Susan

Hi everyone, <BR>I'm starting to plan a trip to Italy in September (yes, I know it's pretty early)I have 2 questions off the bat: <BR>Does anyone know how you would go about renting a villa (?) in Venice? <BR> <BR>Also, although I've been to Rome before, we are going to go down to Pompeii for the first time. Is this a day trip? Is it better to train or bus? What are the logistics? <BR> <BR>Thanks in advance! <BR>Susan

nancy

Susan, <BR>I can not give personal recommendations, but... <BR>do you mean apartments in Venice? <BR>If so, there are 2 sites I know of ; <BR>www.venice-rentals.com <BR>www.homebased-abroad.com <BR>I am sure if you go to Yahoo, and type in rentals in venice you could come up with many more. <BR> <BR>Have you tried a search here on Fodor , concerning traveling to pompeii? <BR>I have seen this question a few times, so that may help you. <BR> <BR>I do not think now is too soon to plan , <BR>we rented our apt. in Rome 13 months ahead of time, and our 1st choice week was already taken! <BR>Goodluck. <BR>nancy

Helper

Rome to Pompeii is about 3-3 1/2 hours by bus. I did it last month but was chartered so cannot help on regular routes. Check out trains, as in Europe they tend to be the best. For a place in Venice try Rentvillas.com.

jen

I may be able to help a little as I did this by train last week. <BR> <BR>I recommend from Rome to take a Eurostar train to Naples. Check out fs-on-line.it (I believe) for train schedules and how long this train will take. Definately find the fastest train available because this is the longest part of the trip. It took me 3 hours on a slower IC train. <BR> <BR>In Naples you will need to transfer to the Circumvesuviana (sp?) line. You just get off your ES train, go into the main station and follow the signs downstairs to this line. Purchase a ticket to Pompei (villa di misterie)... again my spelling is off, but this should give you a general idea. These trains seemed to leave about every half-hour and took approximately a half-hour to get to Pompeii. <BR> <BR>This should be able to give you a good sense of how much time you will spend travelling to and from. <BR> <BR>I stayed in Sorrento which made the trip a lot easier because I spent the entire day at Pompeii walking around and was very tired afterwards. <BR> <BR>I hope this helps

Mustangs81

Susan, <BR> <BR>First, I don't think it's too early to start planning. <BR> <BR>I just returned last evening from Italy where we stayed one of our two weeks in a charming villa in between Rome and Florence. We were very please with the villa, we were equally as please with the company that we used to negotiate for the villa. We used tuscanhouse.com. To demonstrate the level of accommodation...on our last night in the villa my husband was taken to the hospital with sever chest pains. I called the owner of tuscanhouse.com (Zak) to ask a "checkout question", and he detected my distress, I told him that I had taken my husband to the hospital the evening before. We were very surprised to say the least when Zak showed up at the small town where the ambulance took my husband. He mentioned that he was only an hour away and wanted to see if we were okay. <BR>