wormin - i would add my time to Venice. on the off-chance that you got bored with the city itself, you could always do a day-trip to Verona or Padua, or Mantua or ....

leave Bologna til another time or when you are in Florence [though you won't be short of things to do there, either!]

So does this look "better?"


Red Eye in Prague (day 1)
Day-2-Prague
Day-3-Prague
Day-4-Prague
Day-5-Prague
Day-6-train to Budapest
Day-7-Budapest
Day-8-Budapest
Day-9-Budapest
Day-10-fly to Venice
Day-11-Venice
Day-12- Venice
Day-13- Venice
Day-14-Train to Florence
Day-15-Florence
Day-16-Florence
Day-17-Florence
Day-18-Florence
Day-19-fly back to US

Hopefully this would give me some more time for day trips?

looking good, wormin.

looks like a great trip.

Looking great!

The only thing I might change would be that I "might" stay in some other place in Tuscany and day trip into Florence. However, I've been to Florence several times. If this is your first trip there, then I would stay there and do at least one day trip to Siena or even Lucca. Others like Fiesole, but I would skip it. The ruins are interesting but, IMHO, just not worth the time it actually takes to get there and return. The views were nice, but not as good as from Piazzale Michelangelo. Don't miss Santa Croce.

You mentioned that you are interested in Architecture. A great day trip from Venice is to Vicenza to see Palladio's work, especially Teatro Olimpico. It is, of course, personal, but unless you have some very strong interest in that particular period of early religeous painting, I would choose Palladio's work, especially the theater, over Scrovegni Chapel in Padua in a heart beat.

Yes, this looks better. Seems less rushed, and you can day trip from Prague and Florence (the hard part will be chosing where!) Have fun!

Thanks for the input everyone! It looks like this will be our itinerary for the time being.

One more thing...for now if you don't mind.

If we were planning this trip for the beginning of May, would you start in Florence or Prague?

it would depend on the ease of the connections I trhink.

you might find that one hsa a particularly early flight home that you would prefer to avoid or a vey late arrival.

worth looking at all the permutations to see what suits you best. and also look at slight changes in dates - when booking our trip to Sri Lanka, we saved £300 each just by flying home on a monday rather than a sunday.

"2 nights in Venice was more than enough - even one night will suffice. It is a small city and you can only walk around San Marco plaza, visit the Basilica and look at the Grand Canal for so long. Beautiful little city but not a lot to do. Definitely don't skip it though."

I'm another one who says this person hasn't actually seen Venice. There must be hundreds of other calli & campi and dozens of other canals & islands to explore - the 3 places this poster lists are less than most daytrippers would see and they probably leave hating the place because they've only seen areas overcrowded with tourists. After 6 holidays totalling 8 weeks we felt we'd barely scratched the surface - and after moving here nearly 4 months ago we still feel the same. If you like walking several miles a day Venice is perfect.

Last year we spent a week in Florence and even though we'd both been before, we still didn't see everything on my list.

With 16 nights or 15 full days - *minus travelling days* - I would not include more than 2 or if pushed 3 of these cities. I'd work out exactly what you most want to see and do and then choose your top 2 cities.

I've generally eaten well in all these cities except Florence, where we've found food & drink very expensive & not great.

Caroline- I agree that there is always more to see, but being an American, with little-to-no chance of moving to Europe, I really don't have the luxury of spending unlimited amounts of time in each city. I just spent 9 days in Rome and of course could go back and spend months, however it is what it is.

With that said, do you still think it is unreasonable to try to fit these cities in? Though it is increasingly looking like Budapest is out of the mix as I have read some not so nice things regarding a significant rise in Hungarian anti-Semitism.

hi again, W/R - i don't think that you would run out of things to see and do if you reduced your list to Prague, Venice and Florence, though may I ask where you read this info re hungary?

we've recently had threads here about whether it's safe to go to Spain, and whether the water in Italy is potable so you can't believe everything you read; in any event it is highly unlikely that as a tourist you would encounter any problems caused by internal politics.

as an alternative, Vienna might fit the bill.

Annhig- There have been some recent developments in Hungary that have dismayed us. Not only has the Jobbik political party, which is openly anti-Semitic (and received 17% of the popular vote). But I am going to contact some third parties who may be provide better insight.

Either way it seems like a better idea to limit our stay to three cities and have a chance to explore outside of the main cities.

worminRome - I understand your misgivings and certainly the three cities you have picked will provide more than enough to interest you.

hope you have a great trip!

Thanks ann

wormin - if you will forgive a bit of self-publicity, if you click on my screen name you can see my trip reports from our trip to venice with our kids [with two excursions to the islands] and my trip last year to italy - if you scroll down to the end you will get to Florence.