toontown

My niece and I are planning a trip to Italy in April and would like to include 2-3 days in the South of France as well. We have a pretty good idea of where we want to go and for how long, but could use any advice on the best use of transportation, order of trip, etc. My niece is 16 and saving every dime for the trip so we want to make it fairly economical.

Fly into Rome and spend 3 days there
Spend a day in Florence
Spend 3 days in Venice
Spend about 3 days in Tuscany (renting a car for this part)
Visit the Cinque Terre for a day or two
Travel to France (by a scenic trainride?) and spend several days along the coast and visiting a perched village (what is best mode of transportation and best sights to see to make the most of our short visit to France?)
Fly back to Canada (likely we will make the ticket open jaw rather than return to Rome so maybe we fly out of Nice)

Your advice, comments, suggestions are most appreciate. We have about 14 - 15 days total.
Thanks!

victoria_reynolds

Those are all great places, but14-15 days isn't a lot for what amounts to at least 5 destinations. Venice is a bit out of the way; if you were willing to consider dropping one, that would be the most logical. We did travel by train from Cinque Terre to Nice last year. It was somewhat scenic, but a bit long with at least three changes along the way. It pretty much consumed a whole day between checking in/out and connecting with the trains, getting to and from the stations.

Anyway, you could consider: Rome/Florence (which is in Tuscany)/Cinque Terre/Nice as your four bases. Monterosso in CT has the best connections to the areas outside the CT where you may need to connect. Or, if you decide Venice is critical, you might consider Venice/Florence/Rome. Honestly, there would be plenty to do in 14-15 days either way. If you must do all those places, check the travel times to be sure it is feasible. You will lose at least a half day every time you change hotels/travel to a new city.

nytraveler

The Obvious order is Rome, Tuscany (see Florence as a day trip to avoid moving hotels), CT, Venice and then head to Nice. The longest train trip is from Venice to Nice - and that is about 8 hours - but should provide some pretty scenery.

I think I would rent a car in Nice = by far the easiest way to get around to the various towns - whether on the coast or up in the hills. there is train along the coast and buses into the hills - but travel that way can be not very convenient and I'm assuming you want to see as much as possible in your limited time.

Open jaws into rome and out of Nice makes the most sense.

Mimar

We found travel by public transportation from Nice very convenient with frequent buses and trains. I wouldn't want to spend time driving in and out of Nice and paying for parking there.

On your Italy itinerary you could go directly from Rome to Venice, spend 3 days, then back to Tuscany for 4 days, and do Florence as a day trip. Now Tuscany is a place where we like to have a car -- but prefer to use the bus or train to go into Florence. After Tuscany, you could drive to La Spezia, drop the car, and take trains the rest of the way to the CT and Nice.

kismetchimera

Land in Venice,spend few days in Tuscany,few days in Rome take a flight with Bluexpress from Fiumicino to Nice..

It takes one hour and the cost is a little over 88 Euros for two.The flight leave Rome around 1PM and you wll land in Nice by two..Flying is even cheaper and faster than taking the train.

My daughter and I will also fly from Rome to Nice in September on our way to Provence.

Fly out from Nice.

ira

Hi tt,

Well, if you really must do a rather laborious and tiring tour, you have good advice.

For myself, I think that you are skimping too much on Florence, Venice andTuscany just to be able to say you visited Provence.

You niece has the rest of her life to go back; why not stay in Italy and make the trip a lot more fun?

Fly into Venice, 4 nights
Rent car and drive through Tuscany, including a daytrip to Florence - 5 nights
Drop car at La Spezia and visit CT - 2 nights
train to Rome - 5 nights
Fly home

Enjoy your visit,


(Myself, I would do 3 nights in Florence and fewer nights in Rome.)

macanimals

Please heed the advice you are receiving and shorten your list of destinations. Your original plan to "hit" 5 locations in 14/15 days will be expensive in transportation as well as time allotted to changing locations. This will severely cut down on the time you will have to visit your destinations--Venice, Tuscany, CT, Rome, Florence, Nice. I'm imagining the planes, trains and automobiles necessary and thinking your trip will be dominated by "the next step" everytime you arrive somewhere.

The logical drop is Nice as it takes a day to get there by train and you are leaving areas you want to be in--Italy. We all know travel time is precious but it makes no sense to rush through for example, Tuscany and not experience the location you have worked so hard to get to. Good luck.

kismetchimera

It takes me only one hour to reach Nice by flying with Blu-express airline.

http://www.blu-express.com/it/index.html

Surfergirl

On the France side, usually I'd say, if you were going to stay in Nice and wanted to go to the hilltop town, St Paul de Vence would top my list! But here, you have a 16 year old niece, and I would just bet, bet, bet that she would prefer going to Grasse and visiting a few perfume factories (and buying perfume!). Even my son, at 10, loved that (watching perfumed soap being made). You can get a bus roundtrip from Nice -- takes about an hour and a half, and roundtrip costs about 3 euro.

Sounds like such a great trip!

toontown

What great advice. Flying between a few destinations is a really good tip, I will check out the website.

Right now my niece and I are making the list of places to see knowing that we may need to drop one to make the trip less rushed. We actually just added Pompeii to our list so maybe France will be another time, unless we can squeak out a few more days!