Itinerary Italy New Years Need Help!!!
 

Before I check myself in to the "itinerary infirmary for idiots"...maybe since it's a long weekend there are fodorites with time on their hands. If you were going to find yourself in Toulon, (France ) on Christmas eve...and I'm guessing even this group of sophisticated travellers maybe don't know of Toulon... but anyway, you had to be back in Paris for a return flight to the states on January 4th...and you'd really like to spend the intervening week or so in Italy where you would enjoy history, art, food and wine. We've never been to Italy, so it's all brand new, and I feel that I want to go to Venice, Florence, Rome, with maybe some side trips but I'm guessing the Cinque Terre or other small towns will be boarded up for the winter. I'm driving myself crazy trying to figure out how to avoid spending days on trains etc. And no, don't tell me to just stay put in the south of France, I already tried that on my daughter who will be living there and is hoping Mom will treat her to an fabulous week in Italy! Help?

Given the location of Toulon and how little time you have, I suggest getting a flight to one of the major cities of Italy and seeing two of them, not three of them. Fly to the southernmost city of your two choices, and leave from the northernmost to return (via air) to Paris.

Try

easyjet.com
Opodo.co.uk
whichbudget.com

those are my favorites but there are other sites for interEurope flights, and they are listed here on this forum.

I agree with what previous posters have suggested here. For instance, you could fly RyanAir (www.ryanair.com) from Marseille to Rome, travel by train within Italy, and then take RyanAir from Venice to Paris. Train travel time and fares aren't bad - so depending on how you configure your itinerary, you don't need to spend a lot of time on trains. Check out the time/fare estimates on the Rick Steves site in order to give you an idea: http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/comparetickets.htm (just click on the map to enlarge). In general, I've always found the Rick Steves books helpful in giving you planning tips and travel times and logistics from place to place.

It sounds like you could have upwards of 10 days to travel in Italy and so 3 stops wouldn't be out of the question, but it really depends on how much substance you want from each place (personally, I've never spent less than a week in Rome on any of my trips there and can still find new things to do there each time). You could stop by Florence on your way up to Venice, but a side trip to Cinque Terre really would slow you down with the train thing.

I think more than 3 stops and you just wouldn't get to appreciate each place for the time that you have. Once you go to Italy you will certainly want to return! So, why not save CT for a time when the coastal weather would be a little more enjoyable.

Otherwise, decide what you really want to see and design your time in each place around that. I always seem to start from more than I can do and then must edit!

To do Rome, Florence, and Venice really wouldn't be that much train time. I would suggest though travel to each place either early in the morning or late in the day so that you get full days in each city, otherwise you cut the day in half and, from my experience, you tend not to optimize your time in either place.

I'm sure once you narrow what you want to do, people here can offer more advice.

Thanks all! Venturegirl, I'm in a bit of an awkward situation, because although I am flying in and out of Paris...at the end of Italy I want to return to Toulon with my daughter, so I'll have to "bite the bullet" so to speak. But I don't want to leave her in Venice to return to Paris and have her make her way back to Toulon on her own...

But it looks like we can get a flight on Ryanair from Marseilles to Rome, but a day later than originally planned, apparently they only do that flight on wed. not tues. (But oh well, that way I get extra time in Provence!) and if I'm correct, we could day trip to Florence from Rome, rather than overnight in Florence. And a train from Rome to Venice would be about 5 hrs?
Then either night train back from Venice or work on another flight plan. I also saw that Lufthansa might do a round trip into Rome and out of Venice with one quick stop in either Frankfurt or Munich, and there are probably other options. Won't be the most economical trip with all the extra flights, but looks like most flights within France and Italy are around 250 per person, which isn't all that bad.

>and if I'm correct, we could day trip to Florence from Rome, rather than overnight in Florence<

You can, but you might not want to. In January you will find that the days are short and the Firenze is extremely rich in treasures -- but also colder than either Roma or Venezia. Add into that the fact the week between Christmas and New Year's is a holiday week for Italians, who are just a fond of sightseeing in Italy as we are. If you are determined to have a day trip to Firenze, book reserved seats on the train and make reservations for the museums.

Here's something else to think about in terms of planning your trip so that you may be able to balance both your daughter getting home easily and safely with your original concern of spending all your vacation time in transit...

First, I agree with nessundorma that a day-trip to Florence(while certainly conceivable) isn't your best strategy since you're then back to that original issue of too much time on trains and you would essentially be back tracking when you head to Venice -- not to mention that there is so much to see in Florence. Better, I would say, when you're ready to leave Rome head to Florence by train and stay "at least" one night there and then head to Venice after Florence by train. Otherwise you've added unnecessary train time to your schedule...this way, you're spending your travel time more economically and breaking up the approx. 5 hours train travel to Venice w/ a stop in Florence.

From Venice, perhaps consider this scenario instead of all the time and cost to fly back to Toulon... Have your daughter fly with you to Paris (looks to be only about 20 Euros currently on RyanAir)...then you could physically put her on a direct train in Paris right to Toulon (there appears to be a TGV that goes directly there in about 4 hours or so - they seem to have a low cost ticket for 45 Euros for as long as those type of seats are left - I checked for first class tickets and young person travelling) - here is the SNCF web page for trip search in English: http://www.voyages-sncf.com/dynamic/...918c53b246a3f7

So, this scenario would look like thsi cost-wise: 70 Euros Marseille to Rome; 20 Euros Venice to Paris; 45-130 Euro range for TGV Paris to Toulon, depending on type of purchase; plus train travel within Italy. I did notice, though, on your RyanAir options there is currently only one flight option each day, so once you decide what you want to do, you should probably make reservations soon in order to ensure your seats -- including for trains as nessundorma mentioned.

Anyway, just an idea so that it might help you and your family optimize your vacation time in relation to spending so much time getting places -- hope this is helpful.

I've taken an overnight train between Venice and Paris. That worked out nicely for us. But it cost more than the air fares being quoted above.

One of the diffuculties of doing an overnight in Firenze in January is that, unless you get an extremely early start, it gets dark very quickly. Depending on which museums and churches you want to see and what day your are there, you might still find things to do in Firenze after dark, but it makes more sense to me to go directly to Venezia.

Unlike venturegirl, for me the problem with a daytrip to Firenze is that there is TOO MUCH to see and too few daylight hours to accomplish it on a January day trip. It's an exercise in frustration and distortion of what Firenze has to offer.