I know you said you would prefer not to do a tour. But when you talked about burning the candle at both ends, I can't help but think a Contiki tour would be great for you. I recently went on one, and I did so much in so little time, I couldn't believe it. There is an itinerary that is a nine day trip in Tuscany, and covers alot of what you might want to see, except Venice.

http://us.contiki.com/tours/159-tuscany

p.s. I would definitely suggest going to Florence no matter what. The night life was great, and I liked it a lot more than Venice.

sunsetbay:
We just returned from Italy and spent a week traveling. We did: Venice - 2 nights, took a train to Rome (4 1/2 hours), Rome - 2 nights. We then hired a driver to take us to Positano (Amalfi Coast) for 3 nights. We felt it was a decent amount of time to see everything.
looking at all the historical sites.

In Rome, we had enough time in two nights to visit: The Vatican, Colloseum, Spanish Steps (along with shopping in that area), Trevi Fountain, Via Veneto, Pantheon.

In Positano, we took a ferry to Capri for the day, went to Amalfi for a 1/2 day(took the ferry back and watched the sunset along the Amalfi Coast), went to the beach in Positano, and also did lots of shopping and walking around. I love Positano so much that I can't imagine going to Italy and not going there. It's just so beautiful.

We were on the go a lot, but we enjoy going from hotel to hotel. You do get to rest during the day when most shops close. We went back to the hotel and relaxed and then went back out there. Have fun!

Thank you to all of you who gave such great itinerary advice for our Italy trip. We booked our flight, flying into Venice and out of Rome as many of you recommended. After much research we have decided on Venice - 2nights, train to Florence, pick up rental car and head to Tuscany/Chianti for 3 nights, then end up in Rome for 3 nights. We feel this will be a good combo of relaxing, getting over jetlag and romantic time in Venice, then beautiful wine countryside in Chianti/Tuscany, then city hustle bustle in Rome. I would LOVE some advice on hotels for those 3 places.

Venice - 2 nights - any strong recommendations? Lloking for nice, 4star, approx 200-250 Euro?

Tuscany/Chianti - we would like to stay in a beautiful villa, wine country chalet type. In the Fodors guide, I have seen Villa Bordoni in Greve and Relais Fattoria Vignale and Palazzo Leopoldo both in Radda. All 3 look lovely but I would love to hear any 1st hand experiences/opinions.

Also, is it feasible to think we can jump in our car and do a day trip to Florence using Radda or Greve as our base to drive back to in the evening? I know this will never give us enough time to see all of Florence but we have limited time so we thought one day is better than nothing!

Rome - 3 nights. On this site I have seen Residenza Canali recommended quite a few times. I have also seen Hotel Romanico Palace, Hotel Guilo Cesare and Hotel Britannia on the vener.com web site...any thoughts or recommendations?

All of you have been so tremendously helpful. I cannot thank you enough for your advice and sharing your experiences, it has helped us so much in planning this trip.

Hi,

The first time I went to Venice I stayed at Hotel Principe in Cannaregio. It's a beautiful 4 star hotel on the Gran Canal with an excellent breakfast.

The one thing I would change is taking an early train to Florence, and then staying there overnight and getting a car the next day. You'd find it a better arrangement. That would decrease your hill-town stay to 2 nights, but you'd save the time of running to and from Florence in the car. And with a car you can't go into the historic center anyway, so then you have to find a place to park. Which ain't easy!

Charnee

A personal observation:
Many times people return from Italy after a hectic move-move schedule and enjoy their trip.

I believe that the charms of Italy make it hard to not enjoy yourself.

Many of us here that offer advice are attempting to offer ways to optimize travel experiences.
Most of us have had many trips to Italy and can compare a crammed visit versus one that doesn't devote a good portion of the trip to traveling from city to city, packing and unpacking, etc.