I am trying to plan a trip to Italy for June 18 - 28, 2023 for my daughter's college graduation. I have not traveled to Europe in over 30 years, and neither of us speak Italian (or even Spanish), so we could use some advice. I am working on a budget of about $7-8k, not sure if that will suffice given the cost of airfare. We had considered doing a tour group type trip for the convenience of having someone else arrange the transports between cities, but I think we would both appreciate not being rushed. We are primarily going for the art / museums and would prefer not to feel rushed if we want to linger at the Vatican or in the Uffizi gallery, and our fear is that going with a bus tour type group would leave us feeling like we did not have enough time at some sites (like the museums) while taking us to other sites (wine tastings and group dinners) that we were not interested in. My big concern is figuring out our transportation and how we will get to the museums and tourists sites once we are in Italy with no car. I'm hoping that going from airport to shuttle to hotels are not that hard, but the train transportation between cities I'm afraid we will mess up.

Here is the tentative itinerary I'm considering - please feel free to make suggestions on anything from how to get from one place to another to recommended hotels (we are happy to stay in a mid-range budget hotel, but would prefer air conditioning, and somewhere near the city center where walking to the attractions is possible without using a bus or metro).

June 18 Sunday Depart Washington DC -> Rome
June 19 Monday Arrive Rome / half day to have dinner, get settled in hotel
June 20 Tuesday Rome - Colloseum / Palatine Hill / Forum
June 21 Wednesday Rome - Vatican Tour
June 22 Thursday Rome - Borghese Gallery; travel to Florence
June 23 Friday Florence - Uffizi Gallery / Ponte Vecchio
June 24 Saturday Florence - Academie / Duomo
June 25 Sunday Travel to Venice - gondola ride
June 26 Monday Venice - Doge's Palace, St. Mark's
June 27 Tuesday Venice - Murano?, glassblowing demo, shopping
June 28 Wednesday Venice - depart

Part of me feels that it would be easier to schedule a bus tour with Trefalgar or Rick Steve's where we would see more, but I suspect a lot of that time would be on a bus, and we'd have less time at each site. So I'm struggling with ease of being guided around and have transportation and tickets already arranged for us, and possibly getting in extra sites like side trips to Capri or Pisa, which might be more difficult to squeeze in / navigate on our own, and just booking our own hotels and figuring out the trains / taxis / etc once we get there. It feels overwhelming trying to navigate it all online! Maybe we are trying to do too much?

Any airline or hotel suggestions (location, cost), restaurants, or places that might be of interest apart from the standard tourist fare would be appreciated. We are novice travelers, and still wondering if we should just book a tour rather than tackling this on our own. For example, how to set up covid testing in Venice prior to returning to the US? Any info appreciated!

Train travel in Italy is quite straightforward, especially between Rome, Florence and Venice. Read this: https://www.seat61.com/train-travel-in-italy.htm

However, the Rick Steves' tour is remarkably similar to your suggested itinerary (although in the reverse direction) and well within your budget: https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/ita...-florence-rome You can certainly add a day or two at the beginning or end, but his tours are not rushed and always allow free time. The hotels are central and usually family-run and the food is good. I have done five tours with him and the guides have been uniformly excellent. The bus will take longer than the train, but the times given probably include stops.

You are looking at multi-city flights, right? Into Rome and out of Venice, or vice versa. Currently you do not need to test before flying back to the US, but who knows how that may change?

You definitely can do it yourself. Start with buying or checking out from your library a "first time Europe" book. Rough Guides has one. Rick Steves has one (Europe through the back door). They can help you with the basics of how to plan an independent trip, choose lodging, dining, use public transport, etc.

Or you might look into an organized but not fully guided tour. Rick Steves has "My Way" tours. And there is also https://www.untours.com/italy. These can help coordinate lodging and transportation but then leave you on your own for daily sightseeing.

This is all super easy to do yourself, and that is what I recommend. I would consider reversing the trip and starting in Venice. Assume you are looking at multi-city tickets, not two one-way. You are very smart to go into one city and out of another, thus not backtracking, so you are already making a good decision.

The train station in Rome is very easy to find and to navigate, and right in the city. The station is Florence is in the city center as is the station in Venice, both very easy to find and to navigate. We walked just a few blocks to our hotels with luggage in all three cities, though we might have wanted a taxi in Rome if our hotel had been further away.

The city center in Florence is actually quite small and very walkable. Venice is all walking and easy. Most of Rome that you will want to see is easy walking.

Allow a couple of hours at some point in Rome, does not matter when or what time, but I like early evening near sunset, do walk by the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, The Pantheon, etc. Do go inside the Pantheon, which gave Brunelleschi the knowledge to construct the dome in Florence.
So glad you are including the Borghese. It is wonderful. I suggest you walk straight past the crowds and work your way back through the museum. That way you will have most of the museum without being crowded. You could probably do the Vatican tour and visit the Borghese late afternoon of same day. The Borghese has timed tickets for two hours, so you can plan it specifically.

If you did those the same day, you could get to Florence early enough to see the Duomo and the Baptistry (they are right next to each other) have dinner and walk the Ponte Vecchio in the evening.

In Florence, you can easily walk the Ponte Vecchio the evening you arrive. Get tickets ahead and see both the Accademia and the Uffizi the same day, or see one of them early in the morning and take the train to Pisa for afternoon. I think the Accademia is less crowded in afternoon, so you might like to see the Uffizi in the morning and Accademia in the afternoon.
If you would not find it overwhelming and could enjoy both museums the same day, it would free up a day for Pisa and even Lucca. However, rather than Pisa, I would do a day trip to Siena. It is an absolute jewel.

Hi, persephone88 . I'm no expert on Italy but wanted to chime in on the order of cities. I did this Rome-Florence-Venice trip, in that order, as I always want the more mentally taxing part of my trip at the front part of my vacation, and for me, that was Rome. Others may disagree. Also, I should say Rome was my least favorite of the three cities, as I live in Chicago and felt/saw much of the less desirable big city issues in Rome and less in Florence/Venice: panhandling, graffiti, I had 2 vendors try to shortchange me rather brazenly.) I did love many of the sites in Rome but Florence and Venice were more magical to me. Have fun planning!

I think you have the outline of a wonderful trip. But I'd skip the tours. Just book your flights, and central hotels in the 3 cities, and research how you use the train. No need to overthink it. Have maps, have a guidebook, easy to plan your days. Unless there is some highlight "must see" that needs a reservation (museum, restaurant, historical site).
suze

Hi Persephone, and welcome to Fodors. What I'm picking up from your posts is that whilst you want to be able to do tour own thing part of the time, really your comfort level might not be quite at completely independent travel. But if you do feel up to it, the Venice - Florence - Rome combo is ideal as it's pretty easy to do. But I would respectfully disagree with ChgoGal about the order - having no traffic Venice is an ideal starting city and it's a great place to relax and get over any jet lag. There are loads of trains to Florence and the station isn't so big that it will intimidate you. Florence is a bit more full on, and will make an ideal transition to the very busy city that is Rome. Sounds like a wonderful first trip for your daughter's graduation.

I'd base the sequence on what works out cheapest and doesn't get me out of bed at 5am.

Easy to do, these are some of the most focused places in Italy so speaking English is not an issue. Buy the Rough Guide, book rooms a couple of blocks back from your main sites of interest and close to public transport stops and it is easy.

Oh and eat/drink like the locals, don't travel to Italy and order what you can get at home. Adjust to locals way of doing stuff and you'll find life gets easier and more fun.

Paddington Bear caught trains so you guys can too.

Probably easier to stay in B&B or Hotels for your first trip but only if you need a consierge.

I did this trip in Fall of 2019. We did Venice-Florence- Rome. Planned it all myself and although there were some hiccups most of the trip went fine. I would definitely get train tickets and hotels in advance but everything else you can plan day by day. My favorite of all 3 cities was Venice (perhaps because it was so walkable-we also got the pass for the city gondolas and they were great). Had the most trouble with panhandlers in Florence but still a beautiful place! Rome was amazing, the history of it all!! I did pre-arrange for a tour of the Colosseum (through Trip Advisor, I believe) and it was awesome. In retrospect, I wish we had spent one more day in Venice, we made it to Murano and Burano just as the shops were closing up, so get there early if you can! Wishing you a wonderful trip!
Arrive derci,
Pam

Arriving in Venice vs departing from Venice. I endorse Anne’s advice to start in Venice. Flights heading west from Venice tend to be early-ish in the morning, meaning a 6:00 AM trip to the airport, and that’s not fun.
We’ve arrived in Venice a heap of times, and that first view of the Grand Canal is always a knockout.

<<We’ve arrived in Venice a heap of times, and that first view of the Grand Canal is always a knockout.>>

Indeed it is, Pete, and your post reminded of when I took the train from Bologna to Venice for the first time, and how surprised I was on exiting the station in Venice not to be confronted with that knockout view. What had happened? Had they moved the Grand canal? No, of course they hadn't, I had got off at Mestre! A mistake you only make once. [or at least I've only made it once so far]

pamvs - not to be nitpicky, but your pass was probably for the vaporettos, not gondolas. Agree the pass is worthwhile. Also think gondola rides are overpriced tourist trap!

Another option to consider is booking through Costco Travel. A friend and I have a similar trip planned for late September of this year. We fly into Venice and are picked up at the airport and transported to our hotel. All hotels are 4 stars and include breakfast. We are there for 3 nights then have first class train tickets to Florence. After 3 nights we again have first class train tickets. Then 4 nights in Rome. We are then transported to the airport. The total cost for 10 nights is under $4700 for both of us. We plan to take small group tours or on our own.

To be clear this price does not in airfare. But, you can book that book the trip to include airfare.

I agree w/ annhig and peter that Venice is the better arrival point. For a couple of reasons -- for one most (not all but definitely most) flights from Venice to the US leave at 0-dark-thirty and getting to the airport are the crack of dawn (or before) is a real pain. And second, Venice is an easier place to get over the jet lags and acclimation to things in general. Sure it is busy and can be crowded, but there is no vehicle traffic, no road noise, and just in general is a beutiful place to start one's journey. You'll feel like you've landed in the middle of a Canaletto painting.

Then Rome which is huge, and crowded and can hectic would be better at the end when you are more used 'things'. And many flights to the US leave at more civilized hours.

Something lie a Rick Steves tour would be fine but I'd avoid the mass market tours (Cosmos, Globus, Gate1 etc etc ) like the plague -- hotels often in inconvenient places and lots more time on buses seeing' things through the windows. But doing it independently is easy peasy too -- and no need to worry about not speaking Italian.

Solo, retired, female and did Croatia for amonth in April 2022, and tacked on Venice, Florence and Rome so as to not RT out of Zagreb. Train travel is very easy and I always start with rome2rio.com to get a sense of timetables. You can just do a google search for any stie of "top 10 things to do" etc. Most guidebooks will have a little map that shows the most important sites so you can get a sense of grouping those sites to see on the same day. I rent apts especially to have a washer so I don't waste one minute washing and waiting for my laundry and I pick the apt very close to a subway/metro for any night activities. Also I love the feel of being in a neighborhoodm shopping withj the locals, and it seemed to me costs are just a little bit less expensive than being in the tourist areas.

I plan to go to Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam and Paris in March and am tracking airfare. So suggestion of flying into Venice and out Rome or vice versa is a good one. I just read a financial article this morning that said the airlines anticipate airfares to drop now that the peak summer season is over, kids are heading back to school and gas shortages are easing, it all will lead to lower air fares.

Negative of apts that you might consider is either you will be met and then need to coordinate arrival times or most apts now have electronic access. This means scheduling a time to meet and that there is no hotel concierge to assist you and when you arrive at the hotel either you can check in right away or more than likely leave your bags.

My husband and I just returned from Venice last Friday after attending the Biennial at Giardini and Arsenale. We walked all around San Barnaba, in and out of Pantegruelica, and we just couldn't find Monsieur Peter!!! So off we went to Ca'Rezzonico to look at Pietro Longhi. Ha! Oh, Peter.

You can buy Murano glass all over Venice (Carlo Moretti). No need to go to Murano. Just take a walk behind Palazzo Grassi.

I would rather drink Mogen David than be anywhere near Piazza San Marco at high noon.

Ciao, Mr Biddle

What was your opinion of the Biennale, Hermes? I was in Venice at the beginning of June and as I didn't have much time I decided not to go to the main event but to take in as many of the off-site events as I could. They were of varying quality and interest but it did give me a chance to explore quite a few buildings that you normally can't see. The best was the Korean exhibit which was made out of paper formed into various shapes and was amazing. Hard to describe but very worthwhile to visit.

Hi annhig, I'm in Venice for Biennale now, just arrived the other day. Last time I was here was when I visited for Biennale in 2019 and we had dinner. I will be sure to check out the Korean work at Palazzo Contarini Polignac, thank you for the tip. I've always found the exhibits in Korean pavilion interesting.

Oh, Ann, we were absolutely gobsmacked by the Biennial. We were especially bowled over by Simone Leigh at the American Pavilion. She was definitely the star of this Biennial.

The Russian Pavilion was closed, of course, but we managed to see the British, French, German, Japanese, and Korean pavilions. We weren't thrilled with any of them, but the French Pavilion was interesting as it had depictions of movie sets.

We thought the Korean Pavilion odd. There was this strange chandelier thingie near the entrance that we just didn't get. The German Pavilion was a big empty building with exposed brick. I guess the theme was "Excavation." Who knows? Who cares?

The main pavilion, the big white building in Giardini, had some wonderful pieces by Rosemary Trockel and Paula Rego.

At Arsenale, the other venue in Campo Tana, we were thrilled by American artist Jessie Homer French!!! And we were shocked and amazed to see a Louise Nevelson on display. There was also a fantastic Barbara Kruger installation. So many women artists on display at this Biennial.

We went to nearby Corte Sconta for lunch, but they were closed for vacation. We ended up eating at Vini di Gigio. Oh, well.

Buongiorno, Mr Biddle

Welcome, persephone88. I skipped a lot so pardon any duplicates. I agree about landing in Venice and leaving from Rome. Pre-covid, the international flights from Venice were the earliest. DH and I also traveled from DC (Dulles). You should be fine with no Italian but avoid saying 'ciao' to someone you don't know unless they say it first. Say the more formal 'arrivederci' for good bye. The train stations have a 'TI' where you can get help with your train tickets. Please report back about your trip. What a nice graduation present.