR during the time frame I'm considering.

If hotel is the best bet for first timers, then should we just consider a package and then add on Messina?

Possibly you'll need to experience the 'family welcome' to grasp how it can gobble up your vacation time.

Dear friends from NY with a holiday home on Ischia take the best part of a week to get here from Naples airport... a journey that most will do in two hours or so!

Perhaps it would be quite enough for this visit to start from Rome, then see the Amalfi Coast and/or Capri, then Sicily.... flying back to the capital from Catania or Palermo (or indeed Messina if you've not moved on from there) - whilst saving the top half of the country for another time?

Much stuff is now done on a region-by-region basis (or even more locally) but you might try beginning here:

http://www.italia.it/en/home.html

Peter

If you really want to include Messina, then visiting northern Sicily for a few days would be nice. RyanAir does low cost airline trips from Trapani (a very lovely area in Sicily, make sure you also visit Erice) to Rome (CIAMPINO airport) whilst EasyJet also does low cost trips from Palermo to Rome (FIUMICINO) airport. (both in northern Sicily)

I do not know whether you would prefer to move around, but if you want to cover a bit of Italy (mostly southern), I would stay:

4 days in northern Sicily, use a low-cost airline to reach Sicily from Rome, then on your way back use train/ferry breaking the trip by stopping in Amalfi Coast) - visiting Messina, and maybe doing trips to Palermo, Erice, Trapani etc - I am sure if you have family there they would be more than willing to tour you around= the Sicilians are really warm and friendly people.

4 days on the Amalfi Coast, (taking ferry from Messina and train from Calabria to reach the area)

last 4 days in Rome (taking train from Amalfi coast to Rome)

Alternatively, answers to these questions would help us:

Do you have any idea of any regions in Italy that you would prefer visiting (besides Messina in Sicily) and do you have a tight budget?

Are you travelling solo, as a couple, with friends or as a family?

Do you have any preference for a town/city/region in Italy that you would like to visit?

Are you the type that likes to stay in one place or like to move in different accomodation. (It would be almost impossible to tour around Italy basing yourself in Messina - they very most you can take day trips around Sicily and maybe to Reggio Calabria.

Times of arrival/departure to and from Rome

These answers would help us Fodorites a lot.

I have no idea why anyone would be suspicious of your post!

With 12 days I would pick 3 locations - flying into Venice, train to Florence, train to Rome and fly home or to Messina from there would be a typical choice for most first timers. This is easily done without a tour!

But it can be any three locations that interest you! Guidebooks can help you out here.

As for whether you need a tour if you stay in hotels? Absolutely not! If you do a search here for 'Rome hotels' for example you will get tonnes of suggestions...trip advisor can help as well.

You can also read all the trip reports people here have written for examples and ideas!

Enjoy the planning!

Thanks for the suggestions, I really have a ton of homework now! Only 2 of us traveling, Anna's suggestions are very appealing. Definitely not basing in Messina, was looking to base in one of the cities and going to Messina either at the beginning of end of the trip. Problem we have with a trip to Sicily is that family is from 2 towns no where near each other.

The travel can probably be extended to 14 days, leaving 2 days for travel on both ends. As I said, a lot of work ahead!

hi mzilene,

very wise not to be too ambitious on your first stip. I would suggest putting the family stay at the end of the trip, then they can't insist that you stay longer! [from bitter experience!]

so i would do Rome, the amalfi, then [depending on flights] sicily. you might like to look into the possibility of a train or boat to Sicily for a different experience.

About this one base concept.... don't confuse having heard of "Little Italy" with the real thing - which is a very long, thin country!

For an idea, it's not as far from Britain to the nearest bit of Italy as it is between the country's own furthest extremes...

http://www.italiantouristoffice.se/sv/docs/613.pdf

Peter

The reason that I would not leave Sicily for end of holiday is that then you would have to take plane back to Rome and having to make sure that you are on time to catch another plane to USA on same day. Otherwise you would have to waste one night at an airport hotel in Rome.

I guess it all depends on the times and schedules of flights, as on the other hand, if you do arrive late in the evening in Rome, it would be a hassle to take plane to Sicily, if you find available at your time of arrival that is. You would still have to sleep at least one night in an airport hotel in Rome.

I know that relatives sometimes do try and make you remain with them whilst on holiday, but if that will be the case, insist that you have already prebooked and paid in hotels. I never gave in to them, and they got used to it.

Adding another couple of days would sure help to have a more leisurely holiday. So in what towns do your relatives live in Sicily? By visiting relatives in Messina at the end of trip, you might get a lift to the port of Messina, where the ferries cross over to mainland Italy. My and my husband did that just a year after we married, a long time ago, and drove overland all the way to Switzerland and back.

Then from Reggio Calabria you take the train to Amalfi coast, stopping at train station in Salerno or Naples - check train timetables (I don't really have much experience in train travel on Amalfi or Sorrento coast as we always hire a car).

I would stay at a town that is not too far from airport in Sicily that you land in, also assuming that family lives on the north of Sicily. Trapani and Palermo airports are both in northern Sicily, but if it were me I would not find accomodation in centre of Palermo, there are many beautiful small towns and villages along the coast. You might be interested in staying in a resort hotel on the coast of northern Sicily, or if not on the coast more to the north of the island. Try and do a bit of research on Sicily and see what sites or towns you are interested in visiting. You can do day trips to Taormina, Mount Etna, and in Trapani, Palermo, Mondello, Erice, etc in northern Sicily.

If you give us some more information on arrival/departure times to and from USA, maybe we would be able to provide you with more suggestions. If you are about to book flights, then I do think that you should add those 2 extra days, so that you would be able to enjoy more the three stops.

The third option would be (if you do not arrive evening that is) is to take train from Rome to Amalfi Coast, stay there four days, then Sicily, and lastly Rome - if you can withstand another journey after a long flight from USA.

Please tell us what time you arrive/depart in Rome. In any case, now that you might add an extra two days you can afford to use up a day in Rome on arrival or prior to departure to USA.

Anna - the towns in Sicily are Castellammare del Golfo & Messina (two different sides of the family) - talk about a span! So you see my dilemma as to how to approach the trip. We know there are relatives in Messina, not so sure about Casellammare.

If I can't convince my husband to consider a 2nd trip in a few years - I have to come up with an itinerary that gets me to places I want to go & have him visit is family towns.

mzilene - There is about 180 miles distance between the two towns, one to the very west and the other to the very east of Sicily, but at least there are both on the north coast. Maybe you can find accomodation with roughly same distance in between these two towns, like Cefalu - or maybe in a town close to Palermo if you are landing there? I am sure you would find public transport to both places, to east and to the west. Both towns (rather Messina is an ancient city) are lovely and different as in the north west there are also many nice towns and fishing villages and you must visit Erice, a hilltop town, in fact,north-west countryside has really beautiful scenary, there is a region of it that is called the wine country.

Although I have been to the city of Messina to port in the early ninetees only to catch ferry to Reggio Calabria, I have been to its centre when I was a young teenager with my family, and I can still recall how we were waiting for the clock tower to strike noon when the statues, starting off with angels, move mechanically. Really nice.

So you will enjoy your stay in Sicily for sure, especially if you are going to meet relatives, they will welcome you with open arms. The Sicilian are so loving and friendly, you will see the locals kissing each other all the time when they meet, and often greet everyone even strangers with a "buon giorno. Whoever visited Sicily will know what I mean.

What you have to do now is to make research on travel - plane, train etc.