Italy -Itinerary
 

Taking a belated honeymoon to Italy in May. We have 9 nights, flying in and out of Rome. I was there 2 years ago with friends and did Rome and south (Sorrento, Amalfi Coast, Capri and Pompeii). He has his heart set on Venice. What would a good plan of action be if we wanted to fit in Cinque Terre, Parma, and maybe the wine country? Is there any other "must see" towns? I don't think we want to rent a car, is this do-able in the wine country?

With 9 nites in Italy you should pick a max of 3 destinations.
You really need to read more about Italy--there are at least 5 well known wine areas---you may mean Tuscany. Why are you not flying home from Venice--that would save a day in travel.

Hi jeb,

I can understand Venice and the CT, but what draws you to Parma?

((I))

Parma is a beautiful destination, and I once made it an overnight stop driving from Venice to the Ligurian coast, and included Torrechiara (just outside Parma) on my way to the sea. There is enough rewarding in the area to make a 3 night stop if you are so inclined.

But since you don't want to drive, I would go directly from Rome to Venice (by flight if possible, otherwise train). See Venice, then train to Parma and le Cinque Terre. Train or fly back to Rome (via Genova airport).

How many destinations you visit in italy is really all about your mood. There is nothing about Italy that mandates having to limit your traveling around. The infrastructure for hotels is good everywhere you are going in May. That said, just about the only train-accessible wine region where you want to go is le Cinque Terre (and lots of people don't like the wine from there, me included!). If you want to see vine-clad hills, you need to rent a car.

If you end up wanting to rent a car, a sensible itinerary might be: Arrive in Rome, train to Orvieto (a famous wine town). Rent a car, taking a scenic route up through Tuscany, to le Cinque Terre, overnighting on the way near Siena, arriving by sunset in le Cinque Terre the next day. Take in Parma either as a day trip from the sea (in that case, think about staying in Lerici) or en route to Venice (I would make it an overnight.) Ditch the car in Venice. It would be nice if you could fly home from there. Otherwise, train it back to Rome.

That's a road trip, and if you don't like road trips, you'll have to get back on your ambitions to zig-zag all around Italy, or see hilly wine towns without train stations.

Have fun!

PS: I should add that another possibility is taking a train directly out of Rome to Chiusi, and then getting a driver to take you from there to Montepulciano. Have a driver take you the next day for a scenic driving tour, dropping you off someplace with a convenient train line (my pick might be Arezzo). From there, use the Trenitalia website to figure out the most efficient train itinerary that includes Parma, le Cinque Terre and Venice with a return to Rome if necessary.

Thank you for all the tips! I'm torn about renting a car, I know it's a must for doing any of the wine areas, but I'm a bit nervous about driving. We had a driver while we were touring the Amalfi Coast and it was wonderful. I'm not sure I can drive on those tiny, winding roads. Are the roads less congested up north? I'm glad to hear you like Parma, my future husband is a huge "foodie" and saw a segment that Giada DeLaurentis did on Parma and just has to see where the cheese we love so much comes from. After reading the posts, I am calling to try extend our trip, there is just too much to see and do.
I used frequent flier miles, so flying in/out of Venice isn't an option on United, so maybe we will try to book on another airline. Is it worth the money to fly to Venice instead of taking the train?

"Is it worth the money to fly to Venice instead of taking the train?"

In my opinion, yes, if it saves you precious vacation time. But it may or may not do so, depending on the flights available to you.

For example, your flight to Rome may arrive at 7:30 in the morning in Rome. To take a train to Venice, you would have to train into Rome (30 minutes plus waiting time) and then switch to a train to Venice (about 4.5 hours, though there are some even faster trains now). I'd expect the soonest you would arrive in Venice would be about 2PM. You'll have to check schedules to see the real possibilities. If a flight from your home to Venice had to connect through some other place and you didn't arrive at the Venice airport until after 2PM, then the train would be better. (Getting from the Venice airport to the Venice island takes anywhere from 30-60 minutes.)

Parma is a really lovely town, I spent 4 days there in June as part of a trip to the Emilia Romagna region. BUT you might need a car for part of your time there. Both the cheese and Parma ham producers are all in the countryside around the city. I think there are guided tours by bus that leave from the city, but they might be a bit pricey and tie you up for a full day. A rental car for a day or two might make it a bit easier to get around to some producers.

As well, there are a number of interesting historic castles to see right around Parma, which you might want to visit if you have a car.

It isn't actually that difficult driving in Italy's countryside. I wouldn't want to venture into a city any larger than say, Foligno, with a car! But I've never had trouble on any rural roads or even larger highways. And I travel solo.

I rely mostly on trains when I'm in Italy and rent a car for only a few days here and there, when I'm somewhere that I know I'll need a car -- and am staying outside of larger centres.

We've used our United FF miles several times to fly into Venice - you can definitely do it, though you may have to pay to talk to a United reservations agent to do so. It's through United's partner, Lufthansa. For our flights, the entire trip is on Lufthansa. We fly direct from Denver to Frankfurt, and from there to anywhere that Lufthansa flies, including Venice. But depending on where you're departing from, you may be on a United plane, or a Lufthansa plane, for the U.S. to Frankfurt part of the trip.

On the car vs. train matter, it's up to you. But I can tell you that most of the roads anywhere in Italy are wider, and have less aggressive drivers, than in the south. We drove once into and out of Sorrento, and I've never seen more aggressive drivers. We mostly drive (rental cars) on our Italian trips, and take trains when we're going from one big city to another, and don't need cars.

We've used United FF miles to fly in to/out of Venice on three trips. Twice on Lufthansa through Frankfurt and Munich, and once through Zurich on Swiss. I'm West Coast U.S. and prefer to fly IN to Venice rather than OUT of. The outbound flights I have to take depart Venice really early. I also prefer connections through Zurich and Munich hands down over Frankfurt.

Good point by Jean !
Try not to depart from Venice.

We toured a Parmesan Reggiano farm in the late 1990"s-we made an appointment a few days before (in person-we were staying in Parma for four days.) It was a wonderful experience and the cheese tasting was superb. Check out thefoodmaven.com-he seems to have good instructions on how to arrange a tour.

Jean- I called United and it will cost $350 to change destinations, but due to connections we would not arrive into Venice until 4:30 pm. As it is, we have a direct flight from Chicago to Rome arriving at 10:30 am. My question is-- are the flights out of Venice that bad? We could switch our outbound from Rome to Venice and get a 9:30 am flight back to the states, so that will save us the time and cost of train travel back to Rome, but the comments about not flying out of Venice made me a bit nervous.
Thank you for all the comments, I really appreciate all your help.

Lindateach- I just checked out thefoodmaven.com, I now have my tour instructions. I also got some good Rome hotel information. Thank you so much!

The comments about flying out of Venice are because many flights depart very early(6am) which makes people have to get up in the middle of the night to catch their flights. It seems you found one at decent departure time. If they can change you to departing Venice at 9:30am, I would switch. Fly into Rome and out of Venice so you aren't wasting time backtracking to Rome.