I live in Boston and my husband and I would likt to go to Italy in September for 10-11 days. Our points of interest are: Rome, Florence, Tuscany, and Cinque Terre. Please advise as to where we should fly in and out and how we should plan our itinerary accordingly. Thank you in advance for your help.

Hi HartmannA,

Your question is sort of broad and unstructured.

For example, Florence is in Tuscany.

It would be hard to tell you which ariports to use since Rome, Pisa and Florence have airports.

We really can't help you plan your itinerary since we don't know your interests, eg, why do you want to go to the CT?

Do a text search on the various cities and come back with more specific questions. You will get a lot of help.

The Italian train website is www.trenitalia.com

I also live near Boston and just returned from Italy last week. All flights from boston go to Milan. From there you can connect to anywhere else you would like. If this is your first trip to Italy, I would suggest you skip Cinque Terre and add Venice. Venice is by far the most romantic city on earth. It would be a shame to miss it. Also, if possible do not use Delta (they use Alitalia planes and crew and there are rumors of Alitalia going broke so the crew was less than friendly). If you would like details of my experience, email me at [email protected] with the subject Italy. I only open emails at this address that have a subject I recognize. Enjoy your trip.

Unless you've already been there, I would also recommend Venice in the place of 5 Terre. 5 Terre is very pretty, but there are thousands of places in the world just as pretty (including a bunch of places in Italy). There is only one Venice--no other city in the world like it.

I would recommend flying into one city and out of another to save on travel time back to the same city again. We flew into Venice, then went to Rome, Siena, Florence, Cinque Terre and flew out of Milan. This worked very well and the longest travel time between any city was the train from Venice to Rome at 4 1/2 hours. It was a good itinerary for us becuase Siena and Tuscany was more laid back after heavy site seeing in Venice and Rome. Then after being rested for 2 days we were heavy on site seeing in Florence. Then 2 easy days in Cinque Terre to relax before taking the train to Milan to fly home. I think taking a break in smaller cities between the major site seeing cities is a good way to not get too exhausted. I hope this helps.