This if first vacation for my husband and I in 6 years since we started our rentals in Costa Rica. We are going to Italy in October and I am asking for ideas and suggestions for our trip. Land in Rome on Oct. 8th in a.m. and there until the 11th
11-13 Venice
14-21 Chianti region of Tuscany with a day trip to Perugia Choc.Festival
22-27 Florence
28 Rome as we fly out early on 29th
Should I add or subtract more days to any cities. The week in Tuscany is already booked.
Only plan to rent a car in Florence on the 14 to drive to Tuscany and use it there for a week. Looks like trains, buses, and walking will do fine in cities.
Thanks for imput.

First of all I would fly open jaws to avoid having to trek back to rome. either do into rome and out of Venice or vice versa. The cost shouldn't be any higher.

Second, the way you have listed the days you don;t allow any time for travel from one place to another. For instance, you really only have 2.5 day in Venice - half of the 11th, the 11th and the 13th. But you have 5.5 days in Florence - after having already spent a whole week in Tuscany.

I would relayout the schedule inserting those travel days. Also I move move 2 days out of Florence - one to Venice and one to Rome (which IMHO has way more to see/do than any of the other places). Plus you will be jetlagged coming into Rome - so your fist half day probably won;t allow you to get much done.

The day you save by not circling back to Rome you can use as a day trip from either florence or Venice (Verona? Siena?)

Thank you, nytraveler. I have already booked our flights on Alitalia in and out of Rome as we already had tickets from Costa Rica to Miami ( friend was sick in Miami, but that has changed)--so now the trip to Italy. I looked up the open jaw, but it was a lot more expensive from Miami.
I was thinking Rome deserved more time also. We are only locked into the area out in Tuscany as far as the dates go. we plan to go to Siena from there.
So you think Florence can be done 3 days? Venice needs 3 days also. Maybe 11-14 in Venice. Catch early train to Florence and pick up rental car on 14th, to drive to Gaiole in Tuscany which is between Siena and Arezzo.
22-24 in Florence and then back to Rome for 25-28 --do some day trips out of Rome if we need to.

If you must fly in and out of Rome, then I would move all my Rome days to the end of the trip. Upon arrival, you might travel directly to Venice by train and then do your trip in this order:

Oct 8: arrive Rome, train to Venice
Oct 9-11: Venice
Oct 12: travel to Florence
Oct 13-16: Florence
Oct 17: travel to Tuscany location
Oct 18-22: Tuscany/Umbria
Oct 23: travel to Rome
Oct 24-27: Rome
Oct 28: fly home

ticadonnita - definitely the right idea to put Rome at the end so that you are in the "right' place for flying home.

laid out in full, your trip could look like this:

Oct. 8th in a.m. land in Rome. take train to Venice
9th - Venice
10th Venice
11-train to Florence
12 - Florence
13 - Florence
14- pick up car - move to place in Tuscany. stay until
21 Chianti region of Tuscany with a day trip to Perugia Choc.Festival
21 - return car at Orvieto? stay night
22 - train to Rome
29 - fly home

Venice and florence are slightly short-changed, with 3 nights in each, but with your week in tuscany already booked, it's difficult to see a way round this, unless you jettison one or the other.

BTW - I've given you a night in Orvieto - a very easy place to return your car as the car hire offices are next to the train station, and also to the funicular up to the town which is a much see, especially the Cathedral.

ticcadonita,

My opinion is your have too little time in Venice. I would add a day there and shorten your city stay in Florence by 1 day. With a week in the countryside, depending on where you are, you might be able to do a day trip into Florence via bus/train if you feel you didn't see everything.

Just a thought.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am seeing now if I can change the days in Rome to all be on the back end of the trip.

For others who might contemplate a similar trip, when looking for open jaws flights, click the multi-city box. You don't want 2 one-way flights. Open jaws flights really should cost about the same as round-trip -- especially when you add in the money and time lost by backtracking.

I agree: more time for Venice and Rome, less for Florence unless you're huge fans of Renaissance art and architecture.

And don't pick up the rental car in the center of Florence. It's littered with ZTLs -- locals-only driving zones -- that are very easy to stumble into. (Search this forum for all the posts from people who months later got tickets in the mail -- after having been outed by the car rental company and charged for that service.) You could pick up the car as you leave Venice; there are car rental offices in the Piazzale Roma, where the causeway from the mainland reaches Venice.

You could pick up the car as you leave Venice; there are car rental offices in the Piazzale Roma, where the causeway from the mainland reaches Venice.>>

not advisable if the OP's next destination is Florence for 3 days.

how things have changed - 25+ years ago DH and I toured Italy for about this amount of time; after 4 nights in Venice we picked up a car, pootled around Lake Garda and then tuscany, stopped in Florence for a few nights where we drove round quite happily and parked our hire car on the street! and then finished our trip on the CT and in Pisa. we never booked a room apart from in Venice where we booked it over the phone with my appalling italian.

Having returned to Florence a couple of times since, arriving by train both times, there's NO WAY I'd drive there now, let alone park my car on the street. the scariest driving I've EVER seen.

mimar.. thanks for info. Since I was locked into flying in and out of Miami ( We have had a ticket for 2 months flying from our place in Costa Rica to Miami to be a friend with cancer.. it took her sooner that we anticipated) the open jaw was more expensive.
Thanks for tip on rental car out of Florence --or maybe /Venice. I will keep that in mind. Here is the link our found with best prices on rental cars: http://www.auto-europe.co.uk