We are planning our 1st trip to Italy in Sept for 17 days ( Sept 13-30th) and plan to fly into Rome. We want to see Rome, Florence (Sept 20-22nd), Venice, Almfi coast, lake Como, Tuscanny country. Can anyone recommend a good itinerary for what we want to see. We are not sure how many days to stay at each place and how to prevent as little moving from hotels as possible.

Before you buy your airline tickets, take a look at the multi-city option on airline websites, flying from home to one city in Italy (perhaps Rome) and flying home from a different city. (For you choices, perhaps Florence, Pisa, Venice, Naples, or Milan) This will save you the cost in time and money and one hotel move to backtrack to the same airport, giving you more time to visit the places.

It seems as if you are committed to visiting Florence at on particular dates—is this true?

You have named Rome, Florence/Tuscany, Venice, Amalfi Coast, and Lake Como--five regions in 17 days. If you are traveling from outside Europe, your first day may be taken up with travel and jet lag. Similarly your last day will be all about heading to the airport and heading home. You will lose at least half a day to checking in and out of hotels and traveling each time you change regions.

This means that if you include ALL your desired regions, you will have about 2.5 days at best to visit each one. Is that enough time for you? If not, then eliminate some choices now. The two more far afield locations are Lake Como and the Amalfi Coast. If you eliminate one or the other, this will ease you itinerary and eliminate moving from hotels.

For your list of places, you will have to move hotels quite a bit. You could instead focus on just Rome and the Amalfi Coast, or Tuscany, or Lake Como

One of many many permutations is:

Fly into Milan (maybe spend a night). Go to Lake Como (3 days). Venice (3 days), Florence (2 days), Rome (5 days). Amalfi Coast (4 nights). If you subtract travelling time, you can add whatever may be left over wherever you think appropriate. Fly out of Rome.

Also, how many days you stay at each place depends on your interests. It seems you have picked out Florence and scheduled it, so I assumed above that you're interested in art.

ellenem,
Thanks for your response. The multi city option is a gem. I will look into that. Would you suggest Almfi coast over lake como if we decided thats too many regions? We have a 2 day meeting in Florence on those dates so thats why we plan to go there. And because it's the #1 travel destination.

We are mainly interested in hitting the highlights of each place. When we travel abroad we hit the ground running 8am each day and go till about midnight trying to see as much as poss.without tours. We feel they are too restricting and waste valuable time to see more. We most likely will only do Italy once(too much of the world yet to see!)

We would like to limit moving hotels to no more than 3 if possible. We want to spend the most time in Rome, Venice and Florence and thought some country/coast ideally would round out the trip. Day trips to those if possible or our shortest stays.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Sam86,

Thanks for your suggestions. We mainly plan to fly into Rome because we can get a direct flight from our airport. It's a long flight so we want to do it direct.

As far as Florence. We are not interested in art but have a 2 day meeting there and also want to see the #1 travel destination in the world.

We want to see the main highlights of each place. We assume Rome takes more time than Venice and Florence to do this but not sure how much time more? Like I've heard that Venice highlights are centrally located and easy to walk to. But does Florence and Rome need more time because of their layout?

Florence, much like Venice, is very compact and walkable. Rome is very much larger and more spread out. You won't be able to see all of your wish list by limiting yourselves to 3 hotels. Why not fly into Rome, spend 5-6 days, move to Florence ahead of your meetings, take a day trip or two to the Tuscan countryside and explore Florence, go to Venice for 3 days, then to Lake Como for 3 days. Fly out of Milan. Or go to Lake Como after Florence and then to Venice; fly out of Venice. Including the Amalfi Coast is a bit difficult without a lot of backtracking given your need to be in Florence on specific dates.

mamcalice has suggested a good itinerary and good timing for your trip. The Amalfi Coast is the more difficult to include with Vencie and your dates set in Florence.

With your "been there, done that" attitude, you can do a day trip to the Amalfi Coast from Rome. Take the train to Salerno, a SITA bus from Salerno to Amalfi, another SITA bus from Amalfi to Sorrento, the Circumvesuviana train from Sorrento to Naples, train back to Rome. You'll be back in Rome long before midnight, so you'll have to find other things to do in Rome to fill up your day.

Using ellenm's advice we decided we will fly into Venice & out of Rome. We are thinking we will focus on Rome, Venice ,Florence and do day trips from those. Any suggestions on day trips from those locations? How about a good tour book? Like with good tips on avoiding lines, under ground tips to avoid all the normal tourist time consuming traps. We had a friend give us a good one for Paris and we got into the Louve with no waiting by going in a way most tourists don't know. We saw a ton more than most people we talk to who spent more than 2 weeks!

Zerlina, Any suggestions on what we can do once we get back to Rome before midnight?

<As far as Florence. We are not interested in art but have a 2 day meeting there and also want to see the #1 travel destination in the world.>

This is an amazing statement. Ok, you have a meeting there, so you just have to go to Florence, I get this part. But if you're not interested in art, why would you want to see Florence or what would you want to see there? If it's really the no. 1 travel destination (I don't know that), then people still go there to see the amazing art - there's simply no other reason for a visit to Florence. The sky is blue there, too, as long as it's not cloudy, and the pavement is grey. Going to Florence just for the food would be another story (a very individual reason, but still a valid one). But to SEE "it" without seeing the art?

Also, you've "heard" that the "Venice highlights" are centrally located, and seem to conclude that you need less time there than in Florence. Which are the "Venice highlights" in your opinion?

Geraldm, for Rome, Venice, Florence there are a lot of tips to give but these are all art and history heavy cities.
For Rome, look into the Roma Pass. Book early for the Vatican.
For Florence, if you want to go to the Uffizi and Accademia, book early.

There's lots of material on this forum that will give you a sense of what there is to see in these cities. Once you decide on what it is you want to see, it'll be easier to give advice on short cuts and tips and such like.

One way to see Tuscany during your stay in Florence is to splurge on a private driver who can show you the countryside and hill towns for which Tuscany is famous. A favorite driver/guide very popular with Fodorites is Luca at hillsandroads.com.

Franco, We are interested in architecture, sculpture/ statues and scenery. Not hanging out in art museums all day. One is enough. So that's what I mean about not caring much about art.

We plan to go to Pisa, Sienna and Chianti while there. We have decided we need more time, so we are going to go for 3 weeks.

We are thinking 5 days Florence and 5 days Venice. This leaves 10 for Rome and Almafi coast. Does this seem reasonable?

Thanks to all of you for your input!

Sam86, Thanks for the tips! Ellenem, thanks for the driver tip. We plan to do this trip 1st class all the way so it will fit in nicely!

If you like sculpture, then one of the museums in Florence you should not miss is the Bargello, which, IMO, is also interesting architecturally. The Museum of the Works of the Duomo (Museo dell'opera di Duomo) also has quite a lot of architecture exhibits and sculpture, as I recall. You may also find the Duomo, and climbing its dome to the top, interesting, especially if you read Brunelleschi's Dome, a book about the engineering problems associated with the building, the competition for designing it, and then how it was built. It really was an amazing feat, especially at the time it was built when there was so little technology to assist in the construction.

Central Florence is mainly composed of dark grey buildings, much like mini-fortresses with their walls on the street.

Ah, now I understand - art as in "museums", opposed to architecture, that's making sense. Still, Florence is much about art, though not necessarily in museums (I always advise people to go to the Uffizi only if they are REALLY keen on art, cause otherwise, this is going to be a traumatic museum experience due to the dull, dumb hanging and lighting) - but art in situ, inside the churches it has been made for. There are quite many churches in Florence, actually, that you wouldn't visit for their architecture, just for the art inside, so be warned - I'm not sure whether you want to stay 5 days put in Florence, or 5 days Florence plus daytrips into the Tuscan countryside. If it's Florence alone, you may want to reconsider; for pure architecture and sculpture buffs, 5 full days may be long in Florence.

For Venice, 5 days is perfectly reasonable to get a quite good first impression so to decide whether you like it enough to come back. (Btw, there are highlights all over the city map, not just centrally locates; but it's true that everything is pretty compact and walkable.)

As for a guide book - I think Rick Steves is very useful (altho some folks on these boards disdain him) but he has tips for making the most of your time and how to access sites effectively. You are fortunate to have alot of time! You might want to go from Florenece down to the Amalfi coast area and stay there for 4 or 5 nights and then finish up in Rome. 10 nights in Rome would be a bit much for me - there is alot to see along the Amalfi area, you really don't want to do it as a day trip! I think Zerlina was being a bit facetious.

the uffizi is so large to grasp.....consider taking a 90 minute tour in a small group....get a feel for it... to go into every room would have been very tough........ viatour.com was good for that ....found it here !
go to the piazza de michaelangelo up on the hill... could spend 2 hours sitting...there is a church up there and every afternoon aorund 5pm you can see the monks chanting ....

loved flying into venice to recoop from jet lag