Rome/Florence in early Jan 2007
 

I'm planning a trip to Rome and Florence for early January, and I'm thinking Jan 1-9. We will likely fly in and out of Rome, arriving around 8:30am on the 2nd, spend the 2nd, 3rd, 4th in Rome, take the train to Florence mid-day on the 5th, spend the 6th and 7th in Florence and then take the train back to Rome on the 8th.

Here's where I'm not sure what to do regarding the ephiphany, Sunday, and Monday schedules in Florence.

As far as I've been able to tell, the Uffizi and Accademia will be open on Saturday the 6th (their websites don't list it as a holiday closure) as well as Sunday but closed Monday. It seems that most everything else is open on Sundays (perhaps with limited hours) and Mondays.

Do you think it will be reasonable to spend those three days in Florence (with some planning) and be able see the major sites?
Any guidance on what to expect on the Saturday the 6th? I'm concerned that NOTHING will be open.

Thanks!

bean617,
Consider landing in Rome and going straight to Florence (about 90 minutes Rome to Florence). This will eliminate a day of packing and travelling (all your Rome days are together).

See http://www.firenzeturismo.it/compone...44/lang,en_EN/ for what is open in Florence.

I agree. Heading straight to Florence after landing in Rome is a much more effecient use of time.

Also, there are more options on things to do on holidays and holy days in Rome as it is 10 times the size of Florence.

The days you have pegged for Florence are the first weekend of the month. Lots of things in Florence are closed the first, third and 5th Sunday of the month, or first, third and 5th Monday of the month. I think the Duomo Tower closes early on Saturday. You should certainly be able to find enough to do in the short time you have, but you may find some things closed. There were two things that we really wanted to see, practically across the street from each other. One was closed the first Sunday of the month, and the other was closed the first Monday of the month, so we couldn't see them at the same time, even though we were so close.

Also, obviously there is church in the churches on Sunday morning; that might be a good musuem time, unless you want to go to Mass.

Finally, some things like the science museum, the Bargello and Casa Buonarroti have really short operating hours - like 9 am to 1: 30 pm, so it is really hard to fit everything in in a short time.

If I were you, I'd find a good web site that lists hours of operation of sites in Florence and make a master list of what you want to see there. Then, choose your days in Florence based on when the most things are open.

There is a list on this page

http://old.firenzeturismo.it/cerca_musei.asp

of "Musei aperti il lunedi", i.e., museums open on Monday.

According to another page on the same Web site, neither "comunali" museums (belonging to the City of Florence) nor "statali" museums (belonging to Italy) are closed on January 6.

A couple of other options to consider. One suggestion I got from this forum that I didn't think of was that I could fly into 1 city and fly out of another instead of wasting time in going back. So we flew into Rome and flew out of Venice. Also, am not sure of the schedule but taking a day trip by train from Florence to the leaning tower of Pisa was really great

I also suggest you fly into one city and out of the other, to avoid backtracking and wasting precious vacation time.

If you're just going to Rome and Florence, then I don't think that one would be wasting much precious time by taking the plane instead of flying.

If Bean617 is flying from outside Europe, to fly into Florence a change of plane would be requred somewhere--Milan, Rome, London, Paris, Frankfurt. I can't imagine that the plane connection and additinal flight, even from Rome, would take much less than the 2-2.5 hours the two train connections would take.

I don't think it is even worth your time to try to fly in or out of Florence on a visit to Florence and Rome. These cities are not far apart, and are frequently served by fast trains.

I concur with the suggestions to see Florence first. At FCO, go to the train station where you can get a train from the airport, to Rome, then a train to Florence.

All your time in Rome will be in one lump on the end of your trip, and you won't have to figure out how to get back to the airport; you'll be in Rome.

Thanks so much for all the great advice! I don't know why it didn't occur to me to go straight from the airport in Rome to Florence, but it makes a lot more sense.

I had originally thought to fly in to one city and out of the other, but the connections seemed more of a pain than the train rides, which I hope are enjoyable.