My wife, 30-year old daughter and I are traveling to Italy (first trip) in mid-June to celebrate a special birthday. We love the water and would prefer a relaxing trip. Therefore, our preliminary itinerary (in chronologic order) is as follows: 3 nights in Cinque Terre (Vernazza); 1 night in Rome (to quickly see the sights); 3 nights in Positano; finishing with 2 nights in Venice. We will not have a car and do not have a specific budget limit (but would like to keep nightly costs (one or two rooms) to less than $500 per night. We are planning to stay at the following hotels: Marriott Grand Hotel Flora (Rome), Hotel il San Petro (Positano), and the Westin Europa and Regina (Venice). I would like a recommendation for lodging in Vernazza (with impressive sea view(s) and near a beach if possible). Also, I would welcome any other recommendations with respect to our itinerary. Thanks in advance for your assistance!!

You might want to try typing Hotels in Italy into the search window above. There have been several threads on this subject. They will appear in the column on the left.

You could also check the "Hotels" tab in Fodors.com and hotels in venere.com.

Have you looked at the Karen Brown web site? They can be sorted by city and/or rate and are very attractive B&Bs. You choose your country. The web address is http://www.karenbrown.com/italy/

Just a couple suggestions. Good luck.

I can't help you with specific recommendations for Vernazza, as we've always stayed in Monterosso in the Cinque Terre, but I believe that there are few (none?) regular hotels in Vernazza, and instead, primarily B&B types of places.

I DO know that all of Vernazza, basically, is on the water, so I'm guessing most places would have impressive sea views. There's only one "beach" in Vernazza, and it's not the spacious white-sand kind of thing, but a smallish area that's also used to pull boats up into. If you've seen a picture of Vernazza, what you see is the only beach there is.

If you're looking for a more luxurious experience, consider the Porta Roca in Monterossa. Monterossa does have areas with white-sand bathing beaches, and the Porta Roca is, I think, a 4-star hotel (never stayed there myself, though).

On your itinerary, while you will be relaxed in the Cinque Terre and Positano, your travel days will be busy. I'm not real knowledgeable about train travel, but my guess is that it will take a while to get from the Cinque Terre to Rome, and from Positano to Venice. You'll have less than one day in Rome - a busy day indeed! For a more relaxing time, you might want to consider picking either the water in the north or south of Italy.

3 nights in 5 Terre will certainly be relaxing--and after seeing the lovely coastline the first day, pretty boring. Just a personal opinion.

I agree with Lexma's concern about the travel time between CT, Rome and Positano. It will take at least half a day to travel between each of these places, possibly more time (especially CT to Rome). Check a guidebook for the sites you want to see, verifying the opening/closing times as well as proximity to one another. You may give Rome another night, just to fit in a full day.

How will you make the connection between Venice and Positano--again a long travel day, whether by train, car, or air (all those connections).

Since you want a "relaxing" time, again I agree with Lexma that you should cut a location--go north or go south. I would choose to cut either CT or Positano:

Positano (3)-Rome (3)-Venice (3)
OR
Rome (3)-Cinque Terre (3)-Venice (3)

Or skip Rome (heresy!) since you're barely allowing any time there:
Positano (3)-Cinque Terre (3)-Venice (3)

You say you want a "relaxing" trip, yet your proposed itinerary is anything but. Not only does it call for frequent change of sites, but also that the four destinations are far enough apart to call for considerable travel time between sites. As previous posters have suggested, I'd also drop one of the destinations.

It would really help to know where you are flying in and out of because you are back and forth all over the place here. Once we have that info, a more convenient and thus time saving itinerary can be structured.

This is not at all a "relaxing" itinerary, which you say you want. Also, you will have NO time to see or do anything in Rome, so I would drop it from your list.

Yes, where do you arrive and depart?
This is hopscotch now. I would do either coast location but not both.

I agree that 1 night in ROme doesn't make much sense. For a first trip, I would think minimum 3 nights, but even that isn't nearly enough. I also agree that you are packing in too much and should go either north to south or vica versa, you seem to be going back and forth more than necessary and will spend too much time travelling. Did you already book the flight,is it open-jaw (flying in and out of where)?

Thanks to all of you for your responses. We have assembled an exciting itinerary thanks to you!