I'm planning a vacation for myself and my fiancé to tour Italy for 4 weeks next year. I'm not limiting us to any specific region/area so all info is welcome!

I'm looking for suggestions on unique things that may/may not be commonly on a normal vacation or in a guide book...
1) Places to go
2) Things to see
3) Places to eat - and things to eat when there.
4) Where to stay - B&Bs, nice hotels with views, etc (nothing too expensive please, my point cannot pay for much right now)
5) other?

thanks!

I did 12 days this summer with my wife and son who was 16 months at the time. I decided on 3 cities (Rome 5 days, Florence 4 days, and Venice 3 days). Since I used SPG points for my trip the hotels were on the high end. I used this forum to plan most of the trip. I am sure you are going to get a lot of advice on other places to stay. From what I know I would say people will suggest the 3 cities I hit plus some time in the south, and perhaps Sicily and Milan.

I knew which cities I wanted to see and used Rick Steves for the schedule since he lays it out based on the number of days you have to travel and interest of detail Once I read that i created a straw man itin and posted it here for suggestions.

I would glance through some of the threads here for some great ideas on sites and meals. I suggest you use the train as much as possible since it is a less expensive alternative to renting a car. Take a guided tour of the vatican, it is well worth it.

Enjoy

ghia74 offers sound advice. Narrow down your interests a bit so that the board can be of use; get a couple of guidebooks now and read a bit, and as you do so ask yourself the following types of questions

do you like beaches, hiking, urban areas?
are you interested in history/art?
would you rather go to a museum or a nightclub?
you mention places to eat = how much are you willing to spend?

Once you've focused a bit more, there will be far more useful feedback

A guide book not usually recommended or read is the michelin green guide.

I would get a green and a red and either a single michelin small scale map of italy, or a set of 10 or so of larger scale.. you can get a green out of a decent library. find what you like in the green, and then plan around that. the red will have a number of places to stay in the area. once out of downtown RFV(rome,florence,venice) and and bologna/milan, away from chiantishire, hotel prices are surprisingly low. even montalcino is not expensive, and the wines are a whole lot better. I see doubles at hotel montalcino start at €70.

just north of Milan is gattinara and ghemme. very famous wine producing towns. a 2* hotel with breakfast is probably about $50. I can't find prices, but that would be my guess.

you sound young, so get a car, and skip the cities. tour the countryside. eat on a hillside.

we saved cities for when we were to old and doured the countryside. the cities are all still around, 40 years later. just more crowded with kids.

As one poster mentioned do you like hiking?

If so with this length of stay there are some fantastic things that can be done.

Unlike in the US you can hike through the mountains for days at a time and stay in hostels all along the way. Check out the grand traverse of the alps (gta) as a possibility. You couldn't cover the whole thing but a section of several days would be a great experience that few Americans have.

Wow.......4 weeks. You'll be able to see everything from top to bottom.

You didn't include any detail about what you guys like to do, so I'll just give you some general suggestions.

Recommending restaurants in Italy is pointless. The Italians are passionate about food so you would be hard pressed to find a place that didn't have great cuisine. I've even eaten sandwiches from gas stations along the Autostrada that were as good as what you could find at a typical deli in the US.

Trains are a great way of getting to larger cities and towns, but you will need a car to see the countryside and the small villages. Just keep in mind that the last thing you want in the bigger cities is a car.

Agriturismo + Tuscany = good times. Its cheap and its a wonderful experience.

You are cheating yourself if you don't stay IN Venice. You'll save a few bucks by staying on the mainland, but you'll miss Venice at night. The city takes on a different personality at night once all the day trippers are gone.

Don't forgot about Northern Italy..............Vipiteno, Cannobio, Stresa, Merano, Aosta, et al. Skipping the far north on a 4 week trip would be a shame. This is my favorite part of the country.

Check out this website... www.slh.com ... which has a lot of listing in Italy for Small Luxury Hotels. We are staying at two duiring our trip to Italy next year.

Check out this website... www.slh.com ... which has a lot of listing in Italy for Small Luxury Hotels. We are staying at two duiring our trip to Italy next year.

Small luxury hotels? OP asks for nothing too expensive...

Since you have 4 weeks, why don't you spend the first week studying Italian in an interesting city, like Florence? I have take language holidays in a number of countries and really enjoy them. Language courses provide a bit of structure for your day (usually requiring you to get out of bed for a 9 am class) but leave you with enough time to go sightseeing. The school often organises tours and a few afternoon and evening events (e.g. wine tasting, trips to local restaurants, movie screenings) and you may meet other sympatico students with whom you can plan a few activities - or, since you're travelling as a couple, collect some ideas for sightseeing and other activities. A friend of mine has taken language courses in Italy twice and both times he had great experiences with homestays. One time he stayed with an artsy couple in Florence who took him around to galleries and the other time he stayed with a Sicilian grandmother who gave him cooking lessons. Language courses combined with homestays also often provide a relatively economical way to travel - frequently the combined cost would be lower than staying at a moderately priced hotel. The tricky part will be finding a program that will let you enrol for just a week.

If you decided to do something like this, you might want to invest in an introductory language course at home before you travel to Italy. That way you'll get more out of your course and really be able to enjoy Italian life for a month.

I have been to Italy a couple of times. Some ideas depending on what you like: (I have, by no means seen even a sliver of what Italy has to offer)

History - Rome. Can't be beat. Amazing historical sites. The city itself is small enough to walk and use public transportation. I also like the fact that there are great neighborhoods. Trastevere is one.

Art: Florence. How can you pass up David? Tons of museums. Great fashion.

Italian living: Tuscany. Great scenery, great drives, little towns. I would recommend San Giovanni.

Living in the past: Siena. A great midevil town on a hill. Historically unchanged for centuries.

Seaside: Cinque Terre. Literally 5 towns. All together on the coast, all beautiful. Walkable.

To be seen: Venice. Stunning, but has lots of downsides.


Basically, you really can't go wrong with any of your choices. Italy is wonderful. I have heard that Pisa essentially has the leaning tower and not much else.
Give us some more information. Will you be travelling by train, or will you have a car? What are your interests? Do you like off the beaten path? Are you self reliant, or do you like tours?
4 weeks in Italy is going to be great.

Since you have 4 weeks, why don't you spend the first week studying Italian in an interesting city, like Florence?

This is a great idea -- with a 4 week stay it will be worthwhilte to try to learn some of the language. Study in advance - maybe a class at community college, self-study, whatever as well as use the internet (listen to Italian TV, radio, read newspapers) then your immersion experience will be even better.

However in Florence I find it's tough to speak Italian as a foreigner. It seems like most restaurants are staffed by foreigners!

Wow.......4 weeks. You'll be able to see everything from top to bottom.

No you will not be able to see anything in 4 weeks it takes a life time and Italy does not end at the tip of the boot.

Since it hasn't been mentioned here, and since everyone is stating the obvious tourist places Rome, Venice, Florence Tuscany, ( all of which are very expensive) I will just add this which I can't say any better than was written by J.W. Goethe:

He wrote in Journey to Italy, "To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is to have not seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything."

This is a great idea -- with a 4 week stay it will be worthwhilte to try to learn some of the language. Study in advance - maybe a class at community college, self-study, whatever as well as use the internet (listen to Italian TV, radio, read newspapers) then your immersion experience will be even better.

I just discovered that Itunes has a bunch of free language Podcasts. You don't even need an Ipod or MP3 player, you can listen on your computer. Just a thought.

I just discovered that Itunes has a bunch of free language Podcasts. You don't even need an Ipod or MP3 player, you can listen on your computer. Just a thought.

Thanks for the tip!

I searched on the web for "language classes Italy". There are tons of small schools that run courses just to teach people Italian. Do be prepared to work though. Even the Absolute Beginner classes have people in them that chat with the instructor in Italian. It seems most Europeans have a smattering on most languages, and their definition of absolute beginner assumes more than you would expect.

I can handle being the class dummy though, so ended up picking a school in Salerno. For about $750 I got the 2 week 1/2 time class, plus a "student apartment". The apartment turned out to be really nice and I learned a fair piece of Italian (and humiliation, but that's OK).

Salerno is south of Naples. Good train service and good bus service. In my off time I trained or bused in different directions most days, with longer junkets on the weekends. Greek ruins, Roman ruins, museums, pottery factories, incredible scenery, etc. Shopped at local grocery stores and from farmer's markets and cooked in the well equipped kitchen.

I flew into Rome and took the train south to Salerno.

A wonderful experience. I did the same thing with German lessons in Vienna another summer.

Romelle

And seriously rethink that idea of renting a car.

Italian trains are some of the best in the world, frequent, on-time, and inexpensive. Stations are right in the middle of most towns. Most cities have a wonderful grid of buses.

On the other hand, gas is really expensive and those highways and cities streets are life-threatening. Signage is very difficult with streets getting renamed every few blocks, and no consistency in numbering and sign placement. Some street names are just carved into blocks of stone on the buildings. At night you have to stop, get out of the car and go shine a flashlight on them to read them. The drivers are really excellent but, because they are, they drive faster and take more chances. Lanes are merely a suggestion, rather than a rule.

Romelle

And seriously rethink that idea of renting a car.

Italian trains are some of the best in the world, frequent, on-time, and inexpensive. Stations are right in the middle of most towns. Most cities have a wonderful grid of buses.

On the other hand, gas is really expensive and those highways and cities streets are life-threatening. Signage is very difficult with streets getting renamed every few blocks, and no consistency in numbering and sign placement. Some street names are just carved into blocks of stone on the buildings. At night you have to stop, get out of the car and go shine a flashlight on them to read them. The drivers are really excellent but, because they are, they drive faster and take more chances. Lanes are merely a suggestion, rather than a rule.

Romelle

Having a rental car is not a good idea in big cities. Traffic is crazy and parking is sometimes outragiously expensive.

But there is nothing better than a rental car for exploring the countryside. Country roads and highways are fairly easy to navigate (By Euro signage standards) even if you don't know the language.

I'm not sure I would say Italian drivers are "really excellent". Some are and some aren't........just like every place else in the world. I had more than my fair share of run ins with drivers who were clueless and took many dangerous risks that put everyone around them in danger.

Everyone... THANK YOU... This is GREAT information -- keep it coming!

We will definitely try to see Sicily if possible. I want to see some of the 'old world', non-tourist areas. I was thinking getting a car for a coast drive or such to do so but if the trains go by these small towns I will prefer train.

If anyone has specifics on towns to see, things to do/see - off the beaten path stuff please relay that info!

We will be doing self study computer based language learning to prepare!