Need help with 9 day itinerary. Landing in Milan and departing Rome...
 

We are visiting Italy this September and in order to maximize our time we planned different arrival/departure cities. We are thinking of doing the following cities.
Milan->Venice->Florence->Rome. But we are torn on the number of days to spend in each of them. I've been reading quite a few blogs and everyone says that for a 9 day trip, doing 4 cities would be foolish. But we are unlikely to come back to Italy anytime in the future and so we definitely want to see most of the popular destination before we leave. Is that such a bad thing?? We are a couple in their mid-twenties. We love to explore but also love to eat and drink...
How many days should we spend in each of them? I read somewhere that 1 day in Milan, for first timers should be good. Venice is beautiful but extremely expensive..so 2 days should be ok there...Should we knock off/add any other places to our list? We are also thinking of doing a day trip from Florence to some of the smaller towns around it...

Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

My wife and I are in our 30's. We just returned from a trip to Italy last week. We had the same mentality...we may never go again. I would suggest that you go into your trip with the assumption that you will return someday. Remember that even if you stayed in one location for the entire nine days, you would not see everything there is to see there. The most impressive thing to us was the culture and if you are running around trying to see the sites, you will miss the most amazing aspect of your visit. That said, you're going to do what you're going to do. Rather than staying in Milan, we drove to Bellagio on Lake Como (about an hour) Beautiful city...very relaxing. We stayed two days there, three in Venice(drove there as well...3-4hrs)train to Florence (2-3)hours with two days there. We also stayed 4 nights in Rome after visiting Tuscany. Not sure what your budget is, but we found Venice wasn't much more expensive than anywhere else in Italy. Our average hotel cost was a little over $100 U.S. and all were above average accomodations. I would consider skipping Venice and sticking with Western Italy, i.e. Florence, Tuscan hillside, Rome, to cut down on travel time, especially if you want to spend any time at all in Rome.

Do your 9 days include flying days, such as landing on Day 1 and leaving on Day 9. While many might say that Day 1 is a loss, I will disagree with this, it is more like a 1/2 day loss if you have never been to the city before.

Doing the open-jaw flights is a great way to do this, but you are still limited in time. Remember that a good rule of thumb on changing locations is a loss of 1/2 day for each location change. Reason is that you pack, check out, get to transport hub, wait for transport, transit, get from new hub to new location, check in. That takes time. So, going with your itinerary and assuming that all 9 days are on the ground days, you now have about 7-7.5 days. That is less than 2 days per location. Yes, you can get a feel for a place in that amount of time and that might be what you want. Then again, you might be missing a lot.

Florence - The 4 main churches, 2 museums, Ponte Vecchio, Piazzale Michelangelo could be squeezed into 2 days, but that is pushing it.

Rome - There is so much to see and do, to cut it down to 2 days would be a shame if it wasn't necessary. Vatican alone is 1/2 day minimum.

Venice and Milan we haven't touched yet.

Think about what you really want to see and do. Fly through touring might be right and on the other hand you might really regret it, if this will be your last trip for a while.

dave

I meant to add, if it were me, I'd drop Milan.

dave

You'll get conflicting advice on timing but I think you can do what you want if you are organized, have your itinerary planned & want to see the main attractions only. You can allocate 1 day to Milan (to minimize time waste book hotel near Milano Centrale train station); there are direct buses & trains from airport (MXP). See Duomo & Castello ( http://www.milanocastello.it/ing/home.html) - both easily reachable by metro. If interesting in designer boutiques visit Via Montenapoleone http://www.viamontenapoleone.org/eng/home.php

Next day walk to Milano Centrale & take train to Venice (2.5 hrs). You can spend at least 2 days (1 overnight) there or 2 overnights. Then Florence (2-3 days) and Rome.

Thank you for your responses. These 9 days do not include flying. We actually have 9.5 days (half a day in Milan after flying in). We would likely be spending an average of $100 for hotel rooms too..
I meant Venice being expensive in a way that doing regular stuff like moving about, eating, drinking and even tourist hotspots are pricier than other cities. Also, I hope I don't hurt anyone but I've heard from my friend who visiting Venice, that the locals are very rude towards tourist mainly because there are just so many of us out there! My friend whom I spoke too clearly did not have a good experience.

$100 hotels in Venice are rare (may be 120-150 ballpark is more realistic). Same true for other tourist centers. Historical part Venice is very small but very crowded and it takes somewhat longer to navigate the streets. Yes prices are higher there but cheaper choices are there for example Brek self service restaurant near the train station http://www.brek.com/english/en.php

What are your preferences? Below is my general guide but only you know what "calls out" from your reading.

Milan-> If you have time to see the Duomo, it's truly incredible. If you wish to see "Last Supper", you need to make reservations. 1 night here or go straight to Venice by train.

Venice->2 nights will give you the very basic touristy look. Try to take the Vaporetto around the entirety

Florence->3 nights (or more if you want to really visit Uffizi)

Rome->Rest in Rome. IMHO, Rome has the most to see. St. Peters, Cistine, Parthenon, Piazza Navona. 3 or 4.5. As others have said, it will barely cover things but you <i>will</i> return!

I didn't feel anyone was ever really rude...they may have been annoyed by our presence. That was the case in many of the "touristy" areas. Honestly, I was annoyed by them as well. Many individuals travel to foreign countries to see the sights and are completely unwilling to explore the culture. They expect everyone to be just like they are and that is just not the case. I agree with HKTO regarding hotels in Venice. We found a decent one for 110Euro. We enjoyed Venice and it was not any more expensive to get around in than anywhere else we stayed, you just have to be picky about what you do (and eat) More popular parts of town are "easier", tourist menus...waiters who speak good english, but much more expensive and, in my opinion, of poorer quality. Same goes anywhere else you go. Learn a few words in the local language and get off the beaten path and you will find your experiences much more memorable...and less expensive. I don't recommend against going to Venice, but I would save it for another trip due to logistics. HKTO is absolutely right about the trip being possible. It is very doable...but you will miss much more than you see. That's just my opinion.