Need recommendation on my Itinerary
 

Hi all

I am a 23 year old and am planning a trip to Italy this May with a friend of mine.This is my first time in Europe. I have booked my tickets and below is my itinerary. Please review it and provide me any valuable feedback or advice that I may be missing. Thanks in advance :-)

Venice : 2.5 days

May 5th : Arrive Venice , 13:20

May 6th and 7th : Venice. Also if time permits, then Burano and Murano

Leave for Florence next day as early as possible.

Florence : 4 days (2 days Florence + 2 day trips)

May 8th and 9th : Florence

May 10th : Day trip from Florence to Lucca and Pisa

May 11th : Day trip from Florence to Siena

Leave for Rome next day as early as possible

Rome : 5 days (4 days Rome + 1 Day trip)

May 12th and 13th : Rome

May 14th : Day trip from Rome to Pompeii and grab famous pizza at Napoli

May 15th and 16th Rome

May 17th : Fly back home.

Please let me know if this is fine and also tell me if it is too slow or too fast? Have I allocated more time to any place or less time to any place.

Thank you

Without knowing anything about your interests and requirements, it's hard to enter into details of what you should see and how long you should spend in each city. However, in general terms, the itinerary looks fine.

Sorry I forgot to mention. I have my interests in History and that was one major reason I chose Italy as I have been reading about it since I was a kid. Apart from History, I am open to absorbing the culture as well.

You have outlined the perfect first trip to Italy. Good Job! There is a reason people go to those places. And your pace is very reasonable - the day trips you've chosen and the amount of time. I wouldn't change it at all.

I agree with isabel - your pace is reasonable, you have chosen great destinations.

For a lover of history I have one tip: go for an early morning walk to the Forum, watch the sun rise over the Colosseum. With few people around, it is as if the centuries fall away.

Enjoy!

Your itinerary looks good - an appropriate amount of time in each location and not too fast paced.

If you get to Burano, also visit Torcello which is about 5 minutes away by boat. It has a wonderful Byzantine church and sees few visitors.

Siena is packed with tourists (it was delightful when it was a sleepy town) so I would advise going later in the day so you're there when the crowds disperse.

During your day trip from Rome to Pompeii (which will be very long) should also include the Naples Archeological Museum which houses many Pompeii artifacts.

I think this is a great effort for someone's first tri planning - sensible timing an hitting real high spots.

In Venice I would reco hitting the island of Torcello - which is where the Venetians hid when barbarisns invaded italy over the mountains and has a lovely ancient church with a lot of Byzantine mosaic. A better choice than Murano - where they mostly try to lure you into glass factories to shop.

In Siena I would get there early so you are ahead of the tour groups and you can have a leisurely lunch or visit the less popular sites at midday when they are thronging the duomo.

Looks like a good itinerary. If you have an interest in other-than-ancient history, talk a walk through the Jewish ghetto in Venice. It's an interesting change of pace if you've had your fill of churches and museums.

For pizza in Naples, recommend Il Pizzaiolo del Presidente. It's a short cab ride or a reasonable walk from the train station.

Thank you very much all of you. You all cleared all doubts about my itinerary :-)

<<<I have my interests in History and that was one major reason I chose Italy as I have been reading about it since I was a kid.>>>

For Ancient Rome I would pick-up the 'Oxford Archaeological Guide - Rome'.
Below is a snipped email with a couple of walks and a couple of other sites if you're interested.


ROMAN FORUM WALKING TOUR
Hopefully these might be of interest on the next college visit, it's a very long and detailed self-guided tour of the Roman Forum that I wrote and posted on the Fodor's guidebook public Messageboard over the years.
I'm a terrible writer but a Huge 'Roman Forum' history buff and I believe I was as accurate as possible.
I relied on the 100yr+ old original excavation reports, modern archaeological reports and books, the ancient writers and my own visits (3.5 months in Rome in 9 trips) of what I saw. I blended-in stories from the ancient writers to make a site more interesting, like Julius Caesar leaving his house (Domus Publica) on the Ides of March. I also added
some *imagine being there* stories just to set the stage for a site or an event.
Mainly I added ALOT of little tidbits a person would likely overlook at the sites, like the etched Boardgames on steps, the *real* Julius Caesar/Marc Antony Rostra of that fame, etc. Every site in the Roman Forum is covered from the Capitoline Hill's Tabularium to the Arch of Titus and I tried to leave no stone unturned:-). I've certainly made a few mistakes with some sources and my narrative but over-all I'd say it's 90% accurate and it was only my plan to make this into an historical archaeological tour of the Roman Forum for interested tourists like myself.
It long, dry and rambles-on):-)but pick-out some of the cool sites or things that might interest you.

[PART 1]

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...lking-tour.cfm
---(OR)---
http://tinyurl.com/romanmuzzy

[PART 2]

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...our-part-2.cfm
---(OR)---
http://tinyurl.com/romanmuzzy2

================================================== ============

JULIUS CAESAR ASSASSINATION WALK

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...lking-tour.cfm

---OR--- http://tinyurl.com/juliusmuzzy
Read through entire thread as corrections and additions were added over the years (esp for the Domus Publica's layout which was Julius Caesar's home in the Forum and for the Curia Pompey assassination location).

================================================== ========

*****BEWARE****** SOME NOT ALL OF THE www.saintpetersbasilica.XXX LINKS HAVE A MALWARE VIRUS!!!

So click-on them with caution if you do.

ST. PETER'S GRAVE, TOMB AND BONES.
I am an Atheist and a Roman History buff (Rome the City). And early Early Christianity has a big tie-in with Rome's ancient history and so my interest.
I have visited the necropolis beneath St. Peter's Basilica 4x and have seen the tomb and bones of St. Peter.
Being non-bias I personally believe that it is in fact St. Peter's Grave and his later hidden tomb and those are his bones from the original earth grave.
I looked at all the evidence and to me it's a conclusion that can be reached with a good degree of certainty (i.e. More Pro than Con IMO). I posted all this on a History/Archaeology Usenet Newsgroup if you are interested.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#top...gy/Egmr9DFYE0A

------(OR----
http://tinyurl.com/petermuzzy5

Also follow the thread as there is more info that comes-out during the debate.
If you have any problems with the URL's I posted in that thread the original post out of thread is here;
http://tinyurl.com/petermuzzy44
And another fall-back is this Fodor's messageboard link
http://tinyurl.com/petermuzzy4 as a last resort as it's not as detailed as the other.
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...or-fiction.cfm

================================================== =

ALEXAMENOS GRAFFITO in Rome's Palatine Hill Museum. Scroll-down to 'Sept 28, 13' this is a rewrite of the 'July 13' post above it.


http://tinyurl.com/alexamenosmuzzy
---(OR)---


http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ian-sights.cfm


The Graffito is by a Pagan student-slave poking fun or insulting his fellow Christian student-slave in the 200's AD. I tie this into a typical Roman crucifixion lasting days outside of a City's Gate to the 1-Day Roman Crucifixions in Jerusalem. Which I then (non-religiously)
tie into the NT accounts of Jesus Christ's crucifixion that are fairly well backed-up by non-Christian sources and 1 archaeological discovery as to the methods or reasons. As a history buff and an Atheist it seems to me(?) that the NT gives the best and only account of exactly how these Roman (trial & conviction) Crucifixions of *any* Jews in 1C AD Jerusalem were carried-out?

If you decide you don't fancy a long, long day trip to Pompeii then a good alternative is Ostia Antjca which is much, much closer to Rome and just as interesting.

In Florence, you are planning to take 2 days trips, back to back. As you have 4 days, you could space them out a bit better so that you aren't doing both of them at the end of your time there.

also, you may find that you'd prefer to spend more time in Florence itself, especially with your interest in art and history. fortunately you don't need to decide til you get there. if you want to look at somewhere closer to hand, you can get a bus up to Fiesole from the Piazza san Marco at the top of via Cavour. it takes about 30 mins and you can see most of what Fiesole has to offer in a couple of hours or so.

I second the Ostia Antica recommendation. In September we had a lovely day there, touring the ruins and having an amazing seafood lunch at an ocean-front restaurant!