detroit1010

The reason I planned on flying into Venice is we can get a good deal on a direct flight from NYC to Venice. Alternatively, Emirates has a great deal on flights in and out of Milan. I'm very tempted by that but given the limited amount of time it would totally change our itinerary to have to start/end in Milan.

I'm a little concerned about driving out of Florence to Tuscany. I've read horror stories about coming back to hundreds of dollars in tickets due to driving in zones for locals only. Not sure if people have experience driving out of Florence and can speak to how easy/difficult it is to navigate safely within the law.

PWMTrav

Well, a deal's a deal. I often compromise based on where my miles will get me, so I hear you. Just know that VCE is not in Venice. It's on the mainland. You will need to get transportation from the airport over to Venice itself - water taxi or the Alilaguna water transport are your best bet (the latter is far less expensive).

If you fly into VCE, will you fly out of FCO (Rome)?

Where are you planning to go? A driver is always an option. Or trains. It really depends on what you want to visit, or are you planning to just drive the countryside? In general, I would not have a car while based in Florence. I don't do much driving in Italy, honestly, as I just don't care to do it - but I minimize driving no matter where I am on vacation.

The only reason I'm really on this point to begin with is that if you've never been to Italy before, you can easily spend 4-5 days in Florence without leaving the city. It's temping to try and hit more places on the first trip, but as someone who planned 6 destinations and scoped down to 3 once I landed, I can tell you there's something to spending a little more time in each place.

detroit1010

I just looked into flying into Milan and taking a train to Venice. It looks like there are trains that go direct and take ~2.5 hours. And if I've read correctly, whereas the airport is not in Venice, the train station is so that would be a plus.

Then we would either fly out of Rome or take a flight (looks like its ~75 minutes) from Rome to Milan and then fly out of there.

I would *not* have the car while in Florence. We'd get a car in Florence, drive out to Tuscany for ~2 nights, and then presumably either drive back to Florence to take the train to Rome/Naples (to get to Amalfi Coast) or drive right to Rome.

Perche

I wouldn't think of flying to Milan and taking a train to Venice so you can avoid taking the 50 minute Alilaguna ride from VCE to Venice. It takes 50 minutes just to get from MXP to the Milano Centrale train station to take the 2.5 hour train to Venice. That's much longer and much more expensive. I've done it a bunch, when fares dictate, but it's a terrible compromise to have to take two trains when jet lagged. If you can get a cheap fare to VCE, go for it.

And, although the train does take you into the city of Venice proper, that's not saying much. The area around the train station is a true, tourist trap dump to be avoided at all costs. Hopefully, you're not considering staying anywhere near there. So, when you arrive to the train station you'll still have to get on a vaporetto to get to your neighborhood and hotel.

In contrast, the Alilaguna from the airport to the city has stops all over the city, and will be able to drop you off within walking difference of wherever your hotel is, pretty much.

Also, since you only have 16 days, cutting Milan out altogether makes sense, because Milan is a waste of time for someone's first visit. Also, I fully agree with those saying to consider flying into VCE and out of FCO, or vice versa.

You mentioned that this is your only vacation so you want mix in the Tuscan countryside to relax. The best way to kill relaxation and make a trip to Italy stressful is to try to visit too many places. If you want to experience Tuscan countryside, choose a specific place, go there, and stay and relax. Forget about trying to squeeze in more and more.

No cars, no how, except going to an agency on the periphery of Florence to use to get to where you are going in Tuscany and returning it there on the outskirts. The ticket problem is very real, especially in Florence. And they will hunt you down in the USA to make you pay.

Driving in Italy is not a problem for someone who learned to drive in Boston or NYC. For some people, driving in a foreign country is part of the high of the experience. If you can do Boston or NYC, you can do Palermo or Naples. It will require you to up your game considerably, but do it if you're up to the challenge. Trains, on the other hand, are quite nice.

JMN57

I'd second Perche's advise but with a couple of qualifiers:

1) I wouldn't hesitate to get a car in Florence and drive out - the ZTL fines come from driving INTO the ZTL, not out;
2) you can drive into the Florence ZTL if you are staying at a hotel inside. the protocol is that you a) call the hotel before you enter the ZTL, b) when you get to the hotel have them call in your plate to the authorities and they will place your plate on an "allowed" list for the window you came in through. This require you trust Italian government IT. I know, don't laugh too hard. In reality, it seems to work.

If I were doing it and stayed in Florence first, I would get a car in Florence and drive it out but I wouldn't return it there. I'd either find a drop in Tuscany or drive it to Rome.

detroit1010

Thanks for the information. I think we'll bite the bullet and fly into Venice and out of Rome even though the flights to Milan are significantly cheaper.

I agree - if we go to Tuscany we'd drive out there and spend ~2 nights relaxing. Right now our plan is 2 nights Venice, 2 nights Florence, 2 nights Tuscany, 3 nights Amalfi, 3 nights Rome. It's definitely still a lot of travel and moving but like I said in my initial post we'd like to see a lot and are active people.

Being from NYC, I'm not concerned about actually driving. More concerned with getting out of the city and then eventually returning the car. Where do you recommend going in the periphery of Florence to get a car? And what about returning it - if our next stop is Amalfi does it make sense to drive to Florence, return the car there, and take the train OR drive right to Rome (not sure how easy/difficult that drive is) and then take the train to Naples from there?

PWMTrav

Where in Tuscany? Depending on your plan, you may not need a car unless you prefer to drive. There's plenty of rail in the region, or if you're just looking to go to a resort, a driver to/from the nearest major rail station is a potential option. But Tuscany is a large region (for Italy), so I'd advise you to figure out where you want to spend those two days. I'd suggest doing it close to Florence (which is a city in Tuscany) if you plan to do 2 nights there and 2 nights somewhere else in Tuscany to minimize how much of those two days each you spend changing locations.

I still think 5 locations in 12 nights is too much, especially when they span as far north as Venice all the way south to Amalfi. It has nothing to do with being active or not - at that kind of time split, if you're trying to see a lot, you will literally be doing just that and walking past things, having seen them, and moving on to the next. I don't know when you plan to travel, but crowds are going to impact your schedule as well if part of this includes going into museums and such. Plan ahead with tour guides who can help with advance tickets and line cutting if you're set on this. It's ultimately your time and your money, but if I were planning this I'd be concerned that you'll see many things and experience very little. You may come back wondering what the big deal is about Italy.

milepig

I have a similar yet different situation.

I just grabbed award seats in/out of FCO after finding rare Business Saver seats on UA. This is in August, so the weather might be hot, which we don't do well with.

That's the extent of my planning.

We've been to Italy a bunch of times and have explored many parts from Lake Como and Venice in the North, to Naples in the south and most major cities in between.

This trip will, I think, be a bit more relaxed since we don't any longer have a "bucket list" of things in Italy - we've checked them all off.

We'll certainly spend a few days in Rome either at the beginning or end of the trip - some quick looking showed that AirBnb rentals are very affordable in Rome. And there is still much more for us to see there.

The only "must" is that we must go to Florence to visit friends and this will likely be three nights as there are 3 restaurants there on our "to die for" list, and all need to be revisited.

We may rent a car, or may not.

We've just been to Venice and don't feel any strong need to return this trip.

I was thinking maybe a few days in Sicily? Stay longer in Rome and do day trips from there? Other than Rome itself we haven't really explored the region.

Also thinking of agritourisma for a few days in Tuscany - we visited a winery a couple years ago that was charming and has really luxury affordable accommodations, using that as a starting point for day trips around the area, this would certainly involve a car, which I guess we'd pick up in Florence and drop in Rome - maybe at the airport just before our return flight.

So many options!

JMN57

If you're not stopping in Rome and your next stop is Amalfi, I would assume that you would want/need a car in Amalfi. When I was confronted with the same circumstance, I just drove from Tuscany to Amalfi and I would easily do that again.

PWMTrav

Are you willing to name names? I may need to visit some of these places next month I'll be in Florence for 10 days.

August is going to be pretty busy with tourists, as well as with locals going on vacation. Some things you decide to do might be closed, so just be aware of that. In the cities it's not so bad, most things are open.

Anyway, since it'll be warmer and you don't like heat (sounds like me), have you visited further north? I'm thinking Torino, or out to Trieste with maybe some wandering into Slovenia or into Istria. Or if you wanted to do other summer things, relax in Sardinia?

milepig

Sure!

Trattoria Osvaldo. A fair bit out of town in Setttignano, but right by a no.10 bus stop. Great steak, I'd like to bathe in a bathtub full of their Tortelloni with Mushrooms and Truffles, the fried artichokes are divine, and I've never had better Panna Cotta anywhere. It looks exactly like their website:
http://www.trattoriaosvaldo.it/specialties.shtml

In town Cafaggi. From the outside it looks like a 1950s diner, and the inside looks like your grandmother's rumpus room, but the food is really good. They do great things with seafood, if the old man is in front making the Crostini pay attention, he's the grandfather (not sure how many "grands") of the family. Good solid Tuscan food. The green apple gelato with Calvados is amazing and you'll be beyond tipsy if not careful!
http://www.ristorantecafaggi.it/


Then there's always Dario south of the city. It seems to actually be on the end of one of the Florence bus routes, but we've always driven. He may seem a little too "Hollywood" these days, but the food is solid. Worth a trip into the countryside. The website is a bit hard to navigate, there are three options all clustered together and I'd definitely do one of the fixed dinners where you get to sample many things. We were actually there the first time for lunch in the middle of a pre-planned wine tour (of all things) and rather than being treated like tourists we got the full treatment, a meal that didn't stop and a chance to talk to Dario himself. As far as I can tell its the real deal.
http://www.dariocecchini.com/dariocecchini/en/

milepig

Great ideas - we've not been to Torino, and someone just recommended Trieste. We love wines from Friuli, so that could be part of a jaunt to Trieste.

We aren't good "relaxers" and after a couple days at the beach we've had it.

Perche

Where to rent a car in the periphery depends on where you are going in Tuscany, which I think is still undecided. Unless you are the type of person who gets a high from driving, and I used to be one, if your next stop is Amalfi I'd ditch the car and take the train from Florence to Naples. Hopefully, you will be staying in one place on the Amalfi Coast. I'm guessing you mean the actual town of Amalfi, which is not a bad choice at all.

How to get there from Naples train station, there are two main options for mid-May. Half of the fun of going to Amalfi is the ride going there. The road SS163 is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful rides in the world, if you catch the time of day and the weather right. I wouldn't drive it, because you'd want to be looking at the scenery instead. If you take your eyes off the road for 3 seconds you'll go plunging 1,000 feet down a rocky cliff into the sea. The ride itself is a UNESCO World Heritage spot.

Some people hire a driver, which I've never done, but I think costs about 130-140 euros for the 40 or so mile ride. You can also take a ferry to some of the Amalfi Coast towns, but they are down until some time in May, and very subject to weather, so I wouldn't consider it. They are so weather dependent that they don't even publish anything about it until they think it's safe to start going, usually around mid-May.

There is a new bus service that goes from Naples to Positano that I haven't tried, and don't think I will. Being on something like a greyhound bus on one of the world's most famous stretches of highways is not something I want to try. There's even a bus that will take you from Rome Tiburtino and drop you off in Positano. It's too greyhound of an experience for me to want to dip into.

If you really want to go from Florence to Amalfi, I'd take the train to Napoli centrale, which is Napoli Garibaldi. From there, stay in the building and make your way to the local Naples train line, the Circumsuviano, and buy a ticket to Sorrento. It only costs a few euros. Naples is real Italy, not tourist Italy. Not much english speaking there, so you'll really have to be a traveler able to handle things, which you indicate that you can do. The people in the Circumvesuviano ticket booths will be typical Italian brusque. But if you ask the people around you, they will help you, especially if you ask an older person. Trust me, this is something that any 30 something New York City person can handle.

Get off at Sorrento, the last stop. From the train station, looking down the hill, you can see the SITA bus stop 25 yards away. That's the local bus. Buy tickets to your destination on the Amalfi Coast at the bar in the train station. SITA is the local bus that serves a lot of southern Italy, and it has a line that goes from Sorrento all the way to Salerno.

I wouldn't waste much time in Sorrento. You hear about it a lot, but it's just a cruise ship port, although it is pretty. Almost no Italian is spoken there, only english, because it thrives on cruise ship day trips for tourists. If you go to a restaurant you will not be surrounded by people speaking Italian, but by people speaking english, the majority with a British accent.

The SITA bus is miserable in the summer because of the crowds, but mid-May should be perfect. Line up a little early so that you can get seats towards the front, on the right side. For just a few euros you will experience SS163 like a local, with a local bus driver who you will think has a suicide wish by the way he will be taking the turns along the cliff, on a road not even wide enough to handle two cars, so that at certain places, one car has to stopand drive backward to some stretch of road that has enough space for the two to get by one another, with only an inch to spare.

You would think that's scary, but you'll be on a bus with a bunch of locals who've been doing it that way for ever, and are just going back and forth to work. If you scroll to the bottom of this page you'll see the bus schedule from Sorrento to key stops on the Amalfi Coast. Really, you don't want to drive this yourself, because you'll not be able to see it. I'm sure that doing it with a driver from Naples is also great. But local train and bus is a lot of fun when it's not too overcrowded and hot, as in the summer. And it only costs maybe 10-15 euros per person total. http://www.sitasudtrasporti.it/archi...015_2016.pdf/0

I should point out that as others have said, this might be a little too much time in Amalfi, depending on your own personal taste. The weather is usually not yet warm enough to hang out on the beach, and there's a significant chance of rain.

detroit1010

Thank you so much for all of the useful information.

I think we'd stay in Chianti which from my reading seems like a good place to set off for exploring wineries as well as the small towns/cities in the area.

Given all of the feedback that this may be too much traveling, which I don't necessarily disagree with, I'm starting to consider changing to one of two options-

A: skip Venice all together. Fly into Florence, stay there plus spend a few nights in Tuscany, then on to Rome/Amalfi Coast

B: fly into Venice, then to Florence including a guided day trip to Tuscany, then on to Rome/Amalfi Coast

Not sure which to choose given this is going to be our only time in Italy in the foreseeable future.

Perche

Giving up Venice would be a mistake if this is your once in a lifetime trip. I'd sooner give up Florence. But actually, I wouldn't give up either for four days in Amalfi during Spring rainy season while the water is too cold to get into, and some of the boats aren't even operating yet because the water is too rough.

John Hooper is an award winning journalist and author living in Rome, correspondent for several newspapers, who has written highly acclaimed books about the Italian character. He recently came out with another lauded one, for which he was interviewed and the book reviewed in the New York Times, "Italy Beyond the Tourist Traps: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/tr...raps.html?_r=1

In brief,
What would be your first response if someone said: “I’m going to Italy next week. What should I do?”

Go to Venice. There’s just nowhere like it. Don’t expect the cuisine to be anything like what you imagine Italian cuisine to be. It’s a legume-based cuisine, and you find small aquatic creatures fried in batter and pickled dishes and goodness knows what else. Drink wines from the area. Don’t go to Venice, order Chianti and expect that you’re going to get something good. Order wine from the Veneto.

Try to get as far away as you can from Piazza San Marco. Look for areas of the city where there are still Venetians living. There are parts of Cannaregio where you can walk a number of streets and not come across a tourist.