My husband and I are planning a two week vacation to Italy in the beginning of May. We have never been to Italy and could use some suggestions to begin mapping out our itinerary!

We are in our 20�s, love nature, exploring cities, food, and wine. We would like to include Lake Como and Rome in our itinerary and Cinque Terre and/or the Amalfi Coast. Ideally, we would like to balance our time exploring with some time to relax.

Any suggestions on itinerary/places we shouldn�t miss would be greatly appreciated; thank you!

"... we would like to balance our time exploring with some time to relax."

We can't know what that really means in terms of pacing. For some, 30 minutes in the afternoon at a caf� with a glass of wine is enough relaxing in an otherwise activity-packed day. For others, "time to relax" can mean late starts, long lunches and/or a deliberate desire to leave open time in the itinerary.

You should research the sights, particularly in Rome (but also Lake Como, CT and the AC) to decide how much time you want to spend in each place. If you want 3 full days somewhere, you have to spend 4 nights. Four days requires 5 nights, etc. Then figure out how much time will be spent/lost traveling to/between the other destinations. For example, Rome to Lake Como by train will take 4-5 hours one way, another 4-5 hours from Lake Como to the Cinque Terre and another 5-6 hours from the CT to the Rome airport. Including the Amalfi Coast would be a completely different itinerary, so you have to decide first whether you want to go to Lake Como and the CT or to the AC instead.

Start in the south and go north as the weather gets warmer. Here are my favorite places going in that direction. But, you must decide what calls out to YOU. As Jean mentioned above, travel times are going to make you edit any list.

Sorrento
Spoleto
Rome
Perugia
Florence/Pisa
Venice
Lake Como

Fly into Naples and out of Milan.

The usual list for new Italy travelers is Rome, Florence, Venice. DH and I did those first: 5 Rome, 3 Flo, 2 Venice, 2 travel. We wanted more in Venice. Eventually, we spent 2 weeks and based in 3 or 4 places and took day trips mostly by train (less by bus or hired car). Easier from larger towns.

Remember 2 days are lost with travel, and about 1/2 day to moving from one city/hotel to another. Remember also, that DH and I were in our 50's when we traveled most often to Italy and were much more into art and history than vigorous outdoor activity.

Too many locations in just two weeks.

Seems like Amalie Coast and Cinque Terre will require long travel times.

Which destinations are musts? Rome? Venice? In that case, Cinque Terre may be too far West. Even Lake Como may be too out of the way in a limited amount of time for a mostly north-south itinerary.

You may want to consider which activities you like. For instance, if you like to hike, plenty of great hikes in the AC, CT and Lake Como. Some of them are challenging with good amount of elevation changes. You can do a lot of walking in a sprawling city like Rome and even in smaller towns like Venice and Florence.

For nature, the AC and Lake Como. For cities with history, architecture, museums, the big 3 cities. for food. Pretty much everywhere, though you'd obviously get more seafood in Venice than Rome or Florence.

I think you can spend all 2 weeks for Rome, Florence and Venice and get a variety of experiences. You can probably fit in Lake Como but then you'd be taking time away from the main 3 destinations, from which you'd get to take day trips, especially from Florence to Chianti, Sienna and maybe a nearby hill town or two.

You can also take rushed day trips to CT (sounds grueling, over 10 hours in a coach from Florence to CT or Rome to Amalie Coast) to get a sampling of these other places, maybe make you plan for another trip just for them.

At the moment, I think almost all the hikes in the Cinque Terre are challenging and involve elevation changes (also known as "climbing"). For at least the last several weeks, all the lower trails, which are the easiest, have been closed. Two of them have been closed for over six years due to the risk of landslides, and I assume that recent bad weather has forced the closing of the other two for the same reason. Here is the official trail guide:

Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre - Visit the Park - Paths and Outdoor

The lower trails that join the five towns have numbers beginning with 592. If you click on a trail, you'll get details about the hike, including difficulty level. The "difference in height" tells you how much climbing there will be.

Como
Rome
CTerre
Amalfi
2 weeks.

No Venice? To me highlight of Italy! Especially nice in May without swarming crowds of mid summer.

Land in Venice or Milan
Lake Como
Train via Milan and Genoa to CTerre
Train to Rome
Train to Naples to Sorrento or Rome to Salerno and use ferries or buses or personal drivers to reach Amalfi town. Sorrento makes a great utilitarian base but lacks the dreamy seaside views from much of it.

Fly home from Naples.

Book trains way in advance at Acquista il biglietto con le nostre offerte - Trenitalia or www.italotreno.com - compeeting rail companies using same tracks, stations and similar trains. Book yourself online as early as possible for neat discounted fares - www.seat61.com has lots on that; general info trains BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com.

If you have to cut and I think you should I'd drop Lake Como and head straight from Milan to CTerre.

Yeh the lower CT trails were mainly fairly easy with a few exceptions - kind of a piece of cake - we did the whole 7-miles lower trails easily on a day trip from SMLigure. Now those hiking will have to investigate things a bit more.

Agree that you should start in the south; beginning of May is still a bit cool north of Rome. Rome is a wonderful place to start your first visit to Italy. I would be tempted to go south from there to Amalfi, before heading to the more northerly CT and Lake Como. There is some beautiful scenery/hiking around Lake Como, but in general we found the area a little sleepy.

From what you have said, art does not seem a high priority to you. Even so, you might find an overnight or 2 in Florence to be a good stopover point. It's got good rail connections, it's a visually stunning city, and you can find some very good Tuscan food and wine there. From Florence, you can take the train to CT.

I too have been non overwhelmed by Lake Como - oh lots of nice places and famous ones like Bellagio but I find CT (nice in May as not so crowded) and Amalfi (ditto) more awesome and things are closer together.

Thanks for the feedback! I have been beginning to research geographically where our points of interest are and it seems to make more sense to go to Cinque Terre over the Amalfi coast with some of the other places that we are hoping to see!

We went to the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria last May and used all public transportation. I am hopeful that the trains in Italy will be just as user-friendly.

Thank you for the response! That is a smart idea to start in the south and head north as the weather gets warmer!

I will have to research some of the places that you mentioned! I have heard lovely things about Florence and, if possible, would like to include that on our list.

Thank you for the feedback! I have to continue to research travel times/geographical locations to make sure we are not losing too much time on the train.

We would definitely like to see Lake Como and Rome. Geographically, it seems it would make more sense to visit Cinque Terre over the Amalfi Coast with our other destinations (too far south). We are trying to decide whether to do both Venice and Florence or just one. It is a difficult decision!

Thank you for the information! I am sure hiking at Cinque Terre is breathtaking!

Thank you for the information! I mentioned Rome, Lake Como and either/or AC or CT but am looking for other places that we should not miss! Venice and or Florence are definitely on our list.

Thanks for the train information. We traveled through Europe last May using trains only and found it very user friendly; I hope that Italy would be the same!

That is good to know. We are not experienced hikers but enjoy going on hikes! This sounds like something we could handle.

Thanks! We visited Lake Hallstatt in Austria last May and it was stunning. I have heard that Como is also amazing and am curious to check it out.

Lake Como is nice but in no way like Lake Hallstatt - no real mountains around. Still very pleasant. Go for it but you have limited time to do all those places justice.

If you cut Amalfi you could dwell more in Florence, Rome, etc.

CT may still be too wet in May. It may limit how much you can see.

It may also be the same in Lake Como. One of the best hikes is booking a tour for Parco de Villa Serbelloni, which takes you to the top of the mound of the Bellagio peninsula, with great views across the lake.

But beware if you have allergies or hay fever. They imported plants and flora from all over the world so I had a devil of a time one May when I visited the lake. Once I got away from mid Lake for day trips to Bergamot or Lugano, I was okay but as soon as I returned ...

"Lake Como is nice but in no way like Lake Hallstatt - no real mountains around."

I don't know where Pal went on Lake Como, but there are most definitely "real" mountains to the north, east and west of Lake Como.

Views of Bellagio and beyond:

https://www.italylogue.com/wp-conten...amous-Lake.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Bellagio_2.jpg

Villa Melzi, Bellagio:

https://media.architecturaldigest.co...oat-tour10.jpg

View of Lecco and beyond:

https://static.trip101.com/paragraph...jpg?1505455852

Menaggio and beyond:

http://media6.trover.com/T/54c85136d...w_large_4x.jpg

JennieR, check the Lake Garda area near Venice also.

What Jean said about mountains in Como. No offense, Palenq, as I haven't visited the other area.

Here's a bit from my Bellagio notes:

"Bellagio is as pretty as Varenna-more touristy perhaps? Hotels, restaurants and shops abound along the water. We taxi to our hotel Pergola (up the hill and down the hill!) and start saying “wow” again when Livio Gatti, son of proprietor Magdalene (Marilena per Internet person) Gatti, shows us our room. It is perfectly funky. Antique furniture and closet shower and a balcony almost as big as the room! Great views! Table for 2, bench and folding sun chairs! There is a big dark cloud across the lake. There is an outdoor, vine-covered restaurant for summer below us.

We are ready to boogie and meet Mrs. Gotti who shows us the short cut to town and gives us brochures. We make reservations for dinner at the hotel and head for town. And the steps are steep and many. This calls for gelato! Ciccolato and lemon, and stracciotella. We stroll along Via Garibaldi-scads of shops and about the width of the cars we dodge. We find a little art gallery with water colorist from Poland and her partner from England both of whom came to visit and stayed!

Down to the waterfront with more shops. The big dark cloud is really a mountain! As the fog lifts a bit, we can see the Alps! Just beautiful. We stop for coffee and Nero Rosso at waterfront Bar Pasticceria. They also bring us doritos, green olives and an anchovy cunningly concealed in a red pepper roll-eaten before JR realizes."