Need help with itinery
 

My daughter and I will visiting Italy the last two weeks of May. we are working on our itinerary and trying to figure out the bast places and number of days to stay in Venice, Rome, Tuscany, Florence, Amalfi Coast. We were thinking of 2 - 3 days in Rome but not sure what to do for Tuscany, Florence, and Venice. We have never been there and this is my number one bucket list to do. I have beaten cancer and will travel with my daughter so I am looking forward to this trip. How many days to you suggest in each? What special sites to see? I do know I would like to do a cooking class in Tuscany? and a wine tasting in Florence or Tuscany? Not sure how many days I should stay in each and I know it depends on what I would like to see but I am looking for suggestions. We will not have a car and will be counting on public transportation. I have been reading so much and my head is spinning. I really appreciate your help.

Venice, Rome, Tuscany, Florence, Amalfi >

2 weeks

Land in Venice - 3 nights

Train to Florence about 2 hrs
Florence 3 nights

train to Naples and then train to Sorrento and bus to Amalfi or as many here do take a private shuttle from Naples station to say Positano or Amalfi, two popular Amalfi coast towns. Amalfi 4 nights - do a day trip by ferry to Capri one day.

End in Rome - 4 nights.

Or instead of Amalfi rent a car and tool around Tuscany and end up in say Orvieto and return car and take train to Rome.

I'd drop the Amalfi because it is an outlier for your itinerary but I'd chose between Tuscany or Amalfi - dropping Amalfi would say a lot of transit time getting there.

anyway write flight open-jaw - say going into Venice and returning from Rome.

Transfer to Naples or Salerno for trains to Rome
Rome 4 nights

For lots on trains and booking your own discounted tickets online check www.seat61.com - general info trains BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com.

We are flying out of naples to go home after our trip is done that why we were going to do the amalfi coast. Of course we would have to do a bus or some transport?
Do you have suggestion for reasonable priced hotels?

>>> What special sites to see?
If you think everyone thinks alike, this is a relevant question. Otherwise you would get responses relevant to you if you articulate what is special to you. Does it help you if we list a large number of suggestions outside of your interests?

>>> Not sure how many days I should stay in each and I know it depends on what I would like to see but I am looking for suggestions.
If you list what you want to do during the trip, you will naturally end up with the number of days that matches your interest. You don’t need others to tell you some fixed numbers. If your interest exceeds the number of days available, drop items you are willing to let go for this trip.

>>> I do know I would like to do a cooking class in Tuscany?
This requires a serious scheduling consideration. First you need to find a class meeting your needs at locations reachable to you. Then, you will be required to be at a specific location on a specific day at specific time. If this is a major goal, you need to wrap everything around this.

>>> a wine tasting in Florence or Tuscany?
If you are ok going to an in-town tasting room, you can usually walk in. However, if you want to do this at a vineyard, you need to make a reservation. If you want a vineyard, you need to find such a vineyard, find out which days and time they are willing to take visitors. If you need a guide in English, it further restricts your options. Again, you need to wrap everything around this. You can simplify this part by signing up with a company providing vineyard wine tasting tours.

If flying out of Naples maybe spend the day before in this fascinating old historic city - always good idea to be near your departure airport as things can pop up - and to take public transit say from Positano to Naples you yes take a bus first to Sorrento then the CircumVesuviana commuter train to Naples. A private driver as many here take would cost much much more. And if you go the day before your flight you could easily stop off at Pompeii, right on the commuter train line with a station right at the entrance to the ruins - there is also a baggage check at the entrance to the ruins.

Do you already have your flights booked? If so, how many nights are you in Italy?

FYI, it's a little easier to understand how much time you have in a place when you think in terms of how many nights you're there. IOW, if you want to have 2 days in Venice, you should plan to spend 3 nights there. Even if you landed in the morning of "Day 1," by the time you get to your hotel to drop luggage it will likely be lunch time. When you leave Florence, the train to Florence takes 2+ hours. If you haven't already, you might want to peruse the train timetables. Use Italian spellings, like Venezia, Firenze, Napoli...

https://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en

How much time you spend anywhere depends on your interests, not ours. For me, and only speaking generally, I like to have 4 days/5 nights in a big city on a first-time visit. But I admit I'm a museum junkie. Even a little research about a city will give you an idea of what you want to do and see there and how many days that might take. If at all possible, try not to plan your days in Florence to include Sunday or Monday when many of the main sights might not be open.

If you spent more than 2-3 days (3-4 nights) in Florence, you could do some day trips into the countryside using public transportation. Fiesole, San Gimignano, Siena, Lucca, Pisa, Montecatini Terme, Certaldo, Bologna, Arezzo are all easy and close. If you could splurge one day on a guided tour (either group or private), you could probably get to some of the smaller towns, do that cooking class, visit a winery, etc. You can also do wine tasting at an enoteca in Florence or a town you visit on a day trip.

Unless your flight out of Naples is in the afternoon, you might want to spend the last night in Naples rather than in one of the Amalfi Coast towns.

How much time to allocate in each location really depends on what you want to see and do, and unfortunately, none of us can answer for you. Just one example: I felt hard-pressed to see what I wanted to see in Florence with more than 5 full and very busy days there; other people visit it as a day trip. I would encourage you to get some good guidebooks (or spend some time with a few in your local library), identify the things you most want to see in each location, check their opening/closing times on the internet, and mark them on a calendar. Then pencil in your transportation, add some time on either side (for getting to/from your lodging, checking in/out, packing/unpacking, getting oriented, etc.). Then see how things fit together.

Whatever you choose, it should be a great trip!

I would start with a simple outline. If you are flying into Venice, here is a possible general itinerary:

Venice 3 days
Florence/Tuscany 4 days (Florence or Siena would be a good base)
Rome 3 days
Amalfi/Naples 4 days (I would consider basing myself in Sorrento except for last night in Naples as others suggested).

Then simply google 3 days in each city. Then google day trips from Florence and Naples or Sorrento (since you will want to do things near them but probably will spend all your Venice and Rome time within those cities). Make a list of things that appeal and begin to build your itinerary. As you build the itinerary, with things you want to see and do, you might add or subtract a day in a specific location to the above outline.

A poster here recently recommended a website visitacity.com. Although they are hoping to sell you tours, there is helpful info there including some specific timetables of things to see and do.

No need for printed guidebooks. There is tons more info on google, and the questions to ask google should be simple for this trip.

Don't make it too complicated. Whatever you do will be great, and congratulations on beating cancer! And, I am sure your daughter will enjoy sharing in the above process. For most people here, the planning is half the fun.

Web searches alone might serve you well; they might not. You will find a lot of information, but little that is geared to you or your daughter. That's the kind of information you can find in a good guidebook -- along with answers to questions you don't know to ask. And those questions can be some of the most important questions of all!

>>No need for printed guidebooks.<<

I disagree -- IMO guide books are 'organized' and help focus one's searches of other resources like web searches. Especially guidebooks with good maps and a fair number of photos. Like the DK Eyewitness or some of the Michelin green guides.

Several posts have been deleted due to off-topic bickering and hijacking of the OP's thread.