Southern France and Italy - 10 Days by Train
 

We are two girls in our 20's and need help finalizing the 2nd half of our 10-day trip in APRIL 2014. We are also traveling on a budget!

Itinerary thus far:
- Fly into Marseille
- Train to Aix-en-Provence (3 days)
- Train to Nice (2 days)

From Nice we are hoping to take a train to Italy and spend 5-6 days there. Destinations we are considering:
- Cinque Terre
- Venice
- Florence
- Rome

Where do you suggest that we go for those 5-6 days? Please keep in mind that we will be getting to Italy via train out of Nice, France. Also, we will likely need to fly out of Rome to get home (Rome --> Belgium). Thanks in advance!

Hi C,

Much as I love France, I think that you would have a much nicer visit if you stuck to Italy.

Fly into Venice and out of Rome.

In Florence, I highly recommend the B&B Peterson.
There seems to be some trouble with their website at the moment. You can check them out at
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...e_Tuscany.html

Enjoy your visit.

((I))

In 5 to 6 days you can just travel from Nice to Rome and visit Rome, may be with a 1day stop along this itinerary. A train ride from Nice to Rome without any intermediate stopover takes a full day.
Easyjet low cost flights NCE - FCO will not help much: check in at Nice before noon, arrival in Rome city center around 4pm.

In April I'd consider starting south and moving north -- for better weather.

The places you list in Italy would more than fill up your whole 10 days. I'd just fly from Nice to Rome and spend the rest of your time there. Plenty to do for 4 or 5 days even if the weather is bad. Note Rome will be very busy around the time of Easter (April 20 this year).

And are you sure you can't fly out of Venice or Pisa/Florence or Milan?

Time to make some hard decisions.

Rome will be far busier on the Sunday after Easter, April 27th, when there will be canonizations of Pope John XXIII, and Pope John Paul II. They're expecting 5 million visitors for the occasion, and hotel prices are astronomical. I would definitely avoid that weekend, and probably the whole week between Easter and the 27th.

This trip calls for a max of 4 hotels and 3 may be better

I would skip the CT that early. I see Aix, Nice, Florence, Venice--and that is tight.