PalenQ

I would keep a place like Siena in the mix - as a day trip from Florence and Pisa perhaps as well - or one or the other - Siena is a classic tuscan hilltown - if you only go to Venice, Florence or Rome you only see mega tourist cities mobbed with tourists so try to get a place like Siena, though it has its share of troubles is far different from a Venice, Rome or Florence - see something else besides those three mega tourist cities - Cinque Terre too is heavily touristed in summer but mainly by Europeans - it too would provide a much different experience. Thus I think the itinerary OP revised and presented is not bag!

2many_gr8places_2c

Thanks to all of you and thanks to Fodor's travel blogs, I have just finalised waht I need to do. PalenQ I will be taking your advice adding pisa and siena, however deleting Cinque Terre as that seems to be the spot most difficult to get to. I am going to take a train pass for venice, flo, rome and then buy tickets locally form train station or take the bus to pisa and siena from florence.

Then to Rome- how do I get to pompei- day trip from rome?? And how long would getting there take? Thank you all.

anothertravelinsong

I think you will find a train pass to be more expensive than it's worth for so few destinations. You can take a train to Pisa, and a bus to Siena. If you buy some "mini" train tickets early, you can save a lot of money, if you don't mind having your times set in stone.

I would personally never go to Pompeii on a day trip, it's too far. 6 hours on a train in 1 day. You should consider Ostia Antica instead, it's only a 25 minute train ride from central Rome. It's a well-preserved ancient Roman port that will show how they really lived.

anothertravelinsong

However if you're set on Pompeii you might save time by booking a bus tour that would take you there directly.

aimeekm

"I would personally never go to Pompeii on a day trip, it's too far. 6 hours on a train in 1 day"

I have to disagree. Pompeii is a quite easy day trip from Rome IMO. It's a 1:10 from Rome to Naples, then another :30 to Pompeii. I took an early train and went directly to Pompeii, spent a few hours, then spent the rest of the day in Naples, taking a late evening train back.

But it seems you have no time allocated to Rome? If that is accurate than I wouldn't suggest a day trip at all.

anothertravelinsong

Looking at Trenitalia, it looks like the train times from Rome to Pompeii have gone from 3 hours to 2 hours with the addition of the faster trains. So aimeekm is correct, it's more doable than probably 10 years ago.

PalenQ

Yes with the launch of a newer faster ETR high-speed train between Rome and Naples Centrale the travel time on that portion has indeed been reduced about an hour - but note there are also other trains on that route that are cheaper and slower - be sure you get the correct AV train if in a hurry but I still cannot see doing Rome to Pompeii in just two hours - the CircumVesuviana train from Naples Centrale to Pompeii would take about an hour itself and add transfer time and the well over an hour time between Rome and Naples...