Italy Itinerary - too much?
 

My husband and I are planning our first trip to Italy. We have only about 5-6 nights in the country. I am wondering if this is too aggressive of a plan. We dont want to miss a minute, and are ok with a busy schedule. Just curious if this is doable!

Things that we are most looking forward to; wandering, eating, drinking wine,

- Fly from Miami to Milan, arrive at 10am and take a train to Bologna.
- Spend all day + 1 night in Bolonga
- First thing in the morning take a train to Florence
-Spend all day +1 night in Florence
-Hire a car service to take us around Tuscany, spend 2 nights in Tuscany, possibly Sienna
-Spend 1 night + 1 day in Florence
-Take night train to Milan, spend all of the last day in Milan before flight leaves at 6pm

Well you can do it, the train is a good idea. I think I might put the Florence days together, then Siena and then Milan. Alt. you could do Siena before Florence. Since the two cities were mortal enemies and the winner was the one to recover first after the black death it is interesting to compare the cathedrals, (one stuck at the point of defeat, the other growing after winning)

This is agressive and I wouldn't do it, but if you like rush then try.

And welcome to Fodors

Hi Bill! Thanks for responding. We are certainly open to different itinerary options! Basically, we want to combine some city time and some country time. Want to EAT, DRINK and soak up just being there. We realize, 5 nights is not a lot of time but its what we have to work with.

Also considering flying into Rome (price dropped today!) 2 nights in rome, 2 nights in Tuscany, 1 night + 1 full day in Rome before flying out.

Loving Italy and your proposed destinations as I do, I wouldn't do this trip. however, it can be done. I think I would cut out one destination, probably Bologna. You say you want to wander. With your itinerary it will be more like race walking if you plan to see much.

Why Milan and Bologna? If you have good reasons, that's fine. Bologna is certainly a great venue for eating, but one can eat and drink well pretty much all over Italy. You won't have time to wander - 5 days is a rush no matter if you stay in one place or travel around. But do you have to fly into and out of Milan? That kind of messes with any ideal short itinerary.

There are a couple of snags in your itinerary.

1. You will have only a few hours of day 1 in Bologna. You arrive at 10:00, need to wait for bags, get to Milan, and then take a train to Bologna. That will take probably 3 hours to get to Bologna, possibly more if you need to wait in Milan for the next train to Bologna. You need to be realistic about the amount of time travel takes.

2. Have you looked at the night train schedule for Florence to Milan? You have a 3 hour connection in Parma at 2:00AM. I would not enjoy sitting in a train station for 3 hours in the middle of the night. This will give you little sleep. The day time trains take 2 hours or less so I would consider them.

Overall this itinerary is too ambitious. You will visit several towns/cities but see almost nothing. Much of your vacation time will be spent getting to and from train stations, packing and unpacking, and on trains.

My choice, with only 5 nights, would be Florence and day trips from there either via public transportation or private guided tour. Siena is an hour away by bus, Pisa is an hour by train. There is other bus service to quite a few Tuscan towns from Florence.

If you stay in the center of Florence within walking distance to the bus/train station you'll have a more relaxing trip and actually get to see a few places in Italy. No need to keep packing/unpacking, finding your way around a new town (always confusing).

Per your info, you have 5 nights in Italy, but your count seems to be off.

Your itinerary 1:
Day 0: Fly from Miami
Day 1: arrive Milan 10 am and take a train to Bologna. Spend "all day" + 1 night in Bologna (Night 1)
Day 2: First thing in the morning take a train to Florence, Spend all day +1 night in Florence (Night 2)
Day 3: Hire a car service to take us around Tuscany, possibly Sienna (Night 3)
Day 4: Tuscany, second night (Night 4)
Day 5: Spend 1 night + 1 day in Florence (Night 5)
Day 6: Take night train (seems like you have no nights left--do you mean an overnight train?) to Milan, spend all of the last day in Milan before flight leaves at 6pm

I avoid one-night stays because they seem to waste time with checking in and out of hotels. Also note that you expect to have "all day" in Bologna, but based on an arrival time in Milano Malpensa, I suspect the soonest you would arrive in Bologna would be about 2:30PM. My rewrite of this itinerary to fit the time you have would include not breaking your stay in Florence into two pieces.

Adjusted itinerary 1:
Day 0: Fly from Miami
Day 1: arrive Milan 10 am and take a train to Florence. (Night 1)
Day 2: Spend all day +1 night in Florence (Night 2)
Day 3: Hire a car service to visit Tuscany, possibly Sienna (Night 3)
Day 4: Tuscany, second night (Night 4)
Day 5: Turn in car and take train to Milan (Night 5)
Day 6: spend all of the last day in Milan before flight leaves at 6pm

For your itinerary 2, again I'm wondering why you are breaking up your stay in Rome. To me it's better to put your days in one place together if possible. with so little time, I would prefer to move less.

Day 0: Fly from Miami
Day 1: arrive Rome airport and travel to Tuscany/Umbria location (Night 1)
Day 2: Spend all day +1 night in Tuscany/Umbria (Night 2)
Day 3: Later in day, drive/train to Rome (Night 3) (or could use this time in tuscany and go to rome in the morning, depending n your interests)
Day 4: Rome (Night 4)
Day 5: Rome (Night 5)
Day 6: fly home

Flying into Rome would work best for you, I think. With such a short amount of time, I would stay in Rome and if you want to see a bit of something else, do a day trip to Florence or a day trip to Orvieto.

If Rome doesn't interest you, go straight to Florence. Do day trip by train to Lucca and Siena or hire a driver to take you around Tuscany.

If you want both, go straight to Florence. Put all of Rome at the end.

When are you going?

If at all possible, wait until you can have a week combined with two weekends to go. You could do more and get more for all the money spent on airfare.

Rather than circling, if you are determined to do several cities - I would do an open jaws flight into the first city and out of the last. It won't cost any more and will save some of your very limited time.

But what I would really do is stay in one hotel throughout and do day trips to see what you want.

If you really want to do Bologna (great food) then stay there and do a couple of trips into the countryside. Or do the same from Florence or Rome.

It may seem like you are doing less, but believe me you will have more time for seeing sights and exploring cities than constantly moving from place to place.

hi winelady

If eating and wine is more important to you than sightseeing, you can have a great trip either landing in Milan or landing in Rome, but you really need to get some guidance about where to go to get excellent food. That is more reliably available on the Chowhound message board for Italy.

For instance, if you landed in Milan and immediately took a train to Parma, you could have fantastic food you would not forget for the rest of your life. (Hotel Daniel in Parma has a terrific restaurant). It is also an incredibly beautiful small town filled with Italian culture, both music and painting. It is such a beautiful introduction to Italy, and with or without a car, you can visit nearby towns and have extraordinary food.

Likewise, if you land in Rome, just press on to Umbria. Spend a night in Orvieto (and drink their lovable wine), but when you are rested, get yourself to somewhere around Montefalco and the good food and wine of central Umbria. You will not lack for spectacular art and history. This is the land of St Francis of Assisi and italy's most glorious frescoes. This is where Hannibal beat the Romans.

5 nights in Italy spend either in the beautiful highly digestible small art cities of the Emilia-Romanga/Tuscany or Umbria is a much more enjoyable trip than being in the overwhelming cities, and while it is true you can always find decent food, even lovely food, almost anywhere you go in Italy, there are some goldmines of great food and cultural beauty, often scarcely changed by tourism (which really helps keep food standards high).

I don't think you will regret shooting past the cities and the conventional tourist spots to enjoy a week in the better food and wine producing regions. The small towns are beautiful.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/de...ity-guide.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/200...aks.citybreaks

http://www.bellaumbria.net/en/itinerary/

http://www.italia.it/en/discover-italy/umbria.html

Rail tickets as low as 9 euros if purchased nearly 120 days in advance....ie Venice to Naples is 9 euros

Wow! Thank you all so much! This is most certainly helpful. I can surely see how I was trying to cram too much in. I think we have adjusted our plan to look something more like this:

-Arrive in Rome around 11am, rent car
-Spend the first 3 days/nights exploring Umbria and possibly Tuscan towns. Plan to stay at one Bed and Breakfast as a home base. Perugia looks like a good location for this. Thoughts?
-Sometime on the 4th day, drive back to Rome. Return car. Check into hotel/BB. Explore the neighborhood, have a late Roman dinner.
-Spend our last 2 days visiting one or two "must see" Roman sites. We know we cannot see it all. We are ok with that.
-Fly out at 8pm of the last day.

Does this sound more do-able? It feels less rushed to me. I like the idea of wandering around Umbria and possibly Tuscany for a few days. With a skeleton plan at least of what towns we'd like to see. There seem to be a lot of self guided driving maps of these areas.

My next questions would be: 1. Where would you base yourself for 3 days of Umbria/Tuscany sightseeing? 2. Which neighborhood in Rome would you base yourself in for a quick 3 day 2 night stay?

Thank you all!!

Considering this is your first trip to Italy, unless you have a lot of international driving experience, I wouldn't rent a car on arrival and immediately head out.

Driving in and out of Perugia every day can be tricky and a bit time consuming. I'd pick a smaller town. In 3 days/nights, you're not going to see a lot of Umbria and Tuscany, so you should figure out what you want to see and then pick a location that makes geographic sense for your day trips. IMO, you should think in terms of Umbria OR Tuscany but not both regions.

If this were my trip and assuming I didn't arrive on a Saturday or Sunday (when car rental office hours

Sorry. I hit the 'submit' button too soon.

If this were my trip and assuming I didn't arrive on a Saturday or Sunday (when car rental office hours would preclude this plan), I'd train to either Orvieto (for Tuscany) or Foligno (for Umbria). If Tuscany, I'd stick to the Val d'Orcia area of Montepulciano, Pienza, San Quirico and Montalcino and also try to see one of the abbeys. If Umbria, I'd see Assisi, Gubbio, Todi and Spello.

Driving a rental car into Rome to drop it off runs a considerable risk of getting hit with one or more fines for driving in the restricted zone.

In Rome I would definitely book a hotel in the historic center - so you can easily walk to as much as possible. As soon as you book the hotel ask them about driving and parking. They will tell you if you can take a car to the hotel or not - or reco where to drop it off and pick up a cab to get there.

We have not found driving into Rome to be as much of a problem as driving into the smaller towns - often just not possible - you need to leave your car in a lot outside the walls. Check for specifics with whatever hotels you book.

There's no need to drive into Rome to return the car unless that's really what you want to do (which I would consider very brave for an Italy newbie!). After your time in Umbria or Tuscany, you can return the car at either Orvieto or Foligno and take the train into Rome.

hi winelady,

This is the way I would do your trip -- but presumably you are smart enough to know that should be taken with a salt shaker! Just giving you my perspective:

-Arrive in Rome around 11am and to directly to Orvieto by train. Check in, get some wine and food and meander or nap or what have you. SLEEP
--- Rent a car and head to either another small town or a farm/winery in either Tuscany or Umbria. (Perugia is a pain with a car, but it is great to visit if you want to go the national gallery of Umbrian Art).
-Sometime on the 4th day, drive to CHIUSI in Tuscany or FOLIGNO in Umbria. Return car and take the train to Rome. Check into hotel/BB. Have Lunch. Begin exploring Rome.
-Spend our last 2 days visiting the Roman sites you personally would be thrilled to enjoy. We know we cannot see it all. We are ok with that.
-Fly out at 8pm of the last day.