roryleonard

Looking for help. Flying into Rome, then headed straight to Florence for 2 days, Venice for a day, Rome for 3 days, Sorrento 3 days, and then fly out of rome. Wondering should we buy a rail pass in advance, there are two of us? Also, our flight out of Rome is at 3:00 pm. Can I leave Sorrento that morning and make a flight to Rome without issue? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Also looking to take a day for a cooking class, any suggestions?

kybourbon

I would put the entire Rome stay at the end of the trip and you won't have to worry about making your flight or possible train strikes. I don't see a railpass as being cost effective for this little bit of travel.

You really don't have enough time for all these cities and you should drop a location. Three hotel nights somewhere only gives you two sightseeing days. With only 9 days (counting arrival and departure days?) two locations would be best.

layanluvstotravel

So, are you saying you have 9 days total? You are really trying to do too much. I would do 3 days in Sorrento (day trip to Pompeii, Amalfi Coast drive on one day and then the third is open to explore Sorrento) and then 4 days in Rome (the Ancient sites one day, Vatican another, and a third day open to whatever you want to do with it and a fourth for a possible day trip). I wouldn't go up north to Florence and certainly not to Venice with only 9 days.

greg

It takes only a little computation by yourself to compare point to point tickets at www.trenitalia.com vs. passes at http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/italy.cfm plus additional fees on Le Frecce trains in Italy http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/pdfs/reservations.pdf. As kybourbon noted, a pass is unlikely to useful in terms of cost or convenience. Unless you are willing to take not so frequent slow R trains, the fast trains all require seat reservations, so none of them are just hop on type -- a selling point of passes you cannot take advantage of. And if you do take R trains, the on the spot prices are so cheap it makes no sense to use passes. Besides, for your tight itinerary, you should only stick to frequent high speed trains.

Also as previously noted, splitting Rome either add cost, add time, or add risks or most of the time all three negatives. It also takes little computation to realize these downsides. I am puzzled why there is a steady stream of posters coming here with visiting Rome twice itineraries.

I would not combine the South and the North for such a short visit.

If I "must" visit all these 4 locations, I would eliminate back tracking by either flying into Venice, then to Florence, then to Rome, and Sorrento and fly home from Napoli or start from Napoli and head ever north to Venice. If I cannot find a suitable flight from Napoli, I would still have flown into Venice, then Florence, then Sorrento, then Rome to fly home.

My wife has taken cooking lessons. Most classes we have looked at were 5+ hours long starting around 9am.

Rubicund

From your comments, it seems that you have booked your air tickets already, so unless you can change your flights you need to recognise that Rome is not the best place to start for your wish list. It's in between your North and South cities and will involve a lot of wasted time in backtracking so you need to make a choice if you can't change the flights. Either go North or South, because you can't do both without your time in Italy being nothing more than a blur. In any case whichever you choose, there will be a deal of covering the same ground twice. To the South do Naples, Sorrento, AC and back to Rome. To the North, Florence and Venice and back to Rome.

If flights are changeable, fly into Naples, visit Sorrento then head North to Rome, Florence and Venice. With the time you have I'd miss Florence on this occasion. then fly home out of Venice. (Vice versa of course).

adrienne

If you lay out your itinerary in a list you will quickly see that you should put Rome at the end of the trip if that is where you're flying home from. I would not try to travel from Sorrento to Rome on the day you're flying home. Have you looked at the transportation options? What if there is a train strike? Do you have a plan for car service from Sorrento to FCO airport (very expensive).

I would go to the farthest point first since the first day is taken up with possible jet lag and traveling within Italy.

Here's what you have:

Day 1 – arrive and travel to Florence
Day 2 – Florence
Day 3 – Florence
Day 4 – travel to Venice (1/2 day)
Day 5 – Venice
Day 6 – Travel to Rome (1/2 day)
Day 7 – Rome
Day 8 – Rome
Day 9 – Rome
Day 10 – travel to Sorrento (1/2 day)
Day 11 – Sorrento
Day 12 – Sorrento
Day 13 – Sorrento
Day 14 – Fly home

I would change the itinerary to this:

Day 1 – arrive and travel to Venice
Day 2 – Venice
Day 3 – Travel to Florence (1/2 day)
Day 4 – Florence
Day 5 – Florence
Day 6 – Travel to Sorrento
Day 7 – Sorrento
Day 8 – Sorrento
Day 9 – Sorrento
Day 10 – travel to Rome (1/2 day)
Day 11 – Rome
Day 12 – Rome
Day 13 – Rome
Day 14 – Fly home

You'll have to do the math on the rail pass but I suspect it's not worth the money. Determine your itinerary and book your tickets in advance to get the best rates.