Good Morning! I've been working on a 2 week itinerary of Italy for early April and have recently begun to think I need to tweak a couple of the dates. Your thoughts would be much appreciated. This is incredibly rough but here goes nothing...

Originally, I was thinking...
2 Apr - Fly into Venice
3 Apr - Travel to Cinque Terre
8 Apr - Travel to Florence
12 Apr - Return to Venice
15 Apr - Fly Home

But recently wondered if shortening our time in Cinque Terre and staying 4 nights in each place would be a better use of our time. I've heard varying thoughts on how much time one needs in CT so it was hard to judge. What are your thoughts?

Hi A,

5 nights on the CT would be 2 nights too many for me.

How about one more night in Venice and 2 nights in Bologna?

Why return to Venice to depart? You could save travel time and fly into Florence or Pisa and fly home from Venice, or vice versa.

Hi Always,

If these are your definite destinations, I would recommend:

Fly into either Pisa or Milan, shorter train time to Cinque Terre. Why fly into Venice just to take a really LONG train trip to CT?

We stayed in Santa Margherita Ligure for 3 nts. Hiked 4 out of 5 villages one day, visited Portofino early the next day with a long lunch next to the marina. Spent the rest of the time strolling SML, a great town on its own. We would have liked one more day!

Based on my preferences, I would stay 3-4 nts in Cinque Terre, 2 nts in the Tuscan countryside, 2 nts Florence, and 4 nts Venice, flying out of Venice.

Hope this helps. Buon viaggio!

Four nights might be too many unless you can include one or more nice daytrips from there:
- Portofino and the Peninsula
- Lucca
- Pisa

Yes, I should clarify. If you stay in one of the CT villages, 2 nts would be plenty. I could have easily stayed 4 nts in SML doing day trips from there.

Start or end your trip in Pisa or Florence---Venice is too far to the CT.

I would recommend you shorten your time in CT only because it's not really ideal wheather in April (beach weather) to really enjoy lots of time there... I agree with others that if it's possible to arrange then try and fly out of one of the other airports to avoid having to backtrack to Venice (of course add a couple of days there in the beginning).. oh, and I highly recommend Bologna (I much prefer it to Florence but I am not a big art museum person)... great Italian town, fabulous food and less touristy!

Ciao!

I agree that you have too much time in Cinque Terre. Are you renting a car? or just using the train? I also agree that you should fly in and out of different airports to save time. As others mentioned, you could fly into Pisa (which we've used twice and think is a pretty easy airport), and have time to visit Pisa before heading to Cinque Terre.

i agree with those who wrote too much traveling about and that you should change your flight in or out. Arruve Venice, depart Florence [or the reverse

I suggest arrive into Venice and stay there for 4 days.
Then stay in Verona and also visit Padua and Vicenza 3 days
On to Bologna 2 days
Then Florence 4 days
Fly home relaxed and enriched

Are you set on staying in the CT? Would you consider basing in either Camogli or SML and taking a day trip by train to the CT, as well as to other places on the Ligurian coast? I recently spent 6 days in the area and tore myself away only with reluctance.

Much depends on how you want to spend your time--does hiking appeal?

I don't think the logistics of starting & ending in Venice work very well. It's not exactly close to CT, plus you have to check in and out of a hotel one extra time.

Thank you all for your thoughts! The main goal of our trip was to see CT and flying into Venice offers the lowest airfare. I'll see if I can change that at all though.

Hiking the CT and having an opportunity to see its 5 towns are important to us. However, as many of you suggest, 5 days is too many and I am now starting to agree. I'm thinking 2 full days and a half day each at the beginning and end of our stay in CT? Sound any better?

Also, after we leave CT, we'll still head for Florence but will then head to Bologna for food, wine and other fun. How much time would you recommend there?

And Venice.... Is 4 days enough there? I guess we'll always have an excuse to come back!

Thanks for your input!

Three nights would be good, in my opinion. Which is what you write above, correct? Two nights is too few, considering all the travel time you are using to get there.

...forgot to add: Give yourself two full days in Bologna; you can do the SanLuca walk on one of those days.


http://www.itineraribologna.it/engli...ry/history.htm


Here is some food information about Bologna (and a bit of detail about Florence, too, from a trip I took a few years ago)



http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34743272

If Cinque Terra is the highlight of your trip, I don't see any harm in spending more time there.

Not everyone has the same interests!

April tends to be wet in Ligruia. If so, CT trails will be closed. I would suggest a flexible itinerary just in case you get rained out. Also, it could be cold, therefore wandering Portofino and Santa Margherita will lose most of its charm.