I'm struggling with planning this trip. Four of us, my husband and two little kids, visited Italy several years ago and in 17 days went from Venice to Florence to Lido de Camaiore to Tuscany to Rome. Great trip, not too rushed. Problem now we are going us four adults and my inlaws; and my son and I have a week, everyone else has 10 days. My inlaws have never seen Italy so I was hoping to show them a great trip all the while not repeating what we had already seen besides Rome (my daughter will be finishing a semester abroad which is why we are starting there, non-negotiable.) Originally I had planned to go south to Amalfi and Capri, but had friends convince me we had to see Cinque Terrre via Pisa and Lucca. Had I had time to think this all over when I made flight arrangements I would have flown us into Rome then out of somewhere else to go home... as it is we fly out of Rome so wherever we go we have to get back to Rome. Also, now that I know it takes 5 1/2 hours to get to Cinque Terre, I'm seriously reconsidering and starting to think we should just do Amalfi and Florence. If it sounds like I'm stressed that would be a big affirmative!!! Just want it to be a great trip for the inlaws and all so any bright ideas or enlightenment or words of common sense that I seem to be incapable of right now would be appreciated! Thanks bunches!

Will you be driving or taking trains? By train it really does take about 5.5 hours or more from Rome to the Cinque Terre because you have to switch trains in La Spezia or Levanto.

I love the Cinque Terre, I've visited 4 times. But with such a short trip and if you are already going to visit the Amafi Coast I suggest you skip it.

If you're going to Florence, I suggest you do Cinque Terre and Florence and not Amalfi. Florence is relative close to the CT when compared to the distance between Florence and Amalfi.

Also, you can get to the CT by train and you can get to only Sorrento or Salerno by train and you have to change forms of transportation.

If you're driving, you can drive to Riomaggiore pretty easily and I can suggest a place to stay where we stayed last October and will stay again in September. Alessandro can arrange parking. http://www.limonicamere.it/

What if you went Rome to Florence (1.5 hrs EuroStar) and then on to Cinque Terre from Florence via Pisa? It might be simpler and less time spent in trains. There's an interactive map of Italy train routes at http://downloads.raileurope.com/map_europe/italy.html
To return to Rome you'd have to backtrack, but that would be true from anywhere.

Wow you guys have really helped me already...I should have mentioned we were planning on driving from Rome, but it sounds like it might be better to train to Florence then perhaps drive to CT (via Pisa) from there, which seems to be the consensus of opinion. Is two days in Cinque Terre enough? Has anyone actually driven from CT to Rome (or vice versa so you would know driving times?) Also, Fibonacci, are you recommending using Riomaggiore as a base for Cinque Terre? finally is the train from Rome to Florence any faster that driving?

What time of year are you going?

And please realize that it also takes nearly 5 hours to get to the Amalfi coast from Roma. Were you also thinking of doing that as a day trip?

Taking a train to Firenze and renting a car is not going to save you all that much time. It's a two hour drive to the Cinque Terre area, and there can be significant traffic jams on the autostrade leading to the CT exits if you are talking about going in the warm season.

You also need to double check if you can get a rental for that short a period of time out of Firenze in the time frame you are traveling, and factor in the time spent renting a car and returning it into your travel time.

There have been several threads recently on this board about people who just came back this week (April) who were shocked by how crowded CT already is.

So -- how about something easier?

A day trip to Orvieto?