chevynova63

obscure2k

Welcome to Flyertalk, Ksloggatt; I believe you are trying to do far too much in 14 days. Two days in Venice is not nearly enough time to even get a sense of this beautiful city and October can be a glorious time to visit. Please plan on spending at least 4-5 days to wander the city and explore the quiet neighborhoods, local restaurants and still see the museums and churches which may be of interest. I suggest taking train to Florence and skipping Cinque Terre and Siena. As well, I would extend your time in Rome by another night or two.
Great time of year to visit Italy. Please do yourselves a favor and not try to see to much in too short a time. The itinerary you have proposed is far too ambitious and you will not really get to know Italy.

chevynova63

Thank you for your response. I will definitely give it consideration.

PWMTrav

For a first and only trip to Italy, stick to Rome, Florence and Venice over 2 weeks. Spend 5 days in Rome, 4 in Florence, 4 in Venice. Fly into the first city and out the last if you possibly can. If there's a true 14th day that you're not losing to travel, add it to one of the above cities and do a day trip from there if you feel you've had enough. Each is going to be distinct in history, architecture, food, wine.

You listed a lot of other great places to visit, and you should see those if you return (or stay longer). Spending 2 weeks as a bunch of 2 night stays doesn't seem particularly enjoyable. It will essentially leave you with 1 full day in each place, as you'll travel every other day (and lose 4-6 hours of prime daytime doing so, door to door). That's about enough time to have a couple of meals and walk past a few sights. If that's really what you want to do, have at it, but I wouldnt!

Antonio8069

We loved our trip to the Cinque Terra - but - did it on a day trip from Florence. I am not sure why you would spend two nights there? Unless you are a serious hiker?
Also, I suggest less time (3-4 days) in Rome. Have your sightseeing planned in advance. Its quite a dirty city.
Do you really need to rent a car? We didn't and found the trains more than adequate.

JMN57

I'd normally say that 14 days and hitting Venice/Florence/Rome is a pretty good first time visit to Italy. I think the essential Italy requires finding some nooks and crannies of Italy but one can do that on subsequent visits. But OP says that this may be a one-and-only trip to Italy so I'd really recommend getting out into the countryside.

Relative to CT, OP says trip is early October. CT is a rain gamble for October - it's a rainy month for Italy and while early October may be perfectly fine its risky. That area of Italy is particularly prone to rain then (I know, I have a house 30 minutes away) . Finally, train from Venice to CT is a trek. I like CT but it doesn't make sense unless OP has their heart set on it.

If you want to see Pompeii (& OP is interested in history), you might want to swap Amalfi Coast for CT - both coastlines are spectacular although CT offers better hiking. The weather in Amalfi is more likely to be nice in October and it's less frenetic than August. If you do tack on Amalfi / Pompeii I'd recommend training from Florence to Naples and getting a rental car there (if you're freaked about driving in Naples, take a cab from the train station to the airport and then you can get a rental car there - you can loop around the city then when you are driving) and then back tracking to Rome (assuming you are flying out of Rome - if you can exit via NAP then stop in Rome first).

It's a tough dilemma. 14 days for a once (literally) in a lifetime trip to Italy. Italy is a mosaic of a thousand little Italys. Venice, Florence and Rome are some of the biggest pieces of that mosaic and one can't understand the whole without those three. But one also can't understand the whole with only those three. Of course, a 14 day trip will never create a complete understanding. Forays to smaller places expose the cultural and culinary breadth moreso than just hitting major cities. Venice/Florence/Rome are certainly different but they are also all large touristy cities and, as such, are becoming increasingly similar.

chevynova63

PWMTrav

This is why the best advice is to simply plan to go back

Amalfi is south of Naples, which is itself south of Florence and Rome. If you can swing it, extending this trip to ~16 days and going Venice -> Florence -> Rome -> Naples with Amalfi as a day trip might be a bit better. Plus then you'll also experience a little bit of Southern Italy. The key is to not pack up and rebase more than once every 4-5 days.

KLouis

Best advice from almost everybody before me; only one I fully disagree with is that 3 nights in Rome is too much. I've lived there for a total of 18 months, have visited numerous times (>30) and there are still places i want to visit "the next time I'm there". Three nights is the absolute minimum. Also, if OP is only interested in Pompei and not the costiera amalfitana, rather than hiring a car and risking a heart attack or a stroke, I'd suggest to take the Circumvesuviana that has a stop right in front of the entrance to the scavi.

Perche

Saying that three nights in Rome is too much could only be said by someone who has never visited Rome. They may be the typ of tourist who tries to pack visits to 5 cities on a trip of only 14 days, and as a result, don’t get to experience it, and cannot say they visited it. They just did a layover so that they could take their picture in front of a few monuments.

Also, Rome is not a dirty city. I’m in Rome now, through May 25th. I come 3 times a year and usually stay 1-3 months. You want to see dirty, go to San Francisco where I spend the rest of my time, stepping over homeless people everywhere, covered by boxes. Or go to NYC where I made 3 trips to this month, and get on the subway. I’m clueless as to why someone would call Rome a dirty city. Standing here now, everything is very clean. They might not pick up the trash as often as they should so that bins are sometimes full, but the city is clean. It’s illegal to even throw a cigarette butt in the street.

chevynova63

i'm not concerned about the comment that Rome is a dirty city. I'm from New York and love my city, dirt and all. Thanks to everyone's expert advice, each day our plan evolves a bit more. We have decided to reduce the number of lodging changes and are thinking of using high speed rail from Venice to Florence to Rome. I'd like your opinion regarding this plan and how many days to spend in each city. Please consider time required to explore the cities but include time for day trips out to the countryside. Do you think we should add Naples for a fourth lodging or take day trips from Rome to Pompeii and Herculaneum? We'd rather not rent a car for any of it.

We are not tourists that just want that photo in front of every monument. We are looking for quality travel, with a nice balance between important sights that should not be missed and countryside or off the beaten track exploration. Having said that, we have some limitations. We are 70 years old and have traveled to Germany, France and Holland. We have family obligations including care for an elder and US travel from coast to coast several times a year. We hope to take one or two international trips each year as long as health allows. I hope this explains why we were trying to see a lot in 14 days.

Thank you again for your thoughtful advice.

Perche

Lived in NYC for many years, which is why I can say that. The paradox is, the more places you visit, the less you actually see. It takes a few days for a city to reveal itself to you. It takes a long time for cities like Rome and Venice to allow you to even get a glimpse. I’m in Rome right now, and there is still too much to see and do. Remember that Italy is just a concept. It’s a bunch of different regions loosely stitched together just 157 years ago. Each region has retained its own identity. In 14 days you might be able to know two regions a little bit by visiting their capital city. By going to a different city everyday, you really don’t get to visit anywhere because you’re not there long enough to peel its surface.

PWMTrav

Don't worry, Rome isn't dirty, even if you're okay with that. Seriously, it isn't.

Absolutely on riding the high speed trains between cities. It's nice, fast, and puts you in a convenient spot in each city - there is no US comparable. The closest would be the Acela between DC and Boston, but the Italian trains are nicer onboard - especially if you decide to book above 2nd class, although there's no absolute requirement to do it.

As far as quality travel, I'd really say you want 5 nights in Rome, 4 in Venice and Florence, and 3 in Naples (based on your plans). That's longer than two weeks, so if you have to, keep the 5 nights in Rome, and do 3 nights each in Florence, Venice, and Naples. That's 14 nights total, so flying in/out of VCE/NAP (or vice-versa) is my recommendation. October is usually too late for the nonstop seasonal flights to NAP/VCE from NYC, so the added advice I'll give you is to prefer connecting flights through ZRH and AMS, and to avoid LHR, CDG and FRA, for the sake of convenience. I'm pretty comfortable booking a 90 minute layover on the former, but prefer 2+ hours for the latter.

If you end up having to fly in/out of FCO, there are high speed trains that run 2x daily on the line from FCO to Venice (through Florence), so timing your flights around those trains is usually helpful.

Perche

On such a short trip, has to drop Naples, or do it as a day trip from Rome. It's only a 90 minute train ride. 4 in Florence and Naples means 2 days in each, and 3 in Naples? Get up early and go to Naples and walk along the Lungamare, then Via Tribunale and through the old historic center, take a taxi back to the train station, and get back to Rome buy 9PM. Not optimal, but doesn't make sense to spend more time in Naples than in Rome.

KLouis

@chevynova63: I just noticed that you mentioned Ercolano (for the first time). When you have such a limited amount of time, I wonder whether it makes sense to visit both Ercolano and Pompei. Don't get me wrong, I only write this because of the time needed:

Pompei is huge! You'll be walking around for hours, and after leaving you'll realize that you missed several features. Add walk to/from the Villa dei Misteri (a must) and its visit, if you manage to start at, say, 9 am I don't see you heading home before 1-2 pm. Ercolano is much smaller and definitely different. You get to actually see how deep the city was covered by what came out of the Vesuvio and you'll actually get amazed when you are at the gate next to the sea that you are actually miles away from the sea. An additional plus is that in the same time frame like Pompei you can include a visit to the small but exciting museum that one should visit before going to the actual excavations.

The bottom line is that if you visit the one site and not the other you'll leave having the feeling that you've missed a lot! And you'll have that very same feeling after each one of the cities that you plan to visit. This is why everybody here says that you're investing too little time to your first time visit of Italy. Perhaps what you should do is decide that this will not be the only time that you'll visit the country, as you wrote in your OP, and that you'll come back. Then you'll have something to look forward to and not feel bad about too short a visit.