Rent a car or buy rail pass?
 

4 adults will be landing at Rome's Fiumicino airport on May 3 and will be leaving Italy via Venice by cruise ship on May 8th.

Bethween the 3rd and the 8th we'd like to quickly tour Rome, Naples, Pompei,(possibly Capri), Florence,Pisa and Venice.

We've toured Rome and Northern Italy before but would like to quickly revisit some spots. Insane, I know.

However, would it be better for us to rent a car or buy a rail pass?

We will have at least one large bag and a carry-on each as we will be away from home for 3 weeks.

We've heard that parking is expensive and hard to find and gasoline is also very expensive. Cost is also a factor.

We are also considering comercial day excursions out of Rome.

You'll be arriving on the 3rd and leaving on the 8th and want to see all of those????? You'll have 4 days and maybe part of 2 more. Rome to Naples and Pompeii is a day in itself. Capri is most of another day. Plus you're wanting to do "commercial excursions" outside of Rome?
Now, you've got to get to Florence, Pisa, and Venice. WOW!
You may see all of them but you won't see much of them. It'll be a "drive-by" tour.
Either way you'll be spending as much time travelling as seeing. You might see more if you bought binoculars and flew around Italy!
I'd back off a few places if it were me.
I would take the trains and buy point-to-point tickets.

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I would just buy point-to-point tickets as 2itlay said.

If you want to see all that's on your list your schedule would look something like this

5/3. Arrive Rome, revisit some spots
5/4. Commercial day trip to ??
5/5. Checkout, move to Naples, checkin. Afternoon visit Pompeii (hard to squeeze in Capri)
5/6. Checkout, morning train to Florence, checkin. pm, visit Florence
5/7. am train to Pisa, store bags at train station, then on to Venice
5/8. Venice, depart on cruise.

ccsc,

Forget doing the "Amazing Race". Stay in Rome until the afternoon of the 5th and take train #9478 departing Roma Termini at 14:50 and arriving Venice at 19:17. You're not leaving yourself any kind of decompress time to recover from the jet-lag, let alone time to appreciate any of your surroundings. In fact, by trying to do all you're suggesting, you're leaving yourself open to exhaustion and possibly catching a bug, thereby compromising at least part of your cruise as well.

you will have absolutely no time to see/enjoy anything in any of those places. That is a crazy itinerary. W/ that few days - you could do Florence/Venice, or Rome/Venice - that sort of thing.

Forget everything else . . . .

First- your plan is simply ridiculous. There's no way you can cover that territory in so few days. Well - you can drive the route - but I don't know what you think you're going to see.

Second - with 4 adults and that much luggage no sedan will be large enough you will have to rent a minivan - and then your luggage will be open to public view in all sorts of places. So - I would opt for train - as long as you can manage all that luggage on and off of them.

Six cities in five days? You're kidding right?

By the way, you left out Palermo, Milan, and the lake District. Might as well whip by those too while you're there.

I think you left Auckland off your itinerary.

Rent a car and scale down the cities! Too much to see, too little time!

Hi ccsc, I don't see anyway you could accomplish seeing the various areas that you want to see.

Personaly, and this is just me of course, with arriving on the 3rd I would spend a few days in Rome, say the night of the the 3rd and the 4th, than train to Florence and stay there the 5th and 6th and than train to Venice on the 7th and stay in Venice overnight and get to your ship on the 8th.

With that itinerary you would have the balance of the day on arrival in Rome plus the next day without arriving or departing. It is about a 90 minutes train ride from Rome to Florence. You could have the afternoon of the 5th and all day of the 6th in Florence and than with the 3 hour train ride to Venice you could have the afternoon and evening in Venice on the 7th and onto your cruise ship the next day.

Hmmm. That reminds me. I have 5 days too. I was thinking of doing Washington D.C, Williamsburg, Philadelphia, Boston, Newport, and New York, and possibly Nantucket. What do you think? Should we do that by train or by car?

I'd walk. You get to meet more people that way. :D

You need either a helicopter or Lear jet for this itinerary.

OK Enough. I get the point.

At least my wife and I had a good laugh at the responses.

Thank to the comedians. And I thought there was a writers' strike.

Also thanks to those with some real possible alternatives.

Among the responses were some very useful tips. Thanks.

FWIW - A rail pass is rarely cost effective for Italy, but I wouldn't want to be the person driving all these miles. Buy point-to-point tickets. Day 3 Rome, Day 4 you could day trip to Florence (only 90 minutes by train from Rome), Day 5 - morning Rome - afternoon train to Naples late in the day and spend the night in Sorrento, Day 6 early morning ferry to Capri returning early afternoon to Sorrento and training on to Pompeii to tour for a few hours - back to Sorrento for the night, Day 7 relax and late night budget flight from Naples to Venice.

From Sorrento to Naples airport use the shuttle bus - www.curreriviaggi.it
For budget flights -
www.whichbudget.com
www.skyscanner.net

Plan n° 1.
5/3: arrival, go to the hotel, have a walk, adapt to jet lag, 1st night in rome.
5/4: visit Rome, 2nd night in Rome.
5/5: early train to Florence, arrive around noon, visit, stay for the night.
5/6: train to Venice, arrival and visite, 1st night in Venise.
5/7: visit Venice, 2nd night in Venice.
5/8: prepare to board on cruise.

Plan n° 2:
stay 3 nights in Rome, skip Florence and stay 2 nights in Venice.

Plan n°3: see plan n°2, but take an early train to Florence, visit for a couple of hours (duomo, bridge over the Arno) and continue to Venise with an afternoon train).

Do it all by train.

Hi cc,

You already realize that your plan wasn't a good one.

May I suggest that your first day you take the train from Rome to Florence - 2 nights, train to Venice - 3 nights, enjoy your cruise?

((I))

Agree with Ira

Train travel is the way to go. No need for a rail pass. Just look up the time tables ahead of time and go to the train station to buy tickets the day of (using the automated machines).

http://www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html

If I were you, I would stick to Rome for a day or two, train up to Florence for a day or two, then Venice. Skip Naples, Pompei, Pisa.

The only other cautionary note I might add would be your, "We will have at least one large bag and a carry-on each --". Your success at enjoying train travel will partly depend on the size of you "LARGE" bag. Do not expect porters to assist you, so please practice with your fully loaded baggage before you leave to see if you can manage them yourselves.

Have a great (truncated) trip!

:-)